Posted on 07/12/2004 5:41:36 AM PDT by presidio9
Hillary Clinton just may be one of the most complex and controversial women in our country. But love her or hate her, the former first lady turned U.S. senator is considered by many a serious contender for the presidency, perhaps as early as 2008.
Christopher Anderson talks about her path to power in his latest book, "American Evita."
Although the news is all about the Kerry-Edwards ticket, Andersen tells The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm, Hillary Clinton is still the best known Democrat in the country. And he notes, “Though there’s a need on the part of the Clintons to look as if they back this ticket, there’s no way they can really want John Kerry to win, because that would mean she’d be stymied for the next eight years in her presidential quest.”
Former President Clinton suggested she run as Kerry’s running mate, Andersen says.
“Bill Clinton told his wife, this is your best chance. They assumed that the Democrats wouldn’t have much of a chance of winning. As the poll numbers improved for John Kerry, Bill Clinton tried to convince his wife to go for it,” Andersen says. “Publicly, he said she’d make a wonderful addition to the ticket.”
But that would have meant for Kerry to be overshadowed by Sen. Clinton.
But her time will come, Andersen says, pointing out, “When they first met in the ‘70s, Hillary was the one with the promise. Bill knew it. He wanted her to pursue her own career. She decided to put it on hold with the understanding that eventually, she would have her day in the sun. The roles would flip. In essence, she was co-president for eight years. I talk about the extent to which she had influence on domestic and foreign policy in the White House.”
Read an excerpt from “American Evita: Hillary Clinton's Path to Power"
Chapter One
The White House Friday, January 19, 2001
Hillary Clinton was furious. Furious at the U.S. Supreme Court for handing the presidency to George W. Bush. Furious at George W. Bush for pushing his obvious advantage in Florida (where his brother was governor) to wrest control of that state's decisive electoral votes, and furious at Al Gore for blaming his defeat on the Clintons' own scandal-stained reputation.
In these waning days of their administration, the one person she was not furious at -- for a change -- was her husband. Throughout their marriage, it had always been Bill who screwed up and Hillary who came to the rescue. She had chosen to overlook his myriad past indiscretions as governor of Arkansas, and during their eight years in the White House stood squarely with Bill in the face of Whitewater and Travelgate and Filegate and Vince Foster and Paula Jones and the mother of all Clinton scandals, Monicagate. Hillary, in fact, went far beyond merely standing by her man. It was the First Lady who confronted each crisis head-on, master minding legal strategies and mounting counterattacks to debunk charges and discredit those with the audacity to have made them.
Now it was Bill's turn, and he did not have to be told what was expected of him. For years, White House staffers had been murmuring about "The Plan," the long-standing agreement that, once the Clintons left the White House, they would reverse roles: in return for all the sacrifices Hillary had made over the years -- all the dreams and ambitions put on hold, not to mention the heartache and searing humiliation she had had to endure because of his rampant womanizing -- Bill would throw himself behind his wife's political career. If all went according to The Plan, he would return to the White House as America's first First Gentleman. Hillary had already taken a step toward making The Plan a reality; just sixteen days earlier, she had been sworn in as the junior United States senator from New York -- the only First Lady ever elected to office.
It would be hard to overstate the potential historic significance of The Plan. After all, only the first half had been implemented thus far. If all went according to schedule, Hillary would serve two terms in the White House -- a combined total of sixteen years during which the Clintons would share power in the Oval Office. That would far outdistance the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, who was elected to serve sixteen years but died after twelve. Constitutionally, there was nothing to prohibit a continuation of the informal, his-and-hers "co-presidency" the Clintons had always practiced.
In the meantime, there were some pressing issues to contend with -- foremost among them the President's eleventh-hour deal to avoid prosecution in the Monica Lewinsky case. In secret meetings with independent counsel Robert W. Ray, Bill had hammered out an arrangement whereby he would admit to wrongdoing, pay a $25,000 fine, and agree to have his Arkansas law license suspended for five years. Hillary worked with her husband on characteristically contorted wording of his so-called confession. "I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely," he admitted, "but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish this goal and that certain of my responses to question about Ms. Lewinsky were false."
Neither Hillary nor Bill gave the slightest indication that, behind closed doors at the White House, they had been negotiating with Ray for weeks in a desperate effort to stave off indictment. During that time, Hillary and Bill had smiled gamely through countless farewell parties, pumped the hands of hundreds of staff member and supporters, and churned out a steady stream of heartfelt thank-you notes. Tonight, their last in the White House, they would drag themselves to one last, emotion-charged function -- this one an engagement party for her longtime press aide Kelly Craighead. "He could barely stand up, he looked so tired," said a guest. "But Hillary, even though she had bags under her eyes and had been working just as hard as he had, well, she looked energized."
Hillary looked so energized, in fact, that when several aides fantasized about playing some sort of practical joke on "W" and his incoming administration, Hillary nodded her approval. "Wouldn't it be hysterical," she said with a wry smile, "if someone just happened to remove all the w's from the computer keyboards?" Taking Hillary at her word, outgoing staffers dashed from office to office plucking the offending w keys from scores of keyboards. Others went much further, pouring coffee into file cabinets overturning desks, leaving X-rated messages on voice-mail machines, soiling carpets, tinkering with computers, and drawing obscene pictures on office walls. (Unlike Hillary, Tipper Gore would later apologize for the vandalism of government property and the disrespect shown toward the incoming president and his family.)
While younger staffers carried out what they believed to be the First Lady's wishes, Bill, who had insisted on packing up the Oval Office himself, raced to meet the deadline. Hillary, as organized and punctual as her husband was chronically tardy (for eight years the administration ran on what was derisively known as "Clinton time"), spent what little time remained walking the halls of the residence. The walls leading to the third-floor solarium, a glassed-in room on the south side of the building, were papered with framed family photographs: a tutu-wearing Chelsea fresh after her performance in The Nutcracker, the Clintons sitting at a picnic table, Hillary and Chelsea sharing a hammock. Hillary looked out over the pink geraniums on the terrace, toward the Washington Monument. Next to Chelsea's Beanie Baby collection were several colorfully painted Russian nesting dolls, each fashioned in the image of the Reagans, Bushes, and the Clintons ...
Another case of selective dyslexia by the liberal media. She's actually the "American Eva," as in Braun - the "IT" simply refers to her gender.
We, the American patriots who love this country, didn't do anything...the Clintons and their minions are trying desperately and (at times successfully) to impose socialism on this country...and the Clintons feel it is their duty to tell the rest of us what to do...(albeit Kerry-Edwards).....and broadcasting their propaganda of the "two Americas" to the masses is just the tip of the ice berg....be smart and keep alert.
Is Madonna going to play Hitlery in th movie?
We committed the crume of forgetting who we are as Americans and what it is that we're supposed to stand for.
Kind of like the Israelites in the desert who, after being freed from 400 years of Egyptian captivity, denied God and instead began worshipping the golden calf, all the while clamoring for a return to the security of Egypt rather than face the uncertainties of liberty.
Well, let's see:
Evita started out peddling her tail to stay afloat while looking for a man whose coattails to ride to the top, and turned into a leftist on the way.
There are parallels.
Many Americans didn't thunk....
She will be too old and probably have health problems by then.
Socialism had already been imposed upon our country by FDR and later by JFK and especially LBJ. Cahter did his part too. All the Clintons did was to refine it and try to make it into a true socialistic country like those in Europe. The Nanny State is up and running, thanks to RATs and Kerry wants to continue the trend, but making it worse by handing sovereignty to the UN. The RATs must be defeated at every level. They are like cucurachas..they never quite go away.
Actually, I see her as the American EVIL....
Eva came from among the poor, and eanrestly sought her entire life to aid the poor, using free-market ideas remarkably similar to President Bush's 1000 points of light. Her country was runied because the socialist British news agencies equated her politics with Fascism, because they had sided with Franco in the Spanish Civil War. She did marry a President and shared in his power, but largely because she helped build him: She created a nation-wide movement to win his release from prison, using her fame to turn him into a national hero. The Rockefellers and Kennedys of her day despised her, so they protrayed her a slut
But of all the virtues she had, there was one trait which it is tempting to wish Hillary also had: a short life.
If we equate populism and concern for the poor with leftism, all is lost.
She was a staunch defender of Marcos against the Communists;
She appealed to the charity of the wealthy, rather than using the state to rob them of their wealth.
She defended her nation against left-wing insurrectionists.
This is why Oliver Stone hates her so much.
Yet another reason to grieve the tragic passing of Barbara Olsen, author of "Hell to Pay."
"What did we do ? What crime did we commit, to deserve the Clintons ?"
Ross Perot (although I was not personally involved)
Isn't it amusing what 10 minutes with google and photoshop can do?
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