Free Republic

Excerpt - The bitterness Susan McDougal held toward special counsel Kenneth Starr, who headed the Whitewater real estate investigation, has been replaced with g ratitude, she said Friday at the Women’s Action for New Directions Mother’s Day luncheon. “The judge looked over at the independent counsel’s table and thanked them for their prayers, as if God had something to do with our convictions,” McDougal said about the trial that ended in her conviction. McDougal was convicted in 1996 of four counts of felony fraud and conspiracy relating to illegal loans obtained through the Small Business Administration. In September 1996, U....

A hilarious must-see You Tube video: Hillary's Downfall quesney posted the video yesterday, but it's worth repeating for those who haven't seen it yet. Lots of cursing (be warned), but one of the funniest things I've seen. Play with the sound up and full screen. Enjoy!

TALLAHASSEE -- For a sign of Florida Republicans' all-out effort to attract black voters, look no farther than the glossy full-colored The Black Republican magazine that launches broadsides like these: The KKK was the ''terrorist arm of the Democratic Party.'' Democrats, in addition to waging ''war on God,'' are still mired in sex and financial scandals. That's all tucked in the back of the Sarasota-based National Black Republican Association's 60-page mag, the first half of which touts Republican Gov. Charlie Crist's civil rights record and the Republican Party of Florida's minority outreach efforts that the association has helped coordinate. The...

She once described herself as "the most famous person you know very little about." But as she careens across the country in a desperate attempt to rescue her campaign, America is coming to know Hillary Clinton all too well. The tenacity that even critics praised suddenly looks tawdry. The persistence against impossible odds appears anything but noble. Long after the party is over, Clinton's refusal to go home is taking on the trappings of a sad spectacle. Her inability to accept defeat is not, it seems clear, about public service or even politics. It is merely personal. With Barack Obama...

Bill Clinton stands on a small stage in this tiny town, torrential rain beating on the rooftop, his all-white crowd of coalminers, schoolteachers and union members cheering him on. “Don’t let them tell you she can’t win this thing,” he hollers, his voice hoarse after another day of campaigning. “I’m telling you, she can win this thing, because of people like you, and places like this.” There is huge affection for Mr Clinton in West Virginia, where his wife faces her next primary contest with Barack Obama on Tuesday. The former First Lady holds an overwhelming 25-point lead among one...

I have been working with clients in DC the last few days and as always, rumors, gossip and backstabbing are three of the main products produced within the District. This is the latest rumor/suspicion/supposed plan here in the Capitol. Word of it comes from some well-placed sources. They are in a position to know this information and they have been reliable sources in the past. Story is as follows… Hillary is many things, but she is no fool. She realizes 2012 was never an option for her, as she will be 65 and “used.” Any afterglow of Clinton 42 will...

Broadcasters on cable TV shows used to pride themselves on their efforts to be objective, or at least not overt in their biases. -- snip --As Hillary Clinton wrestles with a way to continue her underdog fight against Mr. Obama, she is said to be seething about the kid-glove coverage he was accorded for so long. What she forgets is that back in 1992, when Bill Clinton and she were the new kids on the political block, they too benefited from glowing coverage that pushed off close analysis of their many problems until after 1992 election was over.

Updated WOODBURN, Ore. – Senator Barack Obama said today that he would not rule out the possibility of helping Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton retire her campaign debt to bring her into the fold and unify Democrats. But he said no discussions have taken place yet. “Obviously, I’d want to have a broad-ranging discussion with Senator Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team moving forward,� Mr. Obama said. “But as I said, it’s premature right now. she’s still actively running and we’ve still got business to do right here...

Hillary Clinton's decision to lend her presidential campaign $6.4 million from assets she holds jointly with her husband is rekindling questions about millions of dollars that Bill Clinton has been paid for speeches and other work since he left the White House. In tapping some of that cash, ''the Clintons have effectively bypassed campaign finance reform in a manner that's ingenious -- using Bill Clinton effectively as a front for the fundraising,'' said Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political science professor. Beginning days after he left the White House in 2001, the ex-president has been crisscrossing the globe, speaking...

Even as she faces pressure from some to call her White House bid quits, Hillary Clinton holds a commanding lead in West Virginia, according to a new poll released Friday. Clinton has a 43-point advantage over Obama, 66 percent to 23 percent, according to a new survey from the American Research Group.

Kennedy: No soup or VP slot for you TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Apparently, Sen. Ted Kennedy does not think Sen. Hillary Clinton has "real" leadership qualities or "is in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspiration(s) of the American people."

It's fun to think about, but there are so many obstacles, and Ted Kennedy isn't buying, he said on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital With Al Hunt," which airs this weekend. "I don't think it's possible," he told Hunt of the joint ticket, continuing that: Obama should choose a running mate who "is in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people," Kennedy said. "If we had real leadership — as we do with Barack Obama — in the No. 2 spot as well, it'd be enormously helpful." Ouch.

Elite opinion on the Democratic race has congealed around the idea that it is over. Clinton has no chance whatsoever to win the nomination now. There is a minority of analysts out there - maybe 5%, maybe even less - who see her path to the nomination as much narrower than it was four days ago, but who still see a path. I'm with the minority on this one. I think she is nearly finished, but not quite yet. As those who know me in personal life can attest, I am a contrarian. For better or worse, when I see...

Now comes news that George McGovern has called for Hillary Clinton to withdraw from the Democrat’s primary race. Pardon me for my raised eyebrow but how much of a fool would someone have to be to take campaign advice from the man who got slaughtered by Richard Nixon? Losing an election by a landslide really shouldn’t qualify someone to dispense political advice unless it’s how to deliver a concession speech without looking bitter. The facts, as they present, make it abundantly clear to anyone not blinded by political emotionalism, anyone not hoodwinked by the bumper-sticker gotcha games of this election...

Carol Felsenthal's new book about Bill Clinton's post-presidential years, Clinton in Exile, is often catty, occasionally malicious, and overly reliant on unnamed sources. It's also pretty boring; when Felsenthal's not muckraking, she's content to trot out newspaper accounts of Clinton's foundation work and his appearances on the guest-speaker circuit. But don't fret—with Slate's reading guide, you can zip straight to the water-cooler-worthy gossip.

Most pundits are telling Senator Hillary Clinton that it's all over but the shouting.  The math is against her.  However, the math is also currently against Senator Obama -- neither candidate can earn the needed majority in the remaining primaries.  The decision will be made by the Democrats' superdelegates, who are not obligated to decide whom they support until the convention. And they are empowered to change their allegiance at any time, based on their "read" of what's best for the party. This means that until the first ballot in Denver in August, Hillary still has a chance. Conventional wisdom...

Clinton and her campaign know that the road to victory for her must include a resolution to the Florida and Michigan votes, something that has been dragging on since both states voted in January in violation of Democratic Party rules. Later this month the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the DNC will meet to discuss the matter... The fund-raiser was interrupted briefly at the beginning when a protestor stood on his chair with a large sign that read "Obliterate Iran? Apologize." The sign referred to some comments Clinton made in regards to bombing Iran if they attacked Israel with a...

HILLARY Clinton's campaign overnight predicted a rapid end to the Democratic White House race next month as the press read the last rites to her quest to be the first woman president. With more party elders drifting to Barack Obama's camp and the media declaring the nominating battle all but over, Senator Clinton aides battled back with appeals for voters to be heard and for new donors to come forward. Even as he vowed no surrender from the former first lady, Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said party bosses known as "superdelegates" would coalesce behind a candidate once the final...

May 8, 2008 Senator Barack Obama Obama for America P.O. Box 8102 Chicago, IL 60680 Dear Senator Obama, This has been an historic and exciting campaign. Millions of new voters have been brought into the process and their enthusiasm for the Democratic Party and the principles for which you and I have fought and continue to fight is unprecedented. One of the foremost principles of our party is that citizens be allowed to vote and that those votes be counted. That principle is not currently being applied to the nearly 2.5 million people who voted in primaries in Florida and...

John McCain has used these weeks of Republican calm to dive into the Democratic lunch pail. This strategy clearly assumes a Barack Obama candidacy. If demographics are destiny -- as the political sages keep telling us -- Democratic demographics may offer some choice cuts to the presumed Republican nominee. By dumb luck, Republicans have chosen their one candidate who projects a moderate image, hasn't alienated Latinos and offers an appealing life story to boot. The core problem for Democrats is that Obama's backers are reliable Democrats, whereas Hillary Clinton's are unreliable Democrats. Less than half of the Clinton voters in...

Obama trolls House, but Altmire remains neutral TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Rep. Jason Altmire said his baseline for a decision to endorse Sen. Hillary Clinton over Sen. Barack Obama would be if Clinton managed to reach somewhere close to a delegate tie with him when the primaries were over. "She earned her right to continue the campaign when she won in Pennsylvania and won my district," he said. Altmire said even after her loss in North Carolina and slim win in Indiana, she still has that right. "It's a long shot, I understand that, but I still want to give...

At West Virginia rally, Clinton vows to fight on By David Brown TRIBUNE-REVIEW Thursday, May 8, 2008 CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Memo to those writing political obituaries for Hillary Clinton: She ain't done yet. Clinton sought to drive home that message to hundreds of cheering supporters at a rally here today, contending West Virginia will muzzle the pundits by giving her a resounding win on Tuesday over Barack Obama, whose victory Tuesday in North Carolina and strong showing in Indiana moved him closer to clinching the Democratic presidential nomination. "I know that according to the polls, I'm doing well here. But...

WASHINGTON — In a heated phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi late last month, Hillary Clinton supporter Harvey Weinstein threatened to cut off campaign money to congressional Democrats unless Pelosi embraced a new plan by the movie mogul to finance a revote of the Democratic presidential primaries in Florida and Michigan, according to three officials who were briefed on the contents of the conversation. The three officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the private phone conversation, said Weinstein, a top supporter of Clinton’s presidential campaign, appeared determined to buy...

Go to the link above for Audio.

Dogged, determined Sen. Hillary Clinton smacked into turbulence somewhere over Indiana. In the incongruous rules of politics, she won the state narrowly but lost the battle for the nomination. It is time for Clinton to do something she is not wired to do: yield the nomination to Sen. Barack Obama, the candidate with the best chance to win and unify Democrats.Clinton is not campaigning to be the Energizer Bunny, which, against all odds, keeps mechanically bobbing forward and backward because, darn it, the batteries still work. She has talked in recent days about being a fighter. Fighters may never give...

All the feisty talk from Sen. Hillary Clinton and her campaign advisers Wednesday couldn't dispel the growing perception among Democrats that the party's presidential race is nearly over, and that Sen. Barack Obama is going to be the winner. Tuesday's dual primaries technically yielded a split decision, as expected. But once Democrats grasped the final results -- Sen. Clinton's near-loss in Indiana's primary, where she recently was heavily favored, and her larger-than-expected defeat in North Carolina -- the New York senator took on the air of a loser, even to many of her own supporters. "The air is completely let...

In a November 26, 2005 interview with Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, Senator John McCain said, in an excess of candor, “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.” In the twenty-nine months since he made that candid admission the American people have been reminded of it repeatedly by his political opponents. The most gleeful purveyors of the McCain-doesn’t-know-anything-about-economics mantra have been, of course, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Their scoffing references to McCain’s “economic ignorance” have been such...

Do you regret referring to Bill Clinton as the first black President? People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.

There should be two URLs for these Op-Eds. One is for Hillary Clinton (above) and this one is for Barack Obama: http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/columna/402056 Both Op-Eds are in Spanish, but the newspaper provides a link to the English translations.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama each took a state Tuesday. But the result was a damaging loss for the woman who was once the overwhelming front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Here are some observations on the race: - Mr. Obama is now the prohibitive favorite. Tuesday night, he took at least 94 delegates to Mrs. Clinton's 75 and leads the former First Lady by 176 delegates in the AP tabulation. He has 1,840 of the 2,025 delegates needed to win. Mr. Obama needs only 185 – or 38% – of the 486 outstanding delegates (217 to be elected in...

Hillary Clinton, 60, Illinois native and Arkansas lawyer, became, retroactively, a lifelong Yankee fan at age 52 when, shopping for a U.S. Senate seat, she adopted New York state as home sweet home. She may think, or at least would argue, that when she was 12 her Yankees really won the 1960 World Series, by standards of “fairness,” because they trounced the Pirates in runs scored, 55-27, over seven games, so there. Unfortunately, baseball’s rules—pesky nuisances, rules—say it matters how runs are distributed during a World Series. The Pirates won four games, which is the point of the exercise, by...

After 16 years, the Clinton era may be coming to an end, presenting Democrats with a historic but potentially wrenching transition and a challenge to Senator Barack Obama as he seeks to reconcile a deeply divided party. And while the relationship between the party establishment and the Clintons has always been uneasy at best, an entire generation of Democrats has known no other figures as dominant as the two of them.

He has publicly urged Republicans to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton to keep the divisive Democratic nomination fight alive, but talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday he really wants Sen. Barack Obama to be the party's nominee. "I now believe he would be the weakest of the Democrat nominees," Limbaugh, among the most powerful voices in conservative radio, said on his program. "I now urge the Democrat superdelegates to make your mind up and publicly go for Obama." "Barack Obama has shown he cannot get the votes Democrats need to win -- blue-collar, working-class people," Limbaugh said. "He can...

Michigan Democratic leaders have settled on a plan to give presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton 69 delegates and Barack Obama 59 as a way to get the delegates seated at the national convention. Clinton won the Jan. 15 Michigan primary and was to get 73 delegates under state party rules. Obama was to get 55 delegates. The state also has 29 superdelegates. The state party's executive committee voted Wednesday to ask approval for the plan from the national party's Rules and Bylaws Committee. It would shrink Clinton's delegate edge from 18 to 10 and allow the 157 delegates and superdelegates...

Excerpt - On what was probably one of the toughest days of her campaign so far, with pundits and analysts of all stripes declaring her presidential candidacy finished, Mrs. Clinton put on her battle face Wednesday and confronted what was at times a hostile crowd at a hastily arranged speech here at Shepherd University. ~ snip ~ Mrs. Clinton endured boos when she mentioned her proposal for a gasoline tax holiday, catcalls when she spoke of ending the Iraq war and, most difficult of all, the heckling of her daughter, Chelsea, who introduced her. “End the dynasty!” a young man...

A decade before Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton admitted fudging the truth during the presidential campaign, federal prosecutors quietly assembled hundreds of pages of evidence suggesting she concealed information and misled a federal grand jury about her work for a failing Arkansas savings and loan at the heart of the Whitewater probe, according to once-secret documents that detail the internal debates over whether she should have faced criminal charges. Ordinarily, such files containing grand jury evidence and prosecutors' deliberations are never made public. But the estate of Sam Dash, a lifelong Democrat who served as the ethics adviser to Whitewater Independent...

Screaming tabloid headlines have declared her campaign "Over!" and calls for her withdrawal from the race are mounting, but Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - despite lackluster primary results this week - has put out her own steely message: She's not going anywhere. "I'm staying in this race until there's a nominee, and, obviously, I am going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee," the New York senator said at a Shepherdstown, W.Va., news conference today. "I believe that I'm the stronger candidate against Sen. McCain. And I believe I would be the best president among...

ONE DOWN, TWO TO GOMay 7, 2008 Well, it looks like it's the end of the road for Hillary. Time for her to pack up her pantsuits and go back to ... wherever it is she's pretending to be living these days. Now we just have to get rid of the other two. Perhaps if I endorse Obama ... This week, Bill Clinton lost his second presidential election for a protege. Ronald Reagan was so popular, he not only won a 49-state landslide re-election for himself, but he also won a symbolic third term for his boob of a vice...

The Obama campaign believes in the vast right-wing conspiracy. The Illinois senator's chief political adviser David Axelrod noted to reporters just now that Republican crossovers accounted for about 10 percent of the Indiana primary electorate, and that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had performed well with the group. "There were elements of the Republican Party, including Rush Limbaugh, Sen. Clinton's new ally, who were urging people to cross over and vote for her," said Axelrod, referring to the Limbaugh-led "Operation Chaos," a bid to disrupt Obama's path to the nomination and prolong a divisive primary battle. "She obviously was somewhat a...

The U.S. media and blogosphere has been ablaze with speculation that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh may have contributed to Clinton’s narrow victory in Tuesday’s Indiana primary over Barack Obama by urging Republicans to vote for the former first lady. The speculation is that the “Rush for Hillary” is seen as a way to extend the Democratic nomination battle and further damage the eventual winner. Limbaugh has also said in the past that he thought Obama needed to be “bloodied up politically, and it’s obvious that the Republicans are not going to do it and don’t have the...

May 7, 2008 -- SHE lost hard in North Carolina, and barely held on to win Indiana. Hillary Clinton just doesn't have enough straws left to clutch. The best (or worst) she can hope to do the rest of the way is bloody Barack Obama enough to make him lose in the fall, allowing her to come back in 2012. In fact, Obama basically clinched the nomination with his string of 11 straight primary and caucus wins in February, many by wipe-out margins - giving him a lead in elected delegates that Clinton couldn't hope to close, especially given the...

A day after her loss in North Carolina and a disappointing, razor-thin win in Indiana, Hillary Clinton said she was determined to stay in the race. "It's a new day, it's a new state, it's a new election," Clinton told reporters at a press conference in West Virginia on Wednesday. "I'm staying in this race until there's a nominee," Clinton later added, saying she feels "really good" about her performance in Indiana and emphasized that she continues to win groups — white, middle class, middle income voters — essential to winning a general election against John McCain, the presumptive Republican...

Her aides also tried to stoke concerns yesterday among elected officials and party leaders, known as superdelegates, about whether Obama could win in November, with one warning of an "October surprise" that could ruin his chances. . . . A Clinton adviser said the situation was increasingly becoming one in which "she cannot be nominated and he can't get elected."

Obama supporters Sen.John Kerry, D-Mass., and Gov. Janet Napolitano, D-Ariz., argue that the superdelegates now have a responsibility to move the nominating process forward. “Obama has shown he can win across the board and now its time for superdelegates to bring this to a close,” Napolitano said. Obama is expected to meet with undecided superdelegates tomorrow in Washington. Kerry said that it is the responsibility of the superdelegates to ensure that the Democratic Party will be unified at the convention in August, and suggested that Obama could have won the Indiana primary last night if it was not for the...

Of all the slogans that Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama might have picked to distinguish themselves from one another, “Prolier Than Thou” was probably the least convincing. Yet in the closing days of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, it seemed as if the two graduates of the nation’s most privileged law schools, and the two former residents of the Ritziest parts of Illinois, were in a race to don the bluest collar and the most stained factory overalls. Not since a desperate George Herbert Walker Bush (father of the current incumbent) started munching on pork-rinds, donning a...

Hillary Rodham Clinton lost her last best chance to score an upset on Barack Obama's turf Tuesday, putting the Illinois senator a step closer to becoming the country's first black presidential nominee. Obama was the long-standing favorite in North Carolina, and he won with the overwhelming support of black voters there despite an intense effort by Clinton to turn the state around. Obama's victory there was tempered by the fact that Clinton beat him handily among white voters, extending her argument to superdelegates who will decide the nomination that she will be the stronger general-election candidate. ...Eighteen percent of North...

Clinton says she is in it until a nominee is decided. (also a poll on the page if you wish to freep it).

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton loaned her campaign $6.4 million in the past few weeks...Howard Wolfson, a Clinton campaign spokesman...was also asked if the loans were drawing on her personal income, or on the joint income of both the senator and former President Bill Clinton. "There is no distinction between her share of their joint assets and her money," Wolfson said in response. "Legally she is entitled to use up to 50 percent of their jointly held assets, if she chooses. She's actually made about $11 million from her book and her Senate salary."

Barack Obama’s campaign issued an e-mail on Tuesday night that appeared to relegate Hillary Clinton’s lead in Indiana to efforts by Rush Limbaugh to wreak havoc in the Democratic presidential primary contest. In an e-mail entitled “The Limbaugh Effect in Indiana = 7 percent,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton wrote: “According to the latest exit polling data, 17 percent of voters in the Indiana primary today said they would vote for John McCain in a Clinton/McCain match-up. Forty-one percent of that number is constituted by people who voted Clinton in the primary but also indicated they will vote for McCain...

Perhaps some insiders (or those unwillingly part) of the Clintonistas’ administration realized that what we (the USA) were doing was just not right - and so the award/medal could not be called/designated in more accurate terms as the “Re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate” Medal… So better to have sent in the Girl Scouts - as things would have ended up basically the same as they have, except perhaps with less loss of innocent life. Anyway, it’s is also off of my uniform forever. My only desire is that in some very small way it may help people to become aware...