Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Memory Lane, Clinton style

For those who weren't in Washington DC during the Clinton years (especially the earlier ones), Maggie's Farm has a pretty good list of why I'm so opposed to her. I'm all for an eventual female president, but HRC should be allowed no closer to the Presidency than it takes for a Secret Service agent to taser her (preferably on YouTube)....

Hillary Clinton has been telling America that she is the most qualified candidate for president based on her 'record,' which she says includes her eight years in the White House as First Lady - or 'co-president' - and her seven years in the Senate. Here is a little reminder of what that record includes:

As First Lady, Hillary assumed authority over Health Care Reform, a process that cost the taxpayers over $13 million. She told both Bill Bradley and Patrick Moynihan, key votes needed to pass her legislation, that she would 'demonize' anyone who opposed it. But it was opposed; she couldn't even get it to a vote in a Congress controlled by her own party. (And in the next election, her party lost control of both the House and Senate.) -

Hillary assumed authority over selecting a female Attorney General. Her first two recommendations, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, were forced to withdraw their names from consideration. She then chose Janet Reno. Janet Reno has since been described by Bill himself as 'my worst mistake.'

Hillary recommended Lani Guanier for head of the Civil Rights Commission. When Guanier's radical views became known, her name had to be withdrawn.

Hillary recommended her former law partners, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy for positions in the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury, respectively. Hubbell was later imprisoned, Foster committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign. [The FBI were not allowed to investigate the site of Foster's death: the Clintons required the Federal Park Police to do it! They also barred the FBI from looking into Foster's office (via Nussbaum). To be fair, all this could have been Bill's work...]

Hillary also recommended a close friend of the Clintons, Craig Livingstone, for the position of director of White House Security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of up to 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (“Filegate”) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, both Hillary and her husband denied knowing him. FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene confirmed in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 1996 both the drug use and Hillary's involvement in hiring Livingstone. After that, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office, after serving seven presidents for over thirty years.

In order to open “slots” in the White House for her friends the Thomasons (to whom millions of dollars in travel contracts could be awarded), Hillary had the entire staff of the White House Travel Office fired; they were reported to the FBI for 'gross mismanagement' and their reputations ruined. After a thirty-month investigation, only one, Billy Dale, was charged with a crime - mixing personal money with White House funds when he cashed checks. The jury acquitted him in less than two hours.

Another of Hillary's assumed duties was directing the 'bimbo eruption squad' and scandal defense:

---- She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit. ---- She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr's investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs. ---- Then they had to settle with Paula Jones after all.---- And Bill lost his law license for lying to the grand jury ---- And Bill was impeached by the House. ---- And Hillary almost got herself indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (she avoided it mostly because she repeated, 'I do not recall,' 'I have no recollection,' and 'I don't know' 56 times under oath).

Hillary wrote 'It Takes a Village,' demonstrating her Socialist viewpoint. [I'm just fine with her putting her belief's in public; this may have been her one case of truth-in-advertising -- but not an advert any libertarian's going to like.]

Hillary decided to seek election to the Senate in a state she had never lived in. Her husband pardoned FALN terrorists in order to get Latino support and the New Square Hassidim to get Jewish support. Hillary also had Bill pardon her brother's clients, for a small fee, to get financial support. [I'd actually like to see some cites for this one, but it wouldn't surprise me.]

Then Hillary left the White House, but later had to return $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork she had stolen. [The Clinton's claim that these were 'gifts' in spite of the (very) well known law stating that gifts received over <current statutory amount> become the property of the gov't. Even as a pond-scum level consultant for DOE, I had to certify awareness of these laws....]

Hillary's husband further protected her by asking the National Archives to withhold from the public until 2012 many records of their time in the White House, including much of Hillary's correspondence and her calendars. (There are ongoing lawsuits to force the release of those records.)

As the junior Senator from New York, Hillary has passed no major legislation. She has deferred to the senior Senator (Schumer) to tend to the needs of New Yorkers, even on the hot issue of medical problems of workers involved in the cleanup of Ground Zero after 9/11.

Hillary's one notable vote; supporting the plan to invade Iraq, has since been disavowed.


Since she claims "35" years of experience, technically one should also cite Cattle-Gate, the Castle-Grand affair (aka Webster Hubble), union-busting for WalMart (which I'm for, but doesn't look pretty on her record for unionistas), etc. But honestly, the "sniff test" was failed long ago. Compared to HRC, I'd even take Santorum for President (*shudder*).


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was she tied to the showboating on freezing the budget? The one that locked the government and stopped government contractor payouts for a month?

JimDesu said...

No: vetoing the budget and blaming it on the Republican congress for not having sent him a bill he liked, aka "the Republicans have shut down the Federal Government", was one of Bill's maneuvers.

I thought the maneuver was brilliant, but I never understood why the press didn't call him on it.

Anonymous said...

Because like all great politicians, he had enough folks on his side that they gave him a pass. B.C. had so much charisma that "spin" was considered a cool, fun thing when he did it for several years running.

HC is no BC. I don't like Obama (libertarian, raving socialist... duh), but i"ll gladly put him into office in order to keep HC out... I will crawl over broken glass to vote against HC.

Anonymous said...

Russ,
You could always vote for Nader. To quote the Onion in an article about voting for Nader in 2004: "Vote, Voter Wasted." :)

Anonymous said...

Um.... yeah, well put. Nader's traction and tactical usefulness is limited to regions far away from where I live.

Granted, the Greens are also running Cynthia "I help to fund terrorists and beat up DC cops when they try to enforce the law" McKinney...

Me and a couple faculty guys in politics have been talking this one, and agreed this is one of the oddest elections to come down the pipe in some time.

Anonymous said...

It does make one skratch his/her head. I personnally am hoping for a nice, big public breakdown by HC. I mean a real scream-fest where she totally goes off the deep end on live TV.

Ah, the stuff dreams are made of.

Amanda said...

Santorum for President?
Eeeew, can they do that?

Anonymous said...

Rick Santorum will never get anywhere near the presidency... and for good reason. He's a decent guy, but severely lacking in the charisma department. About as exciting as putting Richardson at the top of the ticket, only with policies that are more in line with Pat "I'm a populist and populists are the only real conservatives" Robertson.

Unknown said...

Russ, I have to disagree with the decent guy comment. I have gay friends.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, he did use his position to needlessly make life hard for folks for no real reason at all.

Anonymous said...

I do, too, but Dallas' community ( Dallas has had a substantial gay community here for decades, though it tends to be much more laid back than out your way, and doesn't generate much national press), doesn't tend to include the crowd that equates thought control with friendship.

But there is a difference between "tolerance" and "approval." Santorum doesn't "approve," and is quick to say so. That's his right. Doesn't mean I like him, doesn't mean I agree with him, but just because I think a dude is wrong, doesn't mean I think he's a bad guy.

It would be a hell of a lonely world if I did think that way.

In fact, that's one of the things that generally makes US culture *superior* to European culture, is that we tend to more or less equate the two, and expect the civility of approval to go along with the peacefulness of tolerance. Thank George Whitefield. Except, of course, he was in the grave a couple hundred years before we were born...

But I'm high as a kite on Tamiflu, so, as always, opinions are like vitamin C, and drugged up opinions, doubly so.

Unknown said...

It's one thing to not approve. But it's a lousy thing to make people second-class citizens because of something that doesn't effect anyone outside of their bedroom.
And if you can't get legally married, that's what you are. Good luck getting into that hospital room to see your comatose partner, getting things like health insurance that straight couples take for granted, and writing a will that won't be contested.
That isn't tolerance, it's discrimination.

Anonymous said...

All of that can still be done. It requires several pieces of paperwork, rather than simply one. That is effectively a straw man argument.

Now, the fact that it DOES take additional paperwork, is, in my blog-published opinion, a violation of the equal protection clause.

However, if that's going to be sold to the mainstream that does not support gay marriage in both parties (and it requires selling, b/c it basically is askiing to redefine society's fundamental building block), then one is far better served catching flies with honey, simply than calling people poopy-heads simply because they happen to disagree. It is equally intolerant and equally discriminatory to suggest that somebody MUST redefine their religion based on somebody else's social philosophy.

Personally, as a libertarian, I want the government out of the marriage business in the first place. A civil union is just that, straight or gay. Separate the religious ceremony from the "state-ordained permission to raise a family" document, and 90% of the issue goes away.

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