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How the White House tried to handle Monica Lewinsky
politico ^ | Oct. 10, 2014 | CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN

Posted on 10/11/2014 4:01:56 AM PDT by PROCON

The Clinton White House tried just about everything to pull itself through the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

A trove of documents released Friday by the Clinton Presidential Library sheds light on the White House’s internal machinations as it coped with the scandal — from efforts to discredit rivals and attack the media to attempts to boost West Wing spirits by sharing supportive op-eds or the unfavorable poll numbers for special prosecutor Kenneth Starr.The emails follow the arc of the scandal as it grew from a media frenzy to a constitutional crisis and then began to subside as President Bill Clinton regained political support after the release of Starr’s explicit report.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: billclinton; clinton; demagogicparty; kennethstarr; lewinsky; memebuilding; monicalewinsky; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills
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To: Pollster1

” I miss him.”

That’s right up there with someone saying they miss their cancer now that it’s gone.

Clinton never hurt the country intentionally?

Al Qaeda doc recovered in Afghanistan. Letter from Osama bin Laden to Mullah Omar listed as doc# AFGP-202-600321 in what was the CTC at West Point’s Harmony Database.

Go find the doc and read it for yourself.

Let Osama bin Laden give you the good news about that cancer you miss.

I’ve got an idea, maybe would could tell everyone the terrorist attacks are “spontaneous”.


21 posted on 10/11/2014 5:50:34 AM PDT by IMR 4350
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To: Pollster1

You are on board with his selling out the country’s nuclear arsenal to the Chinese, right down to the tool & die machinery?


22 posted on 10/11/2014 5:52:42 AM PDT by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto!)
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To: PROCON

Clinton’s harm to the country was at least equal to that wrought by Obama. They are just different harms. Obama has significantly weakened the idea of Constitutional government: Clinton pushed us further along the path of moral and cultural degradation.


23 posted on 10/11/2014 5:53:26 AM PDT by yetidog
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To: PROCON

Cannot say I agree with you on this one, I’d take neither. Clinton was a draft dodger and personal scum bag. He might be personable or even affable as an individual but so are a lot of people more deserving of the job. I still cannot believe this clown actually beat two distinguished vets for those elections. Were it not for Perot in Texas, he would never have won in 92 IMO so I guess I have Ross to blame for the first victory. Clinton could have been the first president blown out of office, pun intended.


24 posted on 10/11/2014 5:55:25 AM PDT by Mouton (The insurrection laws perpetuate what we have for a government now.)
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To: PROCON
Clearing the ground for she who would be Queen.


25 posted on 10/11/2014 5:56:29 AM PDT by sr4402
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To: txrefugee

Mary C. Mahoney: 25, murdered at the Georgetown Starbuck’s coffee bar over the 4th of July ‘97 weekend. She was a former White House intern who worked with John Huang. Apparently she knew Monica Lewinsky and her sexual encounters with Bill Clinton. Although not verified, it has been said that Lewinsky told Linda Tripp that she did not want to end up like Mahoney.


26 posted on 10/11/2014 5:58:05 AM PDT by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto!)
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To: Pollster1
"Clinton was much better than 0bola."

Monica's ex-boyfriend, Satan's daughter, and Obola are all traitors to the United States of America. One might as well argue about the appropriate temperature setting for each one of these when they get to hell.

27 posted on 10/11/2014 6:03:47 AM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: PROCON

Correction>>>>
How the White House tried to handle Monica Lewinsky after Clinton got caught handling her.


28 posted on 10/11/2014 6:05:23 AM PDT by billhilly (.Have you heard the latest Joe Biden whopper?)
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To: MrEdd

It is puzzling why the “successful president” Bill Clinton should get any credit whatsoever for the good economy in the 1990s. The actual causes of the growth were the boom in high tech, the end of the Cold War, plus Reagan’s huge tax cuts and anti-inflation policies a decade earlier.

The Republican Congress forced Clinton to do a few conservative things, but overall, Clinton was a total disaster. He raised taxes, sued Microsoft (the goose that laid the golden egg) and vociferously defended the middle class entitlements that were bankrupting the country.

Clinton really is a good liar. He lies about his economic record and the media repeats the lie.


29 posted on 10/11/2014 6:07:15 AM PDT by heye2monn (MO)
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To: MrEdd

It is puzzling why the “successful president” Bill Clinton should get any credit whatsoever for the good economy in the 1990s. The actual causes of the growth were the boom in high tech, the end of the Cold War, plus Reagan’s huge tax cuts and anti-inflation policies a decade earlier.

The Republican Congress forced Clinton to do a few conservative things, but overall, Clinton was a total disaster. He raised taxes, sued Microsoft (the goose that laid the golden egg) and vociferously defended the middle class entitlements that were bankrupting the country.

Clinton really is a good liar. He lies about his economic record and the media repeats the lie.


30 posted on 10/11/2014 6:07:48 AM PDT by heye2monn (MO)
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To: PROCON

31 posted on 10/11/2014 6:12:34 AM PDT by Brother Cracker (You are more likely to find krugerrands in a Cracker Jack box than 22 ammo at Wal-Mart)
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To: PROCON

I remember the filthy pig beating up Juanita Bradrick and threatening to close down her nursing homes if she told on him.

Now his awful wife wants to run our country.To finish what Obama started and destroying AMERICA.

http://www.wnd.com/2003/06/19242/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KZ8ICvutc0


32 posted on 10/11/2014 6:13:11 AM PDT by PLD
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To: PROCON

You guys can’t be serious? Evil is evil. Bill, Hill and Barry share the same DNA. This is the problem. You can’t keep a little evil, gotta throw it all out or it just mutates and comes back. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


33 posted on 10/11/2014 6:13:52 AM PDT by Cats Pajamas (Wonder what Slick and Cankles did with the rent a dogs now they have grandbaby for optics?)
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To: txrefugee

Thanks for that bit of truthful reflection.

I am sure those you point to will be bringing out that “hell has no fury” thing any time now.


34 posted on 10/11/2014 6:32:07 AM PDT by X-spurt (CRUZ missile - armed and ready.)
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To: Chainmail; Liz
And don't forget about Johnny Chung, who funneled about $100 grand from the Communist Chinese military to the Democrat campaign in the summer of 1996.

Cordially,

35 posted on 10/11/2014 6:42:27 AM PDT by Diamond (He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people,)
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To: Pollster1

You miss Clinton?

That’s like saying that some Romans missed Caligula after

being ruled by Nero.


36 posted on 10/11/2014 6:48:46 AM PDT by COUNTrecount (There's no there there.)
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To: PROCON
For those 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.

WAR IN KOSOVO

During Bill Clinton’s 1999 NATO-led war in Kosovo – which according to some estimates cost as much as $75 billion – we bombed Belgrade for 78 days, killed almost 3,000 civilians, and shredded the civilian infrastructure (including every bridge across the Danube.)

We devastated the environment, bombed the Chinese embassy, came very close to engaging in armed combat against Russian forces, and in general, pursued a horrific and inhumane strategy to rain misery on the civilian population of Belgrade in order to pressure Milosevic into surrendering.

Why did we do all that? The US did not even have an arguable interest in the Balkans, and no one ever tried to claim that Serbia represented any kind of threat to our nation or our interests.

But for months the Clinton administration had told us that Milosevic was waging a vicious genocide against Albanian Muslims, and needed to be stopped. The New York Times called it a “humanitarian war.” In March 1999 – the same month that the bombing started – Clinton’s State Department publicly suggested that as many as 500,000 Albanian Kosovars had been murdered by Milosevic’s regime. In May of that year, as the bombing campaign was drawing to a close, Secretary of Defense William Cohen lowered that estimate 100,000.

Five years after the bombing, after all the forensic investigations had been completed, the prosecutors at Milosevic’s “War Crimes” trial in the Hague were barely been able to document a questionable figure of perhaps 5,000 “bodies and body parts.” During the war, the American people were told that Kosovo was full of mass graves filled with the bodies of murdered Albanian Muslims. But none were ever found.

BILL CLINTON ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE

During the election cycle of 1992, George H.W. Bush lost his job after Bill Clinton hammered him relentlessly for having caused the “worst economy of the last 50 years.”

In fact, as CNN’s Brooke Jackson has reported: “Three days before Christmas 1992, the National Bureau of Economic Research finally issued its official proclamation that the recession had ended 21 months earlier. What became the longest boom in U.S. history actually began nearly two years before Clinton took office.” See (See http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/31/jackson.recession.primer.otsc/).

By the same token, Clinton is generally perceived as having a stellar economic record during his own presidency, in spite of the fact that the economy was already starting to decline during the last year of his term after the stock market crashed in March 2000.

According to a report by MSNBC: “The longest economic expansion in U.S. history faltered so much in the summer of 2000 that business output actually contracted for one quarter, the government said Wednesday in releasing a comprehensive revision of the gross domestic product. Based on new data, the Commerce Department said that the GDP — the country’s total output of goods and services — shrank by 0.5 percent at an annual rate in the July-September quarter of 2000.” See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3676690/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/gdp-figures-revised-downward/.

37 posted on 10/11/2014 6:51:02 AM PDT by Maceman
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To: Diamond; Chainmail; duckworth; PROCON

MACEMAN POSTED-—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.


38 posted on 10/11/2014 6:52:02 AM PDT by Liz ("Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences." Robert Louis Stevenson)
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To: Liz

Thank you. ;-)


39 posted on 10/11/2014 6:52:06 AM PDT by Maceman
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To: PROCON

Imagine a President Hillary with her own sex scandal and not with a male intern.


40 posted on 10/11/2014 6:59:00 AM PDT by The Great RJ
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