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.
Imagine a Monica episode in today’s environment, with a non-Hillary in the White House. Totally different outcome.
Gwyneth Paltrow?
All one has to do is look at the pardons bill gave as he left office. He’s a scumbag.
Clinton was always sleazy and corrupt, and he was brutal when it served his interests. He was also dramatically better than Obama and never intentionally harmed our country for the sake of destruction, only for personal benefit. I miss him.
I'm with you, Clinton is much preferred over 0bola.
Talk about a War on Women….Clinton and the Democrats tried to destroy all the victims of Clinton’s serial sexual attacks. But women continue to vote for Democrats, the classic battered wife syndrome. Perhaps women shouldn’t have been given the vote if they have no more powers of reason that this.
Clinton was much better than 0bola. I’m patriotic enough that if I could go back in time and choose between personally being infected with Ebola or our country going through the nightmare of the last six years, I’d take my chances on the disease.
All he ever really had to do was 'fess up right away and the firestorm would have subsided - he had the press totally on his side, just like Obola - and he could have kept right on going. Instead, he wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and dragged the investigations out for years all to hide the truth that came out anyway.
Real leaders never lie. He has always had fatal flaws to his personality and we need a better system of selecting our leaders. Don't make noises like you miss the crud that was and is Bill Clinton.
Yeah, but Clinton was only President of the United States. He wasn’t a football player.
bump
Hell, if I had my way Ronald Reagan would be resurrected and still be in the white house.
BTW, Semper Fi from an old Army guy!
Media bias is a given especially when they started taking polls on....a prosecutor? Who does that?
I’m sure we all remember the Clintonistas telling us that he could ‘compartmentalize’ and do his job. The reality was completely the opposite as he became obsessed along with the rest of them.
So Hill went on TV---all decked out in virginal pearls---
and blamed Billy's B/J on the "VRWC."
For sure CBS will give Hill ample airtime so that she emerges pure and virginal for 2016. CBS will suckup and give her 2-3 segments to explain away (1) Benghazi, (2) the State Dept's missing billions, (3) how she went from dead broke to multi-billionaire overnight.
The words "Blame Republicans" are already forming on those virginal lips.
AS MACEMAN INSIGHTFULLY POSTED: Then-Pres Clinton pursued his own political advantage at the expense of American interests and national security.
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.
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. townhsll.com
I know that Ronald Reagan is gone but out of 155 million or so eligible Americans, we have to have more than a few solid, reliable leaders out there, don't we? (My money's on James Mattis, if we could get him to run)
The sooner Carter, Clinton and Obola are relegated to the dust of history, the better.
Semper Fi back to you Soldier!
Damn. Good. Take.
Anyone remember Chinagate? No? I didn’t think so. When Clinton was swapping our missile guidance knowledge to China for campaign cash, I thought it was a huge deal, and remember wondering why no one else seemed to think so. It was pretty straightforward. Clinton sold out our country for campaign cash. Anyway, lest anyone else forget, here’w what appeared in FR wrote about it 21 years ago. Pretty amazing. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/917940/posts
On the contrary. Bill modernized China’s nuclear arsenal.
I don’t miss him at all.
“For sure CBS will give Hill ample airtime so that she emerges pure and virginal for 2016. CBS will suckup and give her 2-3 segments to explain away (1) Benghazi, (2) the State Dept’s missing billions, (3) how she went from dead broke to multi-billionaire overnight.”
Well fair is fair. Bill got his BJ from Monica & years later Hillary will get hers from CBS.
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