Blame Hillary Clinton
By Michael Kelly
Wednesday, July 14, 1999; Page A23
There are a number of trifling reasons one might think Hillary
Rodham Clinton a less-than-ideal choice as the new senator from New
York: She is the carpetbagger nonpareil; she has never held elected
office; she made a ham-fisted mess of her one formal attempt to
craft national policy, the 1993 health care reform; she appears to
regard power, in her case, as something approaching a divine right;
she epitomizes the scorched-earth politics that already have
crippled the ability of Congress and the White House to make law.
But these are mere cavils. The important reason why Mrs. Clinton
should not be elected to the slightest position of responsibility
has to do with her husband. You remember him. He is the fellow who
disgraced the White House; violated the law he was sworn to uphold;
lied to a federal judge, a grand jury, his Cabinet, the people; and
put the nation through its most damaging political ordeal since
Watergate.
Yes, but what of all that? Surely, none of this is Mrs. Clinton's
fault. Surely, she is as much a victim of her husband's wretchedness
as the rest of us -- indeed, the greatest victim. Such is Mrs.
Clinton's implicit argument to the voters, and it has a smidgen of
validity to it. Mrs. Clinton is to some degree a victim, and she is
to be pitied for this.
But is Mrs. Clinton entirely a victim, or is she also, with her
husband, a victimizer of the rest of us?
What is now common knowledge about Clinton -- that he is recklessly
destructive in the pursuit of his own pleasures and interests, that
he is tantrum-throwing immature and that he is a compulsive teller
of untruths -- was not widely known when Clinton ran for the
presidency in 1992. But was it known to Mrs. Clinton? Mrs. Clinton
must have known that the carefully crafted public Clinton was not
remotely the real thing. She must have known that her husband of
nearly two decades was, by virtue of his ineradicable character, not
fit to hold the office -- that, in fact, he was very likely to shame
the office.
This, you may say, is unfair. The wife who deludes herself about her
husband is a cliche. But Mrs. Clinton was not only a wife. She was a
central figure in her husband's campaigns and his gubernatorial
administrations. She was in a position to know the truth about her
husband, and she did know it; and she joined the likes of George
Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala and James Carville in a cynical and
immoral effort to hide the truth from the voters and to savage those
who told the truth.
In 1992 Clinton was caught lying about his evasion of the Vietnam
draft and about his liaison with a former state employee named
Gennifer Flowers. With the support of his wife and staff, Clinton
chose to continue to lie. And, as Stephanopoulos tells us in his
political memoirs, "All Too Human," those high up in the Clinton
campaign knew he was lying.
Stephanopoulos recalls his thoughts upon hearing the tapes of
Flowers's intimate conversations with Clinton: "He lied." The sure
knowledge demoralized Stephanopoulos and his colleagues -- but then
"Hillary rallied all of us that night with a conference call." The
reinvigorated team went out to accuse Flowers of being the liar in
the case and to browbeat a complaisant press into pretending the
tapes were forgeries.
Then came the discovery of Clinton's 1969 letter to Col. Eugene
Holmes. " 'The letter's a fake,' " Stephanopoulos recalls wishfully
thinking. But then, in the damage-control huddle, Mrs. Clinton read
it: "Hillary spoke first. 'Bill, this is you. I can hear you saying
this.' " Once again, Mrs. Clinton focused the team to fight on -- to
blame others, to lie with abandon (I can still hear Begala heatedly
asserting that Clinton must have forgotten that he had received a
draft notice in the middle of the Vietnam War.)
A man who could do what Clinton did in 1992 is a man whose solipsism
for self-control and whose capacity for lying are so far beyond the
norm of behavior as to fairly be called pathological. Hillary Rodham
Clinton played the crucial, knowing role in foisting such a man upon
the nation. And she did this without the slightest evident concern
for what that might mean for the welfare of the nation.
Of course, what might transpire did transpire. And Mrs. Clinton
blamed a "vast right-wing conspiracy" for the wreckage she helped
make. Now the new candidate Clinton asks for an office of high
public trust. But she has shown us what trust she is worthy of.
Michael Kelly is the editor of National Journal.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------------
Mykl
~~~~~
"If you really want to know what's going on;
then, you have to follow the money trail."
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
By Michael Kelly
Wednesday, July 14, 1999; Page A23
There are a number of trifling reasons one might think Hillary
Rodham Clinton a less-than-ideal choice as the new senator from New
York: She is the carpetbagger nonpareil; she has never held elected
office; she made a ham-fisted mess of her one formal attempt to
craft national policy, the 1993 health care reform; she appears to
regard power, in her case, as something approaching a divine right;
she epitomizes the scorched-earth politics that already have
crippled the ability of Congress and the White House to make law.
But these are mere cavils. The important reason why Mrs. Clinton
should not be elected to the slightest position of responsibility
has to do with her husband. You remember him. He is the fellow who
disgraced the White House; violated the law he was sworn to uphold;
lied to a federal judge, a grand jury, his Cabinet, the people; and
put the nation through its most damaging political ordeal since
Watergate.
Yes, but what of all that? Surely, none of this is Mrs. Clinton's
fault. Surely, she is as much a victim of her husband's wretchedness
as the rest of us -- indeed, the greatest victim. Such is Mrs.
Clinton's implicit argument to the voters, and it has a smidgen of
validity to it. Mrs. Clinton is to some degree a victim, and she is
to be pitied for this.
But is Mrs. Clinton entirely a victim, or is she also, with her
husband, a victimizer of the rest of us?
What is now common knowledge about Clinton -- that he is recklessly
destructive in the pursuit of his own pleasures and interests, that
he is tantrum-throwing immature and that he is a compulsive teller
of untruths -- was not widely known when Clinton ran for the
presidency in 1992. But was it known to Mrs. Clinton? Mrs. Clinton
must have known that the carefully crafted public Clinton was not
remotely the real thing. She must have known that her husband of
nearly two decades was, by virtue of his ineradicable character, not
fit to hold the office -- that, in fact, he was very likely to shame
the office.
This, you may say, is unfair. The wife who deludes herself about her
husband is a cliche. But Mrs. Clinton was not only a wife. She was a
central figure in her husband's campaigns and his gubernatorial
administrations. She was in a position to know the truth about her
husband, and she did know it; and she joined the likes of George
Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala and James Carville in a cynical and
immoral effort to hide the truth from the voters and to savage those
who told the truth.
In 1992 Clinton was caught lying about his evasion of the Vietnam
draft and about his liaison with a former state employee named
Gennifer Flowers. With the support of his wife and staff, Clinton
chose to continue to lie. And, as Stephanopoulos tells us in his
political memoirs, "All Too Human," those high up in the Clinton
campaign knew he was lying.
Stephanopoulos recalls his thoughts upon hearing the tapes of
Flowers's intimate conversations with Clinton: "He lied." The sure
knowledge demoralized Stephanopoulos and his colleagues -- but then
"Hillary rallied all of us that night with a conference call." The
reinvigorated team went out to accuse Flowers of being the liar in
the case and to browbeat a complaisant press into pretending the
tapes were forgeries.
Then came the discovery of Clinton's 1969 letter to Col. Eugene
Holmes. " 'The letter's a fake,' " Stephanopoulos recalls wishfully
thinking. But then, in the damage-control huddle, Mrs. Clinton read
it: "Hillary spoke first. 'Bill, this is you. I can hear you saying
this.' " Once again, Mrs. Clinton focused the team to fight on -- to
blame others, to lie with abandon (I can still hear Begala heatedly
asserting that Clinton must have forgotten that he had received a
draft notice in the middle of the Vietnam War.)
A man who could do what Clinton did in 1992 is a man whose solipsism
for self-control and whose capacity for lying are so far beyond the
norm of behavior as to fairly be called pathological. Hillary Rodham
Clinton played the crucial, knowing role in foisting such a man upon
the nation. And she did this without the slightest evident concern
for what that might mean for the welfare of the nation.
Of course, what might transpire did transpire. And Mrs. Clinton
blamed a "vast right-wing conspiracy" for the wreckage she helped
make. Now the new candidate Clinton asks for an office of high
public trust. But she has shown us what trust she is worthy of.
Michael Kelly is the editor of National Journal.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------------
Mykl
~~~~~
"If you really want to know what's going on;
then, you have to follow the money trail."
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$