Posted on 02/15/2003 8:55:42 AM PST by Liz
Introduction by David A. Keene, Chairman
The American Conservative Union
More books have been written about Bill and Hillary Clinton than most people will ever read. There are books about their lives, their psychology, their marriage and their single-minded pursuit of power. There are books about Whitewater and Monica, about how they’ve squandered public trust, and about their ambition. Some break new ground and some are barely readable. So the question you must ask as you open this one is simple enough: Why do I need to read yet another book about these people, or about Hillary?
The answer to that question is just as simple. You have to read it because it draws together the facts that should make anyone question the first lady’s political motives and goals. Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t going to go away. She is intent upon seeking the power to tell the rest of us how we ought to live our lives and seeks power so she can force her views on us whether we like them or not.
But to do that she must submit her views and her record to the public for approval. She has chosen to do this in New York and it is my firm belief that anyone who is in a position to vote for or against her in New York ought to know just who this woman is, what she really wants, and what she’s done. This book may not break new ground, but it does answer those questions.
In compiling the facts about a very public woman, Christian Josi has performed a signal public service and it is my hope that every New Yorker will read what he has written. In this new book, Josi, who is himself a New Yorker and serves as my Executive Director at the American Conservative Union, presents a disturbing portrait of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The facts lead the reader to the conclusion that her quest for the seat in the United States Senate being vacated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan may be just a step in her drive for power. Josi believes, in fact, that her goal is not the Senate, but the Oval Office now occupied by her husband.
Hillary Clinton is herein regarded as a political Machiavellian of the first order whose decision to "stand by her man" during the Monica Lewinsky scandal may well have been motivated far more by her future political ambitions than any remaining loyalty to her husband.
Bill Clinton’s administration will, in my opinion, go down as one of the most corrupt in U.S. history. The damage done as a result of the many ethical lapses, scandals, and overall wanton disregard for the safety and security of our nation will become increasingly clear as the years pass. Interestingly, an objective view of the record reveals that the primary force behind much of this scandal and damage was, with very few exceptions, Hillary rather than Bill. It was she who insisted on staffing the White House with ideologues, pushing a health care plan that would have put virtually all important medical decisions in the hands of government bureaucrats. And it was she who unleashed the might of America’s military on the civilian population of the Balkans. The Whitewater records point to Hillary and it is her fingerprints one finds on virtually every questionable activity launched since her husband took office.
This book, the first by young ACU Executive Director Christian Josi, sheds light on the real Hillary Clinton—her arrogance, her lust for power and money, her ties to the radical Left in years past, and the far-left vision that she would impose on America today that fuels her drive for high office.
ACU aims to put a copy of this eye-opening book in the hands of every voter in New York State. ACU launched this project because the New York media (which is overwhelmingly liberal) appears determined to do all it can to let bygones be bygones as far as Hillary is concerned. She has yet to face a tough press grilling and has been allowed to get away with far more than most candidates. Her press conferences resemble cheerleading sessions, with some reporters acting as the lead cheerleaders.
She is scarcely ever asked any tough questions about the central role she played in the majority of the 38 separate scandals (at the latest count) that have engulfed the Clinton Administration. The facts reveal that the first lady is a key figure in "Chinagate," "Filegate," "Travelgate," "Hillarycare," "Cattlegate," Whitewater, the ransacking of Vince Foster’s White House office after his death, the magical reappearance of her law firm billing records (which had been subpoenaed two years earlier), and the Webster Hubbell "money-for-silence" scandal, among others.
Any one of these scandals would endanger if not destroy a normal Senate candidacy. This woman, who now wants the people of her newly-adopted state to send her to the U.S. Senate, masterminded the selling of seats on official U.S. trade missions to "Fat Cat" Democrat contributors (starting at $50,000 a seat) and treated the historic Lincoln Bedroom as a Clinton Bed & Breakfast for contributors to the 1996 Clinton-Gore reelection effort.
A hallmark of her latest campaign is her total disregard for the taxpayers’ money. She has used Air Force planes (at taxpayer expense) to ferry her around the state, used White House staff (again at taxpayer expense) to create her campaign web site and perform other campaign-related duties. If any of us acted in this manner federal election officials and prosecutors would be all over us.
This book should prompt readers to ask: Does Hillary Clinton possess the common sense or integrity we seek in our elected representatives? Does she really want to represent New York? And is Hillary running for Senate primarily because she loves New York and just wants to do what’s best for the state, or does she have much grander ambitions for herself in mind?
We at the ACU have decided to do all we can to see to it that as many New Yorkers as possible see (and read) this book before next November because we are convinced that an informed electorate is vital to a working democracy. The issues facing us are too important to be turned over to people who put their own political and personal ambitions above those of the nation. Every New York voter will decide whether Hillary Clinton is the sort of person he or she wants in the Senate, but that decision should be informed by a full review of the facts rather than a glance at a 30-second television spot. If we have anything to say about it, every New Yorker will have those facts and Christian’s book is a valuable first step in this important effort. Now all we have to do is print and distribute enough copies to create the informed electorate America’s founders knew we all could trust.
The American Conservative Union is this nation’s largest conservative grassroots advocacy organization. It was founded in 1964 and today we have more than a million members throughout the country. As ACU’s Chairman, I not only endorse Christian’s book, but pledge that none of us will rest until the truth about Hillary is available to every New Yorker.
I sincerely hope that after reading Christian’s book, you will join ACU’s effort to make sure every voter in New York State has a full picture of exactly who Hillary Rodham Clinton is before deciding who will represent New York State in the United States Senate.
Use the order form at the back of this book to order additional copies of Hillary Rodham Clinton to give to your friends. Please also take this opportunity to send whatever contribution you possibly can to ACU to help fund this much-needed VOTER ALERT effort.
David Keene, Chairman
THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION
BOOK EXCERPT Chapter 1
Who is Hillary Rodham Clinton?
Though it’s true, as I said in the Preface, that the private Hillary Rodham Clinton is an enigma, it’s not particularly difficult to understand the public woman. We’ve seen and read varying depictions of this Hillary—the student protester; the defender of the Black Panthers; the advocate of "children’s rights" as defined by radicals; the Watergate prosecutor; the teeth-grinding feminist; the First Lady; the possible senatorial candidate; the rumored presidential aspirant; and, above all, the militant control freak. In these roles, she’s a textbook case—a woman radicalized by the Sixties, who believes American society, with its tainted history, is an inherently evil thing that must be transformed by any means necessary—for its own good, of course. However, the contradictory facts of her life pose interesting questions. For instance:
Why would Hillary, the young feminist with a fancy for the liberal salons, marry Bill Clinton—Hot Springs’ favorite Bubba—and choose to live in his dark and backward Arkansas world? Why has she tolerated his continued and obsessive adulteries, so flagrant and numerous they have caused porn-peddler Larry Flynt to profess admiration? How could a woman who blames Wall Street and corporate greed for the ills of the nation justify becoming a trader in cattle futures—and, according to reputable analysts, a crooked trader at that? How could a liberal Democrat activist who professes to be a champion of the little people scornfully step on and squash so many of them in her rise to power and prominence? All in all, why would someone who seeks to be regarded as "pure in principle" toss aside principles so often in favor of political advantage? In order to understand the public Hillary Clinton better, a brief primer on Hillary Rodham is in order to shed light on who she is and where she—and her husband—came from.
The Rodhams were conventional middle-class suburbanites who lived northwest of Chicago. They were comfortable but neither rich nor socially prominent. Hillary’s father, Hugh Rodham, started a small custom-drapery business after World War II; and eventually he was successful enough to afford a house in Park Ridge, a community composed largely of the more-affluent blue collar workers and the less-affluent white collar workers.
Some biographers have suggested that Park Ridge was (and is) an exclusive suburb inhabited by the most privileged. Christopher Andersen, in his absorbing book Bill and Hillary: The Marriage, describes the community as "leafy, prosperous, Republican-to-the-core...." While this description is not entirely inaccurate, it’s certainly misleading.
Park Ridgers weren’t quite so well off as Andersen paints them. The suburb may have been the mecca of successful foremen and plumbers, but it was no more than a holding pen for young Yuppie couples, who focused their ultimate dreams on the more fashionable communities of Kenilworth and Winnetka, off to the north. (Which were very similar in profile to the Clintons’ new adopted community of Chappaqua, New York.)
However, Park Ridge was a secure, orderly, and respectable place in which to grow up. The Rodham family was, overall, firmly established in the middle class, a status unlike that of "Dude," Virginia, and young Billy and Roger Clinton down in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Hillary’s mother, Dorothy Rodham, spent much of her life deferring to her husband and making home a happy place for her three children—Hillary, Hugh, Jr., and Tony.
However, because she felt intimidated by her husband, Dorothy went out of her way to nurture Hillary’s ego, saying she was "determined that no daughter of mine was going to have to go through the agony of being afraid to say what she had on her mind. Just because she was a girl didn’t mean she should be limited."
One of the defining moments of Hillary’s childhood came when she complained to her mother that a larger girl was bullying her. "There’s no room in this house for cowards," Dorothy told her. "The next time she hits you, I want you to hit her back."
Hillary came back victorious and ecstatic. The admiring neighborhood boys suddenly let her into their crowd. According to Dorothy, the "boys responded well to Hillary. She just took charge, and they let her."
(It would become the story of her life—going after people she regarded as "bullies" and ordering the boys around.)
Andersen tells of another incident in which her mother gave Hillary a lesson in self-control:
Dorothy pulled out a carpenter’s level to teach her daughter how to maintain her emotional equilibrium. She held the level in front of Hillary, pointed to the bubble in the center, then tilted the level so that the bubble slid to one end and then to the other. "Imagine having the carpenter’s level inside you," she said. The trick, Dorothy told her daughter, was to remain calm, determined, focused, always in control—whatever it took "to keep the bubble in the center."
(Hillary applied the lesson in most areas of her life; but after she met Bill Clinton, she gained a reputation for flinging horrendous temper fits, screaming obscenities, throwing objects, and lashing out at everyone around her. In most cases, these tantrums were connected in some way to his behavior.)
From the beginning, Hillary was extraordinarily bright and ambitious. She brought home excellent grades, participated in extracurricular activities, and was voted Most Likely to Succeed. However, when she became a teenager, she was no longer a hit with the boys—or many others it seems. In fact, the student newspaper once referred to her as "Sister Frigidaire."
In later years, Dorothy Rodham would acknowledge that, with all the other lessons she had dispensed, she’d failed to give Hillary "advice on clothes and makeup and how to attract boys." While curiously silent on that subject, Dorothy was nonetheless "annoyed" by Hillary’s drab appearance. "I used to think, ‘Why can’t she put on a little makeup?’"
As for politics, Hugh Rodham was the family authority. Something of a curmudgeon—a petty tyrant in his own household and standoffish with his neighbors—he was regarded by many as an eccentric. He was a Taft Republican, and he chewed tobacco. So sure was he of his own views that he forced his children to watch the 1952 Republican National Convention, gavel-to-gavel, and forbade them to watch the Democratic counterpart.
Dorothy—secretly in rebellion against her husband—was in fact a closet Democrat who voted for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and quietly tried to shape her daughter’s political thinking. "How on earth," she would later boast, "do you think Hillary ever became a Democrat?"
Perhaps not as the result of Dorothy Rodham’s quiet advocacy. In fact, while still in high school, Hillary became a "Goldwater Girl" and in 1964 campaigned for the Arizona senator in his unsuccessful bid for the presidency.
However, other conflicting influences were at work, attempting to lay claim to her loyalty. In her early teens, she learned about the social gospel as a member of the First United Methodist Church. At 13, she and other teenagers were sent to baby-sit for minority migrant workers who were harvesting crops in Illinois. At 14, she was a member of the congregation’s "University of Life," a group the Rev. Don Jones tirelessly indoctrinated with the simplistic and appealing dogmas of the Left.
Jones showed them pictures of the victims of Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War (no doubt, without mentioning comparable atrocities by the communists). And he took them to Chicago’s south side to show them what he identified as the same conditions. His point to the impressionable youngsters was obvious: America was no different from Franco’s Spain.
Jones also introduced Hillary and the rest of his political acolytes to Saul Alinsky, author of Reveille for Radicals, and to Martin Luther King, Jr., who delivered a lecture called "Sleeping Through the Revolution."19 Despite this attempt to reshape her thinking, Hillary was still a Republican when she graduated from high school in 1965. However, as Hillary matured, Jones would become increasingly influential in her life.
The following fall, her parents drove her to Wellesley, then the most expensive women’s college in the nation. There she registered for classes and was soon elected president of the Young Republicans.
Most young people—college students in particular—are like chameleons, taking on the protective coloration of the political and intellectual world around them. Hillary was no exception. Within a year, she had resigned as president of the Wellesley YRs and was beginning to involve herself in campus debates over civil rights, Vietnam, and capitalism. She wrote her senior thesis on the Johnson administration’s Community Action Program, a product of the Great Society.
From the Midwest rather than from the East, she was not born into that inner circle of wealth and status that has always dominated the Ivy League schools and the Seven Sisters. At Wellesley, she was an outsider who broke regional and class barriers—from managing to head a campus political organization while still a freshman, to becoming president of the student government at the beginning of her senior year, and, at the end, being chosen to give the student commencement address.
Her immediate and total success on campus can only be attributed to the strength of her will and the depth of her intelligence. Even at that age, she was a formidable woman who was well on her way to mastering the art of getting what she wanted.
Like so many undergraduates, Hillary quickly surrendered the values she’d brought to college and adopted the ones her professors and fellow students were promoting. She came to Wellesley the child of her father and left a child of the Sixties—a typical student of the times. She soon hated capitalism, thought American society was decadent, and yearned for drastic action to change the nation’s misguided course.
Wellesley, like many Northeastern schools, had more than its share of Marxist faculty members. During that same period, an organizer for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative youth group, reported that he found only five Wellesley students who were willing to come out of the closet and call themselves "conservatives." Even these complained of threats and harassment from both fellow students and faculty.
--SNIP--
Along Came Bill
Bill Clinton was a man like none Hillary Rodham had ever seen. Tall and trim, he looked like an athlete without having to be one. He was warm, outgoing, and exhibited the easy courtesy of a plantation heir, while professing the politics of a migrant worker. Good manners were de rigueur in Arkansas; radicalism was rarer.
Clinton had also learned a lesson that most men skip: He listened quietly and attentively when women talked, as if he really wanted to hear what they were saying. And there was a tender, thoughtful, disarming quality about him—one that made him all but irresistible.
He had something else women liked—a smooth self-confidence that bordered on cockiness, yet somehow stopped just short of the mark. He was never shy or awkward in their presence. He knew all the right moves and performed them flawlessly. Girls he’d seduced in high school remembered him as "sweet."
The manners, the tenderness, the warm grin, and the sunny disposition hit Hillary like a freight train. Here was a man who shared her political agenda, yet wasn’t an awkward left-wing geek who made long coffee-house speeches about gender equality and treated her like a housemaid.
Hillary thought she had "discovered" Bill Clinton—in fact, literally hundreds of meretricious cuties in Arkansas, Northern Virginia, England, and even New Haven had long ago discovered him—in the backseats of cars, in motel rooms, and in scores of less likely places. He’d been discovered so many times that he’d probably lost count.
In fact, he had a real problem: He enjoyed "discovery" so much that it had become a vocation with him. He was a serial seducer, who, wherever he went, would bed as many women as he could work into a busy schedule. It wasn’t just something he liked to do. It was something he had to do—an addiction, an obsession—the only thing that overrode his almost boundless ambition.
Bill won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where his sex life continued to escalate. Andersen quotes a woman who knew him at the time: "There were big noisy parties, with wine, marijuana, and casual sex. It was a time of revolving-door relationships, and Clinton pursued a lot of women—including the girlfriends of his friends."31
Another friend said that, while in Britain, Clinton had bedded "a minimum of thirty women—and I stress the word ‘minimum.’"32 By the time he arrived in New Haven, his sex life was in high gear. He had to have a woman almost daily. In this respect, he was a glutton rather than a gourmet. His appetite was so voracious that any old girl would do, provided she was willing and they could find a private place.
In fact, sometimes privacy was a secondary consideration. Dolly Kyle Browning—perhaps Bill’s most talkative conquest—tells of coupling in a friend’s backyard and parking in a residential neighborhood, taking off their clothes, and having intercourse twice in the front seat of a Cadillac convertible—with the top down. "He is so arrogant he thinks he’ll never be caught," she later explained. "And then there’s a part of him that wants to get caught because he thinks he can lie his way out of anything. Usually, he can."
But in the case of Hillary Rodham, it wasn’t just another roll in the hay. He found her as intriguing and as inviting as she found him.
--SNIP--
Long read. Click on source link for rest of story.
Amen.
pinging...
Prophetic, as pre-911 insight. However, it wasn't many years that passed before Clinton's legacy would smack us. Actually, only 16 months!
My deepest apologies, AB. I must've had a senior moment there...
:o)
They're married?
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