My Buddy Bill [Clinton smokes hash in Amsterdam, Hillary, and more in a new play about the ex-prez]

The Hollywood Reporter ^ | Nov. 23, 2005 | Jay Reiner

[summer]

Rick Cleveland tells Bill Clinton stories in his one-man show.

Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse, Westwood, CA
Through Dec. 18

Bottom line: A must-see, must-hear show to open the fine new second space at the Geffen.

What is it like to pal around with Bill Clinton? Rick Cleveland gives us the skinny in "My Buddy Bill," a fascinating and finely executed one-man show based on Cleveland's friendship with the former president.

The friendship is over now, for reasons that become clear in the evening's most revealing episode. But no matter what you might have thought of Clinton going in, you're going to understand him much better on the way out.

Cleveland met Clinton in 2000 when, as one of several writers on "The West Wing," he was taking a tour of the White House. When Clinton's dog Buddy peed on the rug in the Oval Office, Cleveland, who knows a lot about dogs, gave the president an impromptu lesson in dog behavior. It turned out that the two had things other than dogs in common, both having had alcoholic fathers and a "white trash" background to overcome.

It also is clear that Cleveland is a pretty easy guy to like. He's a folksy sort with a dry wit, a laid back manner and an impish glint in his eye. Imagine a grown-up Huck Finn rafting down the Potomac and you can see why Clinton was drawn to him.

Cleveland's stories are chock-full of intimate details and amusing enough to tickle the most demanding funnybone. There was the time he was invited to Arkansas and winds up jamming, drinking beer and playing Trivial Pursuit with Clinton, his strange brother Roger and Billy Bob Thornton. We're also told about a trip to Amsterdam where Clinton, Christopher Walken and Cleveland smoke some very good hash in a stoner bar and Bill, perhaps under the influence because he definitely inhales, has some intriguing things to say about Monica Lewinsky, Sharon Stone, Ann Coulter and other topics of interest.

But of all the people we meet, including Clinton, no one is quite so ... um, commanding as Hillary. We first meet Hillary at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica where Bill and Rick are double-dating with their respective wives. The Clintons arrive late and obviously have been fighting on the way over, so the dinner has the feel of low-level warfare with lots of sniping and an occasional ambush. One thing is crystal clear: Bill Clinton is not the same person with Hillary around that he is when she's not around.

Hillary, it seems, is not only "watching me like a hawk," as Bill puts it at one point, but she has someone else watching her fun-loving husband. Based on what happens next, one is forced to conclude that one, Bill Clinton would not have become president if not for Hillary; two, Bill Clinton would not have continued to be president if not for Hillary; and three, Bill Clinton owes Hillary Rodham big time for what she has done for him, and she has her own ways and reasons for collecting on that debt, not all of them pretty.

Is Cleveland telling the truth? He does his best in the show's final moments to sow some doubt in our minds, but most of what he says rings true. Completely true or not, though, it's a delicious show to sit through, subtly written, humorously delivered and skillfully directed by Peter Birkenhead for maximum effect.

A final note: This is the debut production of the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the newly remodeled Geffen Playhouse. It's a warm, intimate second space certain to find much use in years to come. The opening piece is a corker.

MY BUDDY BILL
Presented by the Geffen Playhouse
Credits:
Written and performed by Rick Cleveland
Director: Peter Birkenhead
Set designer: Karyl Newman
Dramaturg: Mary Cleveland

[Mia T]

Note the venue....

CLINTON BIRDS, RAPES AND DAVID GEFFEN....

Hillary, it seems, is not only "watching me like a hawk," as Bill puts it at one point,

Having failed to snare the Nobel Peace Prize by ignoring terrorism, clinton has apparently decided to intensify his America-bashing on foreign soil, the method employed by Jimmy Carter to great (if somewhat belated) effect: Carter received his 1978 Peace Prize in 2002.

Meanwhile, back in the Senate, the missus, the other half of the clinton construct, maintains her hawkish pose (though not without bird problems of another sort).

Yet another example of the clinton conflation ploy, (see SCHEMA PINOCCHIO: how the clintons are handling the hillary dud factor), this variant allows "clinton, the construct" to hold two mutually exclusive positions simultaneously, thereby enabling the missus to avoid in '08 the trap that repeatedly ensnared the ever 'nuanced' Kerry in '04.

Do you now understand how stupid the clintons think you are?

A CALL TO IMPEACH CLINTON IN ABSENTIA
Mia T, 11.17.05

REINVENTING HILLARY... AGAIN
(clinton machine dumps Geena Davis for Margaret Thatcher)
how the clintons are handling the hillary dud factor₂
Mia T, 11.23.05

(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)

Clinton Administration Veteran:
"Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life."

My two cents' worth--and I think it is the two cents' worth of everybody who worked for the Clinton Administration health care reform effort of 1993-1994--is that Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life. Heading up health-care reform was the only major administrative job she has ever tried to do. And she was a complete flop at it. She had neither the grasp of policy substance, the managerial skills, nor the political smarts to do the job she was then given. And she wasn't smart enough to realize that she was in over her head and had to get out of the Health Care Czar role quickly.... there is no reason to think that she would be anything but an abysmal president.

J. Bradford DeLong
professor of economics, Berkeley
clinton Administration veteran

ARTICLE

 

but she has someone else watching her fun-loving husband.

Based on what happens next, one is forced to conclude that one, Bill Clinton would not have become president if not for Hillary;

The clintons, as is their wont, are now taking this proxy scheme to even more outrageous extremes. The latest: an actual hillary clinton proxy presidency, populated on both sides of the camera by assorted rodham and clinton ex-staffers, sycophants and should-be felons, witness the latest hire.

'Commander-in-Chief,' a show that sets out to crown a 'queen,' instead exposes the kitschy simplemindedness of Hollywood fantasy and the special sway and shortsightedness of the pathologic ego.

Mia T, 10.27.05
THE DANGER OF RUNNING VICARIOUSLY
Bill O'Reilly chews up and spits out the hillary clinton candidacy
(clip included)

two, Bill Clinton would not have continued to be president if not for Hillary;

 

The Wall Street Journal

EDITORIAL
October 18, 2000

Did he rape that woman, Juanita Broaddrick?

thanx to WorkingClassFilth for the video
special thanx to Jim Robinson

The closest... Clinton has ever come to answering allegations... he raped an Arkansas woman in 1978 is a distance measurable only in light-years.

After Juanita Broaddrick made the accusation in 1999, [Clinton]'s attorney, David Kendall, alone answered, saying any such charges were "absolutely false."

Of course, attorney Robert Bennett believed... Clinton when he said he hadn't had sex with Monica Lewinsky and defended the president then on no toss sturdy grounds.

Thus while lawyers can spare Mr. Clinton awkward moments at the podium in which he has to say, "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" or "I did not fondle that woman, Kathleen Wlley" or "I did not rape that woman, Mrs. Broaddrick," their comments are, in effect, non-denial denials.

Given the silence from the West Wing, Mrs. Broaddrick this week sought answers from Hillary Clinton, whose telescopic feminism apparently sees injustice to women everywhere except the kind which occurs closer to home.

In a letter to Mrs. Clinton recalling their meeting shortly after the reported assault occurred, she wondered about the significance of Mrs. Clinton's words to her at that time. Thank you, Mrs. Broaddrick says Mrs. Clinton told her, for "everything you do for Bill."

"What did you mean, Hillary?" her letter continued. "Were you referring to my keeping quiet about the assault I had suffered at the hands of your husband only two weeks before? Were you warning me to keep quiet?"

The not-so-subtle implication of the letter is that Mrs. Clinton is, in fact, her husband's enabler. Dealing with her husband's promiscuity and worse might keep her from dealing with the important issues facing the people of New York, namely her candidacy. One might call it a Faustian bargain except that even Mephistopheles might not lower himself to sign such a deal....

EXCERPT
COMPLETE ARTICLE

 

and three, Bill Clinton owes Hillary Rodham big time for what she has done for him,

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.

G. K. Chesterton

Reviews of "Commander-in-Chief" mislead; they suggest that this new ABC offering, this electuary of suds and psychologizing, is optional for missus clinton, that Rod Lurie's latest clinton agitprop is nothing more than the icing on missus clinton's inaugural cake.

The reviews miss the point of the show, (i.e., the show is not optional but necessary (though hardly sufficient) if clinton is to prevail), because the reviews fail to identify missus clinton's problem in the first place. And circular reasoning compounds the error.

THE PROBLEM

While America appears not to be ready for a female president under any circumstances, the post-9/11 realities pose special problems for a female presidential candidate. Add to these the problems unique to missus clinton. The reviews make the mistake of focusing on the problems of the generic female presidential candidate running during ordinary times.

These are not ordinary times. America is waging the global War on Terror; the uncharted territory of asymmetric netherworlds is the battlefield; the enemy is brutal, subhuman; the threat of global conflagration is real.

Defeating the enemy on the battlefield isn't sufficient. For America to prevail, she must also defeat a retrograde, misogynous, troglodyte mindset. To successfully prosecute the War on Terror, it is essential that the collective patriarchal islamic culture perceives America as politically and militarily strong. Condi Rice excepted, this requirement presents an insurmountable hurdle for any female presidential candidate, and especially missus clinton, historically antimilitary, forever the pitiful victim, and, according to Dick Morris, "the biggest dove in the clinton administration."

It is ironic that had the clintons not failed utterly to fight terrorism... not failed to take bin Laden from Sudan... not failed repeatedly to decapitate a nascent, still stoppable al Qaeda... the generic female president as a construct would still be viable... missus clinton's obstacles would be limited largely to standard-issue clintonisms: corruption, abuse, malpractice, malfeasance, megalomania, rape and treason... and, in spite of Juanita Broaddrick, or perhaps because of her, Rod Lurie would be reduced to perversely hawking the "First Gentleman" instead of the "Commander-in-Chief."

Mia T, 10.02.05
HILLARY'S COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF PROBLEM
COMPLETE ARTICLE
see descriptor morphs

Mia T, 11.23.05
REINVENTING HILLARY... AGAIN
(clinton machine dumps Geena Davis for Margaret Thatcher)
how the clintons are handling the hillary dud factor₂

and she has her own ways and reasons for collecting on that debt, not all of them pretty....

(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)

A final note: This is the debut production of the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the newly remodeled Geffen Playhouse. It's a warm, intimate second space certain to find much use in years to come. The opening piece is a corker.

GEFFEN UNLOADS ON HILLARY: 'SHE CAN'T WIN'

DRUDGE REPORT
Thu Feb 17 2005 23:13:00 ET

Sen. Hillary Clinton should not count on help from Hollywood mogul David Geffen in her possible run for the White House.

Geffen, who was a generous supporter and pal of Bill Clinton when he was president, trashed Hillary's prospects last night during a Q&A at the 92nd St. Y in New York City.

"She can't win, and she's an incredibly polarizing figure," the billionaire Democrat told his audience. "And ambition is just not a good enough reason."

Lloyd Grove reports in fresh editions of the NY DAILY NEWS the audience broke with "hearty applause" over Geffen's comments.

Developing...

MY BUDDY BILL

Presented by the Geffen Playhouse

(Dowd discusses Geffen's opinion of hillary, the candidate.)
HEAR CHRIS MATTHEWS + MAUREEN DOWD DEVOUR HILLARY

(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)

Hillary Clinton?
Who would even know her name were it not for her attachment to a man?

Thank you, Gavin McNett, for your tribute to the incomparable Tammy Wynette. (TAMMY WYNETTE, 1942-1998)

Too many pundits, usually leftist and privileged, sneer at country music. To these critics, any music created by poor, Southern whites (at least those poor, Southern whites who didn't attend an Ivy League university) must be held in contempt, along with its correlatives: incest, racism and trailer parks.

Hillary Clinton? Who would even know her name were it not for her attachment to a man? Where would she be now if she as a child had to pick cotton from sun up to sun down?

Tammy Wynette stands alone, a legend; and she will be admired wherever people appreciate the honesty of the human experience. Human beings are vulnerable. We all should be thankful to any artist courageous enough to bare her soul on the public stage so the rest of us who are listening and know whereof she speaks might benefit.

Sean Smith
Fresno, Calif.
Salon.com

COPYRIGHT MIA T 2005

[Mia T]

"What the hell is this moribund loser doing in the political arena anyway?"

Rick Cleveland is explaining this aberrant result to the rest of the world. (We here at FR already knew....)

[summer]

Re your post # 40 - Hildy, I see your point, but, I don't know that I can agree with you, since she hasn't done such a great job of controlling him!

[Hildy]

But she controls him by having these "threats" over his head. The best way of control...The best line a control feak has in their bag of tricks is "I CAN MAKE OR BREAK YOU." She let him get just so far...far enough that she had things on him that could use when necessary. The one thing she couldn't have known about was that famous blue dress.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Funny.

You'd think somebody in the MSM would have commented on Billy Bob Clinton's dog getting caught peeing in the Oval Orifice carpet. (Er, office.)

Oh. Yeah. They would have (like they showed that note to Condi!) if it were Bush's dog peeing the Oval Office............

[Mia T]

HILLARY!??
WHAT IS THIS MORIBUND LOSER DOING IN THE POLITICAL ARENA, ANYWAY?
(bill's bud explains)

[wildwood]

I wouldn't expect that there is a single thing in this play that Bill or Hillary doesn't want there. I

possible, but i have been hearing national rumbles every now and then from people who are afraid of a hillary presidential run; she is too polemical, they say, and i think they would like a prettier face, as it were.

i have heard numerous folks, even liberals, say they will not vote for her. not exactly sure why. but who knows?

[onyx]

God bless your Father --- brilliant man. I wish I could have known him.

[oyez]

LOL...c'mon, this is America, where anyone can achieve their dreams! :)

Or be a nightmare.

[okie01]

But she's probably wished she married someone else.

A normal person would, of course.

But Hillary is not what you and I would call normal. Instead, she has gotten what she wanted from the marriage: power.

Had she married someone else, she might not have had the opportunity to exercise power as "first wife" nor emerge as a legitimate candidate for the Presidency in her own right.

[Doe Eyes]

A preemptive statement about it, if you will.

Would you apply the same logic to our current President?

[summer]

she has gotten what she wanted from the marriage: power.

Yes, you're right.

However, what do you think her life would have been like had she not married Bill Clinton? I tend to think she would have still become a lawyer, and entered politics. Perhaps she would not have landed in the White House with him, but on the other hand -- maybe she would have married someone else who would have gotten there.

I really think that is why a lot of women do respect her, even though I, too, have heard rumblings against her from her own party. She did not exactly sit around and do nothing her whole life, and just shop or whatever. Some political wives seem to do exactly that and little else, unless their political husbands tell them to do something else. So, I think Hillary is a legitimate candidate in her own right, even though yes, she got a lot of help from her husband along the way. But she might have made it anyway.

And, she made mistakes, yes, and bad decisions -- but I still think she would have somehow found her way into the political and public arena, with or without Bill Clinton. And that's not easy for any woman to do in this country, of any party.

By the way, I also think Condi Rice would be a great president or vice president, and Condi could win an elected office. Finally, I am ready to see a qualified woman run this country. Not every voter feels that way, but I really do.

[okie01]

And, she made mistakes, yes, and bad decisions -- but I still think she would have somehow found her way into the political and public arena, with or without Bill Clinton.

Bill never would have made it without her driving him. By the same token, I rather doubt anybody else would have let her drive him. From Hillary's standpoint, it's been a perfect marriage (or, more accurately, "arrangement").

By the way, I also think Condi Rice would be a great president or vice president, and Condi could win an elected office. Finally, I am ready to see a qualified woman run this country. Not every voter feels that way, but I really do.

I think Condi has the stuff to be a fabulous President. The only worry I have is that she has never before run for public office. Campaigning might be foreign to her.

There is absolutely no reason women can't be effective leaders. The three most successful British leaders might easily be Queen Elizabeth I, Winston Churchill and Lady Thatcher.

[summer]

There is absolutely no reason women can't be effective leaders

Very true. But it seems politics can get really nasty. I think that's why some very qualified women (and probably some very qualified men) stay away.

[okie01]

Meanwhile, women like Louisiana's Blank-o give women in politics a bad name.

[Dog Gone]

I would love to see this play. Hope you had a great Turkey Day!

[pinz-n-needlez]

I am a total cynic skeptic where Hillary's concerned, way beyond tinfoil I admit. :-/

I seem to recall a lot of efforts to downplay their expectations when she started her 'listening tour' running for the Senate. I smell more manipulation with those reports in the media.

Who the he!! runs for state-wide office with a Listening Tour??? Anyone else would have to campaign. Her people invent new words as window dressing for her budding dictatorship.

I gave up alcohol as an offering to support President Bush for the duration of his term. An Act of Commission to draw more grace to him. I may never crawl out of a liquor bottle if her efforts are successful. :-( I wish I could find a nice calm place in my heart to abserve the '08 elections. I'm not very optimistic about finding it.

Even my lib friends say they hate her, and would never vote for her, but I wonder if they're just seeing how upset she makes me. ;-)

I sure hope you're right.

Pinz

[Feiny]

I am planning to go on Wednesday. It sounds like a very funny play.

[Jackknife]

[summer]

Oh, good. Post on the thread if you have a chance, and tell us how you liked it! I'm wondering if someone will buy the script and make it into a movie, like Swimming to Cambodia, also a one-man play.