Posted on 01/12/2012 12:38:26 PM PST by Sub-Driver
PBS documentary looks at Bill Clinton's career
By: Patrick Gavin January 12, 2012 02:16 PM EST
Although Bill Clinton’s reputation as a statesman has long since recovered in most quarters following personal scandals in the 1990s, a new, four-hour documentary portrays the arc of his career as one littered with sexual dalliances and foibles.
That’s doubly surprising when you consider the source: not a conservative production company but PBS.
“Clinton” is the latest installment in PBS’s “American Experience” series and is set to air in February. A half-hour sneak peak is being previewed Thursday evening at the National Press Club.
The film covers Clinton’s life in its entirety — from his childhood in Arkansas to his first runs for office to his election as governor of Arkansas to his presidency — but almost a full hour of the documentary focuses on Clinton’s personal struggles with fidelity, coupled with harsh, blunt language from many of his colleagues and chroniclers. In fact, the film’s introduction, a quick summary of the entire documentary, opens with the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Eight minutes in, the topic of Gennifer Flowers surfaces.
“There was this growing skepticism in the press that this guy was just a big phony,” Time’s Joe Klein said, discussing Clinton’s reaction to the allegations. “He was too slick. He was too smooth. And he would lawyer answers to questions.”
When discussing the Clintons’ years in Arkansas, narrator Campbell Scott said, “Hillary had to deal with Bill’s constant womanizing.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
IMHO they put this stuff out there knowing he can’t be hurt by the revelation and then pointing to their “Fairness” in reporting all sides. More BS from PBS!
PBS wants to make sure the Clintons stay out of the race, for Obama’s sake.
One thing for sure about Bill Clinton’s career. He certainly played Monica Lewinsky for a sucker.
That was my thought too as I read the article - a pre-emptive move to head off any hope of Hilary coming to the rescue of the democrat party. The anointed one must be protected at all cost.
For those of who may have forgotten what kind of a President Bill Clinton was:
1) Clinton’s own words show his often expressed innate hostility to, and utter contempt for, the core principles of the American founding:
``If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government’s ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees.’’ -- President Bill Clinton, August 12, 1993
``The purpose of government is to reign in the rights of the people’’ –- Bill Clinton during an interview on MTV in 1993
``We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…that we forget about reality.’’ -- President Bill Clinton, quoted in USA Today, March 11, 1993, Page 2A, ``NRA change: `Omnipotent to powerful’’’ by Debbie Howlett
“When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly… that they would work for the common good, as well as for the individual welfare… However, now there’s a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there’s too much freedom. When personal freedom’s being abused, you have to move to limit it.” – Bill Clinton, April 19, 1995
2) Clinton inevitably pursued his own political advantage at the expense of American interests and national security. Here is just one of many possible examples:
It is well documented that Clinton and the Democrats took illegal campaign money from groups and individuals tied directly to the Chinese People’s Republican Army. It is therefore not surprising that In January 1998 Clinton went against the advice of then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Pentagon experts by lifting long-standing restrictions against the export of American satellites to China for launch on Chinese rockets. Not only did he move control over such decisions from the more security-focused State Department to the Commerce Department, but he intervened in a Justice Department investigation of Loral Space & Communications, retroactively enabling Loral to sell critical missile technology to the Chinese. Interestingly enough, Clinton’s decision was made at the request of Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz, whose earlier $1.3 million campaign donation made him the single biggest contributor to the Democratic election effort.
The result, as stated eloquently by syndicated columnist Linda Bowles, was that “the Democrats got money from satellite companies and from Chinese communists; China got supercomputors, advanced production equipment and missile technology; Loral got its satellites launched at bargain basement prices . . . and the transfer of sensitive missile technology gave China [for the first time] the capability of depositing bombs on American cities.” Incidentally, Loral ultimately failed to benefit from this permanent injury to America’s security interests: in July 2003, the company filed for bankruptcy protection, and in order to raise cash was forced to sell its most profitable business – a fleet of communications satellites orbiting over North America.
3) On two occasions, Clinton used military action for the specific purpose of distracting the American public from the fallout of the Lewinsky affair:
• On August 20, three days after Clinton finally admitted publicly to the Lewinsky affair, the news media was poised to focus on that day’s grand jury testimony by Monica Lewinsky. That same morning, Clinton personally went on national television to gravely announce his bombing of a Sudanese “chemical weapons factory,” and a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. It was the first time most Americans ever heard the name of Osama bin Laden. The factory bombing in Sudan killed an innocent night watchman, but accomplished little else. It later was proven that the plant was making badly needed pharmaceuticals for people in that poverty-stricken part of the world, but no chemical weapons.
Several months later, the U.S. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, part of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, stated: "...the evidence indicates that the facility had no role whatsoever in chemical weapons development." Kroll Associates, one of the world's most reputable investigative firms, also confirmed that there was no link in any way between the plant and any terrorist organization. As for the Afghanistan bombing, it failed to do any damage at all to bin Laden or his organization. Clinton’s action was accurately characterized by George W. Bush when he said right after 9-11: "When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt.
Clinton’s pointless and murderous military actions did not make Americans safer that day, although they did destroy an innocent life, and for all the good they did certainly could have been delayed in any case. But they did succeed in diverting media attention from Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony for a 24-hour news cycle, which was the main point. So I guess, they weren’t a total loss.
•On December 16, 1998, on the eve of the scheduled House vote on his impeachment, Bill Clinton launched a surprise bombing attack on Baghdad. As justification for this exploit, he cited the urgent threat that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction posed to America, and the need for immediate action. Almost immediately, the House Democrats held a caucus and emerged calling for a delay in the impeachment proceedings. House minority leader Dick Gephardt made a statement: "We obviously should pass a resolution by saying that we stand behind the troops. I would hope that we do not take up impeachment until the hostilities have completely ended."
Conveniently, a delay so near the end of the House term would have caused the vote to be taken up in the next session – when the newly elected House membership would be seated with more Democratic representation, thereby improving Clinton’s chances of dodging impeachment.
The Republicans did, in fact, agree to delay the hearings, but only for a day or two. Amazingly, Clinton ended the bombing raid after only 70 hours -- once it became clear that in spite of the brief delay, the vote would still be held in the current session.
Once the bombing stopped, Clinton touted the effectiveness and importance of the mission. As reported by ABC News : “We have inflicted significant damage on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs, on the command structures that direct and protect that capability, and on his military and security infrastructure,” he said. Defense secretary William Cohen echoed the point: “We estimate that Saddam's missile program has been set back by at least a year.”
Whether or not one buys Clinton’s assessment of that mission, it is difficult to believe that its timing was so critical that it required commencement virtually at the moment the House was scheduled to vote on the impeachment. I think the most reasonable conclusion is that Clinton cynically deployed US military assets and placed military personnel in harm’s way for purely political reasons.
4) Clinton’s reckless sexual behavior was a threat to American national security:
Clinton and his supporters have been very effective in persuading large numbers of Americans that the Lewinsky scandal was “only about sex.” But I see a bigger issue here, because Clinton is on record as saying that he would have done anything to keep knowledge of the Lewinsky affair from becoming public.
To me, that statement raises a very serious question: What if, instead of sending her recorded Lewinsky conversations to Ken Starr, Linda Tripp had instead secretly offered them for sale, say, to the Chinese government? Or to the Russians? Or even to agents of Saddam?
What kind of blackmail leverage would those tapes have provided to a foreign government in dealing with America on sensitive trade, security or military issues? One of the few things Clinton ever said that I believe is that he would have done anything to keep the Lewinsky affair secret. Given his demonstrated track record of selling out American interests for personal or political gain (and there are more examples that I could have cited here), how far would he have gone in compromising America’s real interests in order to protect his own neck when threatened with blackmail?
Pretty far, I believe. Equally distressing is the prospect Clinton might, in fact, have succumbed to foreign black mail on other occasions in order to hide different sexual episodes that ultimately did not become public. There is no way to know, of course, but I prefer presidents for whom such a scenario is not a plausible possibility.
And don’t even get me started on the war crime in Kosovo.
Don’t get too excited there, boss.
PBS will spend 2 minutes on the scandal and blame Ken Star for creating this for partisan reasons. There will be no mention of lying under oath. And then PBS will spend the next 58 minutes on a Bill Clinton hagiography.
Good or bad; most Presidential “documentaries” have at least waited until the former President was dead; and this one should have been put in the can until then as well.
That would be a cocumentary.
Well played!
You are exactly right. PBS is carrying water for Obama...if Romney starts destroying The One in the polls there will be a movement to draft Hitlery.
PBS wants to bring back the old memories about Bill, nip that in the bud.
ML/NJ
Clinton and Broadrick...."Better put some ice on that." 
The Politico story doesn’t mention Ms Brodderick. If her ordeal is not discussed in the documentary, then it is valueless.
Hillary's definitely running. Question is whether this will be spun to help her, or to hinder her. Could be her trying to air all the dirty laundry in one controlled swoop, so that she can then declare that it's been covered and people need to "move on." Of course, being PBS she'd be playing mainly to Rats anyway, but she needs to try to win over Obama voters to get her numbers, so maybe this is part of her plan.
As for the Whiff of Hillary, here's one from the end of the article: "The narrator concludes the film with, 'In the end, he left much as he had come...'" Classic, just classic.
Clinton - it's a Klingon word that means "endless filth."
Yep. This PBS show is directed at Hillary. It's a threat to open the whole can of worms again if Hillary decides to challenge Obama. PBS liberals worship Obama and will give their lives for him.
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