Posted on 06/13/2003 12:59:56 AM PDT by kattracks
In an era infamous for partisan wrangling over judicial nominees, Michael Chertoff, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, was considered a cinch for Senate confirmation for a seat on the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The former Supreme Court clerk and mob-busting U.S. attorney for New Jersey had general support that resulted this week in a remarkable 88-1 favorable vote with 11 absentees.
That one dissenting vote was cast by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who made a point of hustling back from book-signing duties in the Big Apple to "make a statement” - not disputing the impressive credentials of the candidate - but about how 10 long years ago when Chertoff was counsel to the Senate Whitewater investigation, Senate staffers from that committee in her opinion played rough with some young folks at the White House.
As Clinton told Larry King: "Well, during that time when he was on the staff of the committee in the Senate, a number of the young people who worked in the White House were, I thought, very badly treated by the Senate staff investigating Whitewater. And a number of those young people were put under tremendous pressure, legal bills that they had to run up. And I just didn't think it was handled appropriately or professionally.”
According to Hillary, her dissenting vote had nothing whatever to do with personal animosity and everything to do with somehow registering some measure of symbolic complaint from those allegedly traumatized young White House staffers.
"You know,” Hillary told King, "there were several of these young people who asked me to express the only way I could the very difficult feelings that they had in the way that they were treated by that staff.”
"So you were making a statement?” asked King.
"Yes,” responded an uncomfortable Hillary, "I mean, you know, it was a single vote. But it stood for a lot of what I think was wrong during that period. ... But, you know, that's over. That vote is gone and part of history.”
King obligingly and mercifully went on to other less difficult topics like her husband’s adultery.
It, of course, would be intriguing to get the particulars on these "several" White House staffers of yore, who had the wherewithal to follow Chertoff's career all these years and then go to the trouble of asking the former first lady a decade later to register their still smoldering angst in a vote that represents a high duty of a senator to ensure that only able and qualified men and women ascend to the federal bench.
Adding irony to the inscrutable, the Whitewater probe in the end made no findings of criminal wrongdoing. However, the momentum of the investigation did help steer the way to the appointment of a special prosecutor and eventually a wider investigation, which resulted in the impeachment of her husband.
In any event, if Hillary’s "Living History” can ever serve her as a normalizing, strong-woman-wronged manifesto of sterling character driven by faith in the face of adversity, perhaps the author should limit live interviews featuring awkward moments.
As it was, the anxious Hillary parry about registering the freshly voiced concerns of wronged White House staffers was painfully reminiscent of author Steven Brill's ["After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era"] charges that Hillary Clinton made up stories of meetings with 9/11 victim families.
By the way, Chertoff is expected to be sworn in by the end of this month in Philadelphia.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Clinton Scandals
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