Posted on 06/08/2003 8:50:14 AM PDT by Dog Gone
Hillary hyperventilating, hardly breathing, "gulping for air."
Hillary disbelieving, "dumbfounded, heartbroken and outraged."
Hillary seeing red. "As a wife, I wanted to wring Bill's neck."
Hillary deeply doubtful. Would, could, should her marriage endure?
What is wrong with this picture, assuming you believe it in the first place, which is an admitted stretch?
Well, for starters, the gulping, outrage, doubting and yen for neck-wringing came about eight months -- if not a couple of decades -- too late.
Here is a consummately bright, rigorously trained lawyer, who is married to one of the great philanderers of all time (not that it affected his public performance, I guess the standard high-brow disclaimer goes, although there was from time to time a certain distraction factor involved). She'd been married to the guy for more than 20 years. She's either certifiably deaf or has heard the detailed rumors. (I mean, most of the time the Clintons were in Arkansas, where your best friends definitely will tell you -- and more than likely suggest you fix the problem with a double-barreled shotgun.) And she took at face value the, "I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky," and the accompanying finger-wagging?
Oh, come on, Hillary. Didn't you see him bite his lip? Don't you know what that usually meant?
And, yet, she says she bought the act?
That would be denial on a gargantuan scale (assuming, again, you believe it in the first place).
Talk about gullible. Under this scenario, there is, indeed, in the state that this woman now represents in the U.S. Senate, a bridge that she would be willing to buy.
But let's take a few gulps of air on our own and examine the neatly unfolded tale from a copy of Ms. Clinton's Living History obtained and reported on by the Associated Press, much to the chagrin of Simon & Schuster. The publisher had a carefully scripted launch strategy of its own that did not include a news story that contained the only dozen or so paragraphs in the tome that 99.9 percent of the human race gave a flip about reading.
The excerpt lays out a version of events that accomplishes a number of objectives. Just on a commercial plane, it probably justifies the $8 million advance (unless the AP scoop queers the expected sales, which seems unlikely but would be a hoot). It has a ring (note the weasel word, please) of candor that sets a bar higher than any sane person can expect the former president himself (advance: $12 million) to meet. I mean, do you think he's going to say whether he carefully put the cigar wrapper in the trash can or just threw it on the floor?
Is the version of events that Sen. Clinton tells a little too convenient for someone interested in maintaining what her husband once famously called "political viability"? Hillary certainly now has a clearer shot at the White House than Bill did when he wrote his smarmily conscience-stricken letter with those words as a Vietnam draft evader. And so, it cannot be allowed to appear that she, like many of us, had even niggling doubts that the president's denials in the Lewinsky matter were truthful, even in his contorted meaning of "true."
Doubts that she believed his denials would, in hindsight, make her contention about a "vast right-wing conspiracy" look even more calculating. It would also make her look more accommodating to what by then was her husband's documented delinquency.
But it wouldn't have been the first time Hillary had at least sort of looked the other way, would it? Which brings us to the history part of this discussion.
Hillary's undoubting act does not measure easily (at least if we are to take seriously her academic and professional CV) against what we know of their story.
As Clinton's intended during his 1974 U.S. House race in Arkansas, she really may not have known of the numerous reports of his serial catting around with campaign staff and supporters. But move into the 1980s, and his abrupt decision not to run for president in 1988, which was accompanied, very good sources have said, by her declaration to the effect that, "I'm no Lee Hart" (as in "Stand by your man").
Over the next four years, however, Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to have become as interested as her husband in moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. To the extent that she suffered through a Washington breakfast with reporters where their marital problems were discussed. She sat by him on an excruciating 60 Minutes. She even baked cookies. She lived through Gennifer and Paula. And she didn't have the tiniest doubt when she heard about Monica?
Yeah, I've got to call Hillary about buying that bridge.
That made today's column remarkable, and totally unexpected.
Cragg Hines has been a Washington correspondent for the Houston Chronicle since 1972. He has been chief of the Chronicle's Washington bureau since 1983. As the Chronicle's chief national political writer, Hines began covering national campaigns in 1972 and has written about each succeeding presidential election...Hines was formerly a writer and editor for United Press International in Dallas, Little Rock and Austin....
Sounds like he has observed Hillary for quite awhile.
The Tarheel
While what you said is correct, this, in no way, would change his vote. He would still vote Dem all the way.
I would wager he voted for Bill Clinton both times also.
Liberalism is a mental disease.
Yes, I've been gove from Houston for 20 years, but that is how I remember Hines. Yes, this column is surprising, given the source!
Maurren Dowd wrote a similar article for her Sunday paper(New York Times) where she dissed the democrats.
This may be the "annual" article by the libral pundits to show that they are, or a concerted effort by the liberal pundits to shield themselves from the fallout by the NYT debacle.
There's an old saying.
Fool me once(Dowd article) shame on you, fool me twice(Hine's article appearing the same day) shame on me.
I'm not familiar with Hines, but I see it's the Houston Comical and so I understand what you mean !!
But let's take a few gulps of air on our own and examine the neatly unfolded tale from a copy of Ms. Clinton's Living History obtained and reported on by the Associated Press, much to the chagrin of Simon & Schuster. The publisher had a carefully scripted launch strategy of its own that did not include a news story that contained the only dozen or so paragraphs in the tome that 99.9 percent of the human race gave a flip about reading.
The excerpt lays out a version of events that accomplishes a number of objectives. Just on a commercial plane, it probably justifies the $8 million advance (unless the AP scoop queers the expected sales, which seems unlikely but would be a hoot). It has a ring (note the weasel word, please) of candor that sets a bar higher than any sane person can expect the former president himself (advance: $12 million) to meet. I mean, do you think he's going to say whether he carefully put the cigar wrapper in the trash can or just threw it on the floor?
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