During my parents’ seder on Saturday outside Philly, there was a lot of political talk, and my 7-year-old niece came up to me with a big smile. She said: "Hillary lies."
Her comment was just the cherry on the top of a ton of anti-Hillary feeling I’ve registered in center-left Democratic circles. My father had been leaning toward Hillary till he decided that her behavior at the last debate was "mean"; now there’s an Obama lawn sign outside the house. A friend who backed the Clintons to the hilt during Impeachment now fulminates about them, saying they are doing McCain’s work for him and splitting the Democratic party. Another friend says Hillary has never believed in a thing, that Chelsea has a "no-show job at some hedge fund" and a boyfriend who is also the child of a corrupt politician. He wonders why the media aren’t investigating Bill Clinton’s big givers. "He’s a high-priced lobbyist, that’s all he is." He wants to get back into the White House.
I try not to grin. I became a Clinton hater in the late 90s, in fact Clinton hatred eased my way out of the Mainstream Media. The New York Times Magazine sent me to Arkansas in ‘96 to find out why people hated the Clintons, and I saw that the haters were on to something. The Clintons would stop at nothing to get and hold power. Ambitious young Bill Clinton had signed on to a one-party machine in an impoverished state to get ahead, and that machine had corrupted him. The famous "body count" of people who died in proximity to Clinton–a list that Monica dropped on to Linda Tripp’s chair one day as a hint not to talk to the feds (I never understood why more wasn’t made of this threat) was a reflection of the Arkansas machine’s ties to drug deals and degraded methods. Soon enought, the Clinton women were getting threatened.
Politics was at the heart of every Clinton scandal. Deputy counsel Vincent Foster died right around the time the Troopers were readying to come forward with their salacious stories, in summer 1993. His White House office was rifled the night he died by aides who were surely acting at Hillary’s direction. There were reports then that Foster had created a divorce file for Hillary in 1988 or so, and that the Clintons were afraid that file would get out…
A great mystery. The establishment press avoided it, because it loved the Clintons. Loved prosperity, loved what he was doing for my people.
If Hillary ends up running in the general, I hope some of this stuff comes out. Heck I hope it comes out in the next couple months. Remember when Bill Clinton bombed Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan in 1998–the same days that the House was releasing impeachment evidence, or voted to impeach? Back then everyone denied that he had political motivation, to bury the story. I wonder what they’d say now…
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{ 12 comments }
Its enough to be critical of the Clinton's for what you do know and have seen.
Why sully that with stupid speculation about Foster?
Definitely, the wag the dog stuff was a bit beyond even cynical.
Wasn't all the Vince Foster stuff, and the Mena stuff, discredited? The fact that Jerry Falwell's people made a scary movie about it might be one index of it's implausibiblity, but another is my respect for the columnist Gene Lyons, who never struck me as the sort of journalist who would consider carrying water for a corrupt politician.
On the other hand, look at the quality of journalists who pursued this stuff – remember Ambrose Evans-Pritchard with his fact-free accusations, retailed across the VRWC as gospel, only to die quietly as questions werew asked. The troopers' testimony was proven to be so conflicted they eventually withdrew it didn't they?
It all seemed, and still seems, a bit Swift Boaty to me. I carry no brief for Clinton but feel his legacy will be tainted more by the fact that he achieved so little after promising so much – all talk, no action – not for any of this murky, amorphous, probably VRWC generated gossip. Unless someone finds a smoking gun somewhere.
My guess is that investigators will be so busy finding Bushco smoking guns, there will be no time for Clinton's bagatelles.
some of the journalists were funky, yes.
i was one of them.
this stuff was never truly discredited, though it was always politicized, on both sides, there are very few dispassionate accounts. lyons i find to be fuzzy and extremely partisan and a homer. he once told me Arkansas is the west. It's not the west.
There are numerous discrepancies in the Foster case/investigation that have never been dealt with, for instance the disappearance of his pager and the rifling of his office.. If this had happened under Bush the investigations by Blue state media would be neverending…
the troopers may have withdrawn bits and pieces but the large portrait they drew, of a spoiled governor who called on his protectors to be procurers, stands
what do you think of the bombing of the pharmaceutical plant, glenn?
You might be right about Lyons Phil, I haven't read him in a while. But at the time I appreciated his opposition to the relentless and ridiculous Clinton-hunting (much of it Scaife-funded) that was going on in the MSM; the sort of partisan journalistic behaviour which eventually sickened David Brock so much he could no longer be part of it, and which played it's part in paving the way for the complete failure of the US media in the lead-up to Iraq.
There really was a VRWC at least as far as media went, and it is of course still there – when people like Pat Caddell are still your go-to lefties at major networks , you still have a VRWC. But it’s much quieter about the occupant of the Oval Office now, seeing (a) he's one of them and (b) he has made a total hash of it.
You wonder if the forensic media parsing of the Al Shifa bombing would have occurred had the President’s name been Bush. Even now, after all the lies we have heard from Bush, it seems to me the media are still more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt about some of the more spurious claims he makes about Iran and other evildoers, and when proof emerges that some claim is all a crock of shit, does he suffer? On the blogs maybe, and off the beaten track, but in the elite MSM? Do the Isikoffs and Kauses ridicule his every word (or haircut?)
Maybe people expect that sort of thing from Bush and factor it in, whereas they wanted more from Clinton, the Great White Hope who was leading us over the bridge to the 21st century. Or maybe the US MSM is comprehensively, hopelessly biased.
Which is not to excuse Clinton if indeed he knew in advance that the intelligence was wobbly. I seem to recall people like Richard Clarke supported him to the hilt, so I guess my lasting impression was that yes, he could have ordered the bombng to distract from Monicagate, but that equally there could have been intel that pointed to a strike as sensible. (I can’t say I have gone into it at great length)
I’m sure there are discrepancies in the Foster thing, and they should be investigated. But I’d like also to see consideration given to clearing up discrepancies in the official stories regarding: the 911 commission; the Energy Task Force; the loss of 2.3 trillion dollars from Pentagon funds on Dov Zakheim’s watch; the dancing Israeli ‘art students’; the genesis of the Niger forgery story etc. I guess a critic from across the aisle might protest that all that stuff had been ‘discredited’ too, and then we’re back to square one.
Like I said, I’m no big fan of Bill Clinton, but he looks OK when you stack him up against his successor, who matches and betters every alleged Clinton misdemeanour with documented crimes, most of which dwarf Clinton’s in their capacity to permanently degrade American power and prestige.
One thing Bush hasn’t done so far as we know is cop a blow job at work, which reminds me of a photo I saw of a woman at a protest a few years ago carrying a placard which said ‘Can somebody please give Bush a blowjob so we can impeach him’ !!
Success isn't always a good teacher.
In hearing the Clinton's rationalizations for dirty tricks politics "Its a contact sport", sickens me.
While I opposed many of his EARLY policies (you only came to dislike him in the late 90's Phil?), I came to give him the benefit of the doubt later.
I liked that his tax law was progressive, but not excessively so. I wished that he simplified it from the growing menage of pasted on features that added up to incoherence.
Bush's tax approach was FAR FAR worse, in the name of tax simplification, in opposition to government intervention in people's private decisions, etc.
‘Can somebody please give Bush a blowjob so we can impeach him’ !!
Wonderful. I love that lady.
your 7 yr old niece is smart and correct.
knew clinton couldnt be trusted from way he knifed in the back several blacks. couldnt follow the killings because of hate filled, lying right wing (scaife people et als) said so.
both clintons are white trash on the make, have made a 100million and want more.
marines saluting whenever they go to the bathroom makes em feel good.
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"this stuff [about Hillary] was never truly discredited."
Correct; it was not. And there is so much more. For instance, Hillary's commodity trading miracle of running $1,000 up to $100,000 in just over a year, daytrading live cattle futures. Her broker was "Red" Bone at the Refco office in Springdale, Ark. (home of Tyson Foods, whose chairman Don Tyson had introduced Hillary to Bone).
Achieving a 100-to-1 return in a year in highly leveraged speculation has been done a handful of times, but not by a casual trader like Hillary who was busy with a full-time career elsewhere. She claimed that she had done it by "reading the Wall Street Journal," whose commodity roundup only sproradically commented on the cattle futures.
A printout of Hillary's trades showed two highly suspicious features: (1) her trades were closed out each day, rather than allowing the winners to run; (2) nearly every trade was a winner.
This is decisively NOT the trading pattern by which commodity moguls such as Richard Dennis and Michael Steinhardt made their billions. Their losing trades were closed out quickly, meaning that small losing trades often accounted for half or more of all trades. But the winning trades were pyramided into huge profits, by following trends which lasted for months, and adding to the position along the way.
For a part-time newbie trader like Hillary to make a 100-to-1 return by calling daily market moves with near clairvoyant precision is astronomically improbable. NOBODY can do this.
A strong statistical case can be made that Refco was placing offsetting day trades: that is, equal but opposite long and short trades. The winner would be assigned to Hillary's account; the loser to Refco's house account, and probably thence to Don Tyson's personal account. The result: a nicely laundered $100,000 contribution to Bill Clinton, laundered through Refco and Hillary.
This pattern of Hillary being the more mercenary of the Clintons continued. As a partner at Rose law firm, Hillary was the high earner of the couple during Bill's years as governor — his salary was a derisory $35,000 a year. Bill left office under a cloud — Hillary's brother Hugh had taken a $400,000 bribe for two of the infamous pardons.
Bottom line, "Hillary Ten Percent" is on the take. She represents "government for sale." Only the behind-the-scenes friendship of Bill Clinton with Poppy Bush has saved this corrupt couple from prosecution.
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Too, the vindictive harpy says she's willing to blow up the world on behalf of little Israel:
————
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, facing a crucial primary in Pennsylvania Tuesday, said that if she were in the White House and Tehran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, the United States would be able to 'totally obliterate' Iran.
Interviewed on ABC's Good Morning America program, Clinton was asked what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton replied. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/976991.html
————
And, it's one, two, three, whut are we fightin' for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, my next stop is Teheran
And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
WHOOPEE! We all gonna die
Gimme an 'F' …
http://tinyurl.com/52ab8s
Thanks to Jim Haygood for explaining how the $100,000 bribe to Hillary may have actually worked. If she didn't know she was being bribed she's too stupid to be president; if she did, she's too corrupt. I don't know why the mainstream media does not bring this up again — with some analysis from experts like Haygood.
Thanks to Jim Haygood for explaining how the $100,000 bribe to Hillary may have actually worked. If she didn't know she was being bribed she's too stupid to be president; if she did, she's too corrupt. I don't know why the mainstream media does not bring this up again — with some analysis from experts like Haygood.
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