Posted on 05/23/2006 7:13:43 PM PDT by Mia T
SUSAN ESTRICH ON "DREDGING UP" THE RAPE OF JUANITA BROADDRICK + "ALL THAT OLD CLINTON STUFF"
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Unfortunately for the clintons, reprising this old-news "old news" defense serves only to remind us that the clintons and their transparent schemes are, themselves, old news.2
QUINTESSENTIAL CLINTON ILLOGIC
When Estrich argues that missus clinton will benefit from an electorate increasingly ignorant of the clintons' sorry legacy, she has it exactly backwards.
With 100% name recognition and at most 10% corruption-failure recognition, missus clinton's numbers have only one way to go.
And it ain't up.3
Estrich's error is rooted in the assumption that ignorance in certain segments of the population is immutable. (The perpetual welfare state, contradictorily, is the fallacious and self-fulfilling endpoint of such thinking.)
So why is Susan Estrich making such a transparently spurious and insulting argument? She isn't that dumb.
For the same reason Harold Ickes is fulminating on C-SPAN.
The election of 2004 confirmed missus clinton's worst fears:
The white woman, the only real swing voter, the demographic the Democrats MUST get in order to win the White House, has turned red.
The clintons' triple rape of Juanita Broaddrick4 and their willful, self-serving utter failure to confront terrorism are the one-two punch that has the potential to knock the clintons off the public stage.... For good.... And for The Good.
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1.
The Trouble With Hillary
The right believes she's a liberal under her newly centrist skin; the left doesn't know who she is. And everyone wonders if she can win.
Conservatives have a recurring nightmare. President Clinton&emdash;that's Hillary Clinton&emdash;having spent more than a decade building a protective centrist cocoon in preparation for her successful presidential run, emerges in her first 100 days as the proud liberal they always knew she was. Old friends like Lani Guinier are consulting on policy; Barbara Ehrenreich spends a night in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Democrats have their own Hillary nightmare. It begins on a frigid Monday night in January 2008. The Iowa caucuses have just ended, and the results are as clear as the stars in the blue-black midwestern sky. Hillary Clinton 43 percent, and the other candidates far behind. Her closest competitor, Wesley Clark, manages to get only 17 percent of the vote; Mark Warner receives an even more anemic 14 percent.
From there, it's on to a big win in New Hampshire and the kind of momentum that feeds on itself. Hillary raises record-breaking amounts of money, inspires armies of volunteers. She sails through the convention on the shoulders of a unified, focused party. But as the campaign unfolds, dark clouds appear. Despite the enthusiasm surrounding her historic candidacy, Hillary can't seem to get over 50 percent in the polls.
She campaigns like the seasoned veteran she is, disciplined and on message, drawing huge crowds wherever she goes. It is a near-flawless, if heavily scripted, effort, directed by the party's most astute strategist&emdash;her husband. But in the end, it's just not enough to overcome her negatives. On Election Day, she loses the popular vote by three points and the electoral-vote count, in essence, by the state of Ohio. The Democrats have managed to blow it again.
Beneath Hillary Clinton's bland midwestern exterior is a figure of vast mystery. Is she a leftist? A New Democrat? A ruthless Lady Macbeth who believes only in her own power? Her self-discipline, a political asset in many ways, carries a cost. There can be something inhuman about her, something hard to love, even for those who share most of her stated political beliefs.
"I meet people all the time who say, 'I just don't like Hillary,' " says Susan Estrich, longtime Democratic strategist and author of The Case for Hillary Clinton. "But I've learned not to fight with them. I smile and say, 'Well, you go vote for a pro-life, pro-war, pro-gun, anti-environment conservative. Enjoy yourself.' In the end, people have to make a choice, and a lot of people who'll say they don't like her will end up voting for her."
Those on the right, of course, have more biting ideas on these questions. "I think Bill has always been protected by the attractiveness of his personality," says David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "Even people who believe he's a fundamentally amoral person can't help but be charmed by his scampish exterior. She, on the other hand, is such a scolding presence. He's Tom Jones, she's Blifil."
"Let's face it, all Bill wanted to do was get laid," says David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union for the past 25 years. "He was a politician who wanted to be president so he could be Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a politician with a mission. She is smart, focused, devious, and disingenuous. Hillary is a left-wing Democrat, a collectivist, who is hostile to most of the values we conservatives hold dear."
Then there's the spectacular weirdness of her marriage, the pain she must have suffered over Monica Lewinsky, and the way she endured it for the sake of both of their political futures. "Most women questioned why she stuck it out," Estrich says. "Is she madly in love with him, or is it the power thing? Most believe it was ambition. But at this point, after 9/11 and terrorism, the whole Monica Lewinsky thing is almost laughable. And now that he's had heart trouble and he looks so frail, he seems much less like the playboy."
As a strategist and campaigner, Bill Clinton is undoubtedly a huge asset. But the nature of their relationship is liable to be a factor in the campaign in unexpected ways. There are always rumors swirling around Bill and possible extracurricular activity. The Democrats' biggest worry is that if a problem should arise, it will be too late to do anything about it. "I had a long talk with him last fall," Estrich says, "and he told me he wouldn't be the one to cause a problem. If she runs, his problems won't get in her way."
Hillary's huge fund-raising advantage and the stature gap between her and her Democratic opponents make her a prohibitive early favorite in the primaries. But polls show that, as a national candidate, her support tops out somewhere in the mid-forties. Worse, because she is so well known, there are almost no undecideds. "There is real concern among certain Democrats that she simply can't win the general election," says Steve Jarding, who played a key role in getting Mark Warner elected governor of Virginia.
Competing against Hillary in the primaries is a delicate matter. "The conventional wisdom says that to beat Hillary Clinton, you've got to beat her up," says Jarding, co-author of the just-published Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run 'Em Out. "But I don't believe that. You have to show that you can beat her by beating everyone else. You've got to separate yourself from the pack, and you have to beat these second-tier guys, if you want to get to Hillary."
Then, if needed, there will be an alternative. "If there are enough Democratic leaders who fear Hillary Clinton as a candidate, then they better step up to the plate and say, 'We love Hillary, we love the Clintons, we just don't think she can win, and we've collectively gotten behind candidate X.' "
The vast right-wing conspiracy Hillary spoke of is not currently much of a conspiracy&emdash;it's more like a lucrative cottage industry. In addition to the Websites and the novelty items like T-shirts, bumper stickers, and playing cards, there are huge consulting fees, expensive direct-mail campaigns, and an endless stream of serious, slanderous, humorous, and ponderous books.
Just published is I've Always Been a Yankees Fan: Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words, by Tom Kuiper. Coming in the next few months are books by John Podhoretz (Can She Be Stopped?: Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States, Unless . . .) and David Horowitz and Richard Poe (The Shadow Party: How Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and the Sixties Left Took Over the Democratic Party).
There are a few dedicated Websites like StopHerNow.com and StopHillaryPac.com, a couple of blogs, and the odd event here and there like last summer's publication of The Truth About Hillary, Ed Klein's embarrassingly lame, sleazy attempt to eviscerate her. (Throughout the book, he refers to her as "the Big Girl" and tries to portray her as a lesbian based on the fact that she's had close friends and aides who were gay.)
And there is a steady, low hum of harsh, thinly sourced anti-Hillary stories that serve almost as background music on right-wing Websites like Newsmax.com, WorldNetDaily.com, and RightWingNews.com. Though there is no formal structure to the anti-Hillary movement, no vast right-wing conspiracy, what gives it cohesion is that many of the key characters pop up again and again. NewsMax, for example, is funded by conservative donor Richard Mellon Scaife, a veteran of the Clinton wars.
The site is run by Chris Ruddy, who worked for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which is owned by Scaife. Ruddy, a longtime Clinton antagonist who wrote The Strange Death of Vince Foster, has for years promoted bizarre conspiracy theories claiming, among other things, that Foster and Clinton administration Commerce secretary Ron Brown were murdered. StopHerNow.com, essentially a fund-raising vehicle that has so far failed to raise any real money, was the brainchild of the hermitlike Republican political consultant Arthur Finkelstein.
The Clintons are among the most vilified and investigated politicians in American history. Having withstood every conceivable attack, Hillary can't be Swift-Boated. She is the indestructible political equivalent of one of those horror-movie villains like Freddy or Jason&emdash;she gets hacked, stabbed, shot, and set on fire, and she still keeps coming.
Most surprisingly, many leading conservative activists&emdash;politically muscular, testosterone-laden tough guys&emdash;are afraid of her. They seem to be more convinced of her viability as a national candidate than are some members of her own party.
"She's an articulate socialist who'll go to great lengths to get power, to hold power, and to destroy those who stand in her way," says conservative activist Richard Viguerie. "A lot of us remember the conservative organizations that were audited by the IRS during their eight years in the White House. She scares the dickens out of us."
But it goes even further. There is a commonly held belief that for eight years, Hillary was the wizard standing behind the curtain pushing all the buttons. "During his presidency," Keene says, "she was seen as the evil genius. The attack dogs, the Sidney Blumenthals, were Hillary's friends, not his. She's the tough, no-holds-barred ideological fighter who has demonstrated over time she'll stop at nothing to get her enemies."
The Republicans' fear of Hillary is a testament to how successful she's been in softening her sharp edges and moving to the center. As a senator, Clinton has been collegial and conciliatory, working respectfully even with politicians who tried to run her husband out of town. And polls now show that the more exposure people have to her, the more positive their view. She has made joint appearances with Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Bill Frist, and Lindsey Graham. Clinton has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq, has talked about the evils of illegal immigration, and has even lowered the volume on her normally high-decibel pro-choice advocacy, calling abortion a "tragic choice to many, many women."
"I think she's nailed it beautifully," says Dick Morris, Post columnist, Fox News analyst, and the hardest-working man in the Clinton-bashing business (the latest of his one-a-year anti-Clinton books is called Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race). "Her strategy at the moment is just what it should be: move to the middle and be tough on terror."
Many on the right are not buying it. "What was her epiphany? What eye-opening experience did she have?" Viguerie asks. "It's all so calculating, so Machiavellian."
Clinton's rebranding is working so well that she has been getting criticized by the left for her support of the war and other centrist positions. Any rocks thrown at her by the left, however, only serve to bolster her sought-after credentials as a moderate. Most Republicans believe, however, that when it counts, her claim on the left wing of the Democratic Party is unimpeachable.
The freedom to take your base of support for granted is so important because of the way the numbers add up in a national race. Current conventional wisdom is that American voters are more or less evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans: 43 to 45 percent are firmly committed, no matter who's running. The real battle is for the undecided 10 to 15 percent in the middle.
It's this simple math that has begun to make the right crazy. "She doesn't have to fool conservatives with this new, more reasonable posture," says Keene. "She only has to convince 7 percent of those undecided voters that she's sincere."
Estrich, for one, thinks the right should be concerned. "I was followed around on my book tour by people who'd hold up signs and scream at me, 'What about Juanita Broaddrick?' And all the younger people would look at me and say, 'Who's that?' That's part of the problem with dredging up all that old Clinton stuff. More and more people have no idea what you're talking about."
Hillary's candidacy would be a real test of whether people are ready to vote for a woman. "Opinion data show that Americans want to believe they're ready," says Ruth Mandel, head of the Eagleton Institute. "Most people, when asked, tell pollsters they would vote for a woman. But when asked if they think their neighbor would, the number drops dramatically. The first answer is the socially acceptable one."
But finally, there is the matter of Hillary herself. It's true that the scandals of the nineties no longer have the power to hurt her. It's people's perception of her as a calculating, triangulating political android&emdash;supporting the war, speaking against abortion, sidling up to Gingrich and Murdoch, smiling that smile. We've known her a long time&emdash;but who is she now? That we still don't know makes everybody nuts.
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This is HARDBALL on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[NOTE: My comments in blue.]
MATTHEWS: We're back with Anne Kornblut of "The New York Times" and Dana Milbank of "The Washington Post." Let's talk about Gotham's candidates for president.
First, Rudolph Giuliani, the pro-choice, pro-gay rights, former mayor spent today, or the day in Orlando speaking to a conference of Evangelicals.
Dana, he's up to it, isn't he? This is below the radar. This is Rudy campaigning for president in the south.
MILBANK: This is about as convincing as Jerry Falwell at the gay pride parade.
MATTHEWS: You don't buy this?
MILBANK: Well, he can try to do it. But, look, he faces an awful uphill battle in winning over the typical Republican voter in a primary. Now, if the election was fought on national security, he is fine. But he's never going to convince them that he is one of them, that he is a religious conservative.
KORNBLUT: Right and not only that, but he's going to be in a death struggle with John McCain for the exact same constituency.
MATTHEWS: Let me tell you something. I'll say it here a thousand time. Watch Rudolph Giuliani. Watch him. Security is the issue in this country. Whoever is the next president is going to be seen as more on the ball than even this president on security and terrorism. This country is not going sort on terrorism. We are going to get smarter on it is my hunch.
And Rudy is the guy to do it. And he can be an SOB in many ways. But this country may really want an SOB, a really tough cop as the next president. So watch Rudy, I'm saying it.
Now here is Hillary Clinton, that other New Yorker in the subway series. A new Gallup poll just came out. "USA TODAY" Gallup poll, it shows that 16 percent say that they'll definitely vote for Hillary right now, 32 percent say they might vote for her.
But here's the dagger in the back. Fifty-one percent say they would definitely not vote for Hillary Clinton already the campaign hasn't begun.
KORNBLUT: I mean, this is exactly what Democrats are worried about is that already people have made up their minds. I would argue, I guess, that it is awfully early. We all know how early it is to be talking about this.
MATTHEWS: Definitely.
KORNBLUT: Definitely? What does definitely mean? [Definitely means DEFINITELY.] You know, you would have to see how is the question exactly phrased, all that stuff. It is early. [Actually Anne, it is late. In fact, it is too late. The country knows exactly who this woman is, Anne.]
MATTHEWS: But there's lot of tooth behind that. If somebody tells a pollster, I've already made up my mind definitely.
KORNBLUT: And, look, I know more Democrats who believe this though than Republicans. A lot of Republicans say that this is a deceptive number, that once she gets out there with all of her money running against who, Giuliani or McCain, the numbers may not be that weak. [She has 100% name recognition, Anne. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Even when the sow isn't hillary.]
MATTHEWS: How much of that is don't throw me in that briar patch, Dana? We're so afraid of Hillary. Please don't run her against us. She'll kill us.
MILBANK: Anne is right that these polls are completely useless because you don't know what the alternative is. But the fact is that she... [Earth to Dana: 51% would vote for their mother-in-law before they would vote for HER.]
MATTHEWS: OK. McCain against Hillary. Who wins?
MILBANK: Well, that's fine. If you can tell me that's how it is going to turn out. But we don't know.
MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you about these definite numbers in a poll. Do you believe the definite? Do you believe somebody right in 2006 knows how they are going to vote in 2008?
MILBANK: I think they definitely think that's what they are going to do right now, but they have no idea what they are going to be doing in a couple years. And Hillary is going to have the opposite problem of Rudy. And that is she's absolutely fine with her base if she decides to run. But she is seemingly incapable of crossing over.
MATTHEWS: The poll was taken over the week right through Sunday, the Gallup poll. And the Gallup poll is, of course, the most prestigious poll there is right now and has been for years.
Dana, do you think she's paying the price for her plantation remark last week?
MILBANK: Probably not. Because, once again, plays very well the base. The people who were objecting to it were never going to support her in the first case. And I really think the only thing that this is right now is do people recognize her name. [What is it you don't understand, here? We recognize her name, yes. And we abhor the person attached to that name. Get it?]
KORNBLUT: And I would add to that. It's 51 percent say definitely not. Remember the margin that's we've been talking about in the last few presidential races, 51 percent is terrible, but all she would have to do is bump it by a few numbers, a few percentage points and be OK. [I can see why Pinch hired you, Anne. Your Alice-in-Wonderland illogic is quintessential New York Times. With 100% name recognition and roughly 10% corruption recognition (thanks in no small measure to your rag), missus clinton has only one way to go. And it isn't up.]
... Anyway, thank you Anne Kornblut of "The New York Times," Dana Milbank of "The Washington Post."
Join us again tomorrow night at 5:00 and 7:00 Eastern for more HARDBALL. Right now it is time for "THE ABRAM'S REPORT" with Dan.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
Copy: Content and programming copyright 2006 MSNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS |
We need to do better than Hillary Clinton, or the symbolism of a woman as president will be marred by electing a woman who has done almost as much to inflict mistreatment on real-life women as her misogynist husband.
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To better understand why this move is fatal for missus clinton, we must go back to November 8, 2004, which is exactly six days after the re-election of George W. Bush.
The venue is Washington Journal (C-SPAN).
Enter Harold Ickes, looking weirder, more Ichabod-Crane-on-crank, than usual. Looking weirder still when one remembers that Harold Ickes is a strictly behind-the-scenes sort of guy.
Only something very important could have coaxed Harold Ickes onto center stage....21
Forgoing the standard niceties, Ickes launches into his planned tirade. He accuses Bush of terrorizing white women to get their vote.22 (The way he carried on, you would think he was accusing the president of rape or something.)23
Now fast forward to October 11, 2005. Susan Estrich, alignments adjusted upward--ALL alignments--is on Hannity and Colmes. She is there to huckster The Case for Hillary Clinton, 24 both the book and candidate.
Estrich's spiel turns her recent dire warning to the Democrats ("The clintons are sucking up all the air. Get them off the stage!" )25 on its literal head.26 (Air? Who needs air when you have a clinton?)
ICKES + ESTRICH PROVIDE ROADMAP FOR HILLARY DEFEAT (oops!)
Susan Estrich attempts to tie the fate of all women to the fate of the hillary clinton candidacy in a cynical attempt to get the women's vote.
She argues that hillary clinton is the best chance, probably the only chance, for a woman president in our lifetime.
The false and demeaning argument and offensive gender bias aside, someone ought to clue in Susan Estrich. Gender feminism requires as its token a functional female.
So why is Susan Estrich making such a transparently spurious and insulting argument? She isn't that dumb.
For the same reason Harold Ickes is fulminating on C-SPAN.
The white woman, the only real swing voter, the demographic the Democrats MUST get in order to win the White House, has turned red.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, a journalistic consensus emerged to explain George W. Bush's victory. Despite the sluggish economy and deteriorating situation in Iraq, voters supported Bush primarily because of his values. One prominently featured exit poll question showed "moral values" to be the most important issue for voters, ahead of terrorism, Iraq, and the economy. Backlash against the Massachusetts court ruling allowing gay marriage and attraction of Bush's appeals to Christian faith helped bring out socially conservative voters and cement Bush's second term. This explains why Bush won Ohio, for example, where an anti-gay marriage proposal was on the ballot. However compelling this story might be, it is wrong.
Instead, Bush won because married and white women increased their support for the Republican ticket....
In this article I briefly account for the factors behind Bush's rise in the state-by-state popular vote between 2000 and 2004. This is not the same as identifying who elected Bush. That sort of analysis would put responsibility on white men since they voted 61-38 for Bush and comprise almost half of the active electorate. Instead, I focus on what changed between 2000 and 2004. In this view, it is white women who are responsible because they showed more aggregate change.
Identifying a cause for this shift looks for an explanation also in things that changed in the past four years. For example, John Kerry was not exactly Al Gore, so differences between Bush's two opponents could be a factor. But I suggest that such differences are dwarfed by a much larger intervention: the attacks of September 11. Turnout was up in 2004 because the perceived heightening of the stakes after 9-11 and because of intense competition between the candidates in a small number of battleground states. Higher turnout also appears to have helped Bush slightly. But it was the shift of married white women from the Democratic camp to the Republican camp that gave him the edge in 2004.
Post Election 2004: An Alternative Account of the 2004 Presidential Election
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COPYRIGHT MIA T 2006
BTTT
We will most certainly assist Professor Peter's Principle's preeminent poster person, predator and prevaricator, the recidivist co-serial rapist, Ms Rodham Clinton's PoMo-babblin', tongue-chewin' idiot savant self immolation and political flameout. And we will be aided and assisted in our pouring kerosene on her fire by the ever more deadly dangerous to America and the FRee World consequences of the Rodham-Clinton-Schwartz treason facilitated modernization of China's nuclear and rocketary forces. And by the Able-Danger revelations of other aspects of their destructive treasons and obstructions.
But who is the Republicans' 2008 candidate and where is he hiding?
BTTT!
Of course... and so did many adults I knew when I mentioned this alleged 'incident' back in 1999 when Lisa Meyers interviewed her on NBC. Tom Brokaw threatened to quit if the story was aired... and all the other MSM 'usual suspects' avoided it like the plague. We all thought it was just MSM bias back then... they loved Rapist42 and his Marxist-totalitarian wife. It would take Dan RATher to show us how far the 4th Estate would really go for the DNC.
Estrich is a hypocrite when she states this... because Clinton meets all the standards she lists for the perpetrators of this act:
...the man is a neighbor, an acquaintance, or a date. The man and the woman are both white, or both black, or both Hispanic. He is a respected bachelor, a student, a businessman, or a professional. He may have been offered a ride home or invited in. He does not have a weapon. He acted alone.
By 'playing-dumb' when it comes to Clinton's behavior... a person she is supposedly close to... one would question the value of her book... and her opinion.
The clinton cult does all her dirty work while ms. cattlefutures tries to appear neutral to it all. It's the same old routine with every step calculated; so very obvious, so very boring, yet, so very dangerous.
Thanks for all you do in keeping evil exposed. We have our own "clinton cult LIEbrary" here!
Did you hear Klein on TV the other day opining that she wouldn't run for POTUS and would be in the Senate for 20 years instead?
It's even worse than that, I know young people of voting age who don't know what the Soviet Union was!
Who is Klein and how would he know?
Joe Klein says missus clinton won't run because he sees that woman as a loser, i.e., as the quintessential bland, phony, prefabricated, sock-puppet sort of candidate who, along with the political handler, are the subject of his new book.
Even if Democrats could liberate themselves from the intellectually and morally stifling grip of consultants like Shrum, would they have any coherent ideology to espouse? Peter Beinart |
TYVM for that reply.
you're quite welcome :)
Out of 300 million Americans, 1 American is calling out an unaccountable, corrupt-to-the-core, Senator.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
thanx.:)
Incorrect!
With Hillary truly being -the wizard standing behind the curtain - the chinagate curtain
-and ushering in and out of the White House- the following chinese agents and other cronies-
that definitely will hurt her/ and deservingly so:
Ng Lap Seng, Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie; Manlin Foung, Wang Mei Trie, John Huang, Jane Huang, Johnny Chung, Col. Lui, Jing Wei Li, Irene Wu, Liu Tai-ying, Bin Liu, Irene Wu, Nora Lum, Shi JinYu, Shi-Zeng Chen, Xiao Yang, Liu Chao-Ying, Wang Jun, Wah Lim, General Ding Henggao, General Chi HaoTian, General Fu Quanyou, Chief of the General Staff of the PLA, Lt. Gen. Huai Guomo, General Kui Fulin, "Col. Xu", Gen. Liu Huaquing, William Peh, PRC Defense Minister Chi Haotian, China Resources chairman Shen Jueren, Lt. General Xiong Guangkai, Wang Liheng, vice-president of China Aerospace Corp, Gen. Ji Shengde, Bao Peide, 5th Vice Minister of the PRC, Zou Jia Hua, Vice Minister National Technology Planning, Lt. General Xu Qiliang, Chief of Staff of the PLA Air Force, Lt. General Wu Quanxu, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the PLA, Zhu Roug-ji, Vice Premier of National Finance, Liu Ju-Yuan, Minister of China Aerospace Corporation (made both satellite orbiter version of Long March and the nuclear tippled missile version for the PLA), Keshi Zhan, Yue Chu, Xiping Wang, Nan Nan Xu, Chun-Fat Leung, Chang-Lin Tien, Liao Minglong, Tian Yi, Chen Qingchang, Pan Yongming, Shao Xingsheng, Jiangsu Yongli, Tongsun Park, David Chang and Sister Ping. Bernard Schwartz/Loral, Marvin Rosen, Keshi Zhan, Ken Hsui, Ms Melinda Yee, Hoyt Zia, Ira Sockowitz, Sidney Blumenthal, Leon A. Panetta, Lanny Davis, Harold Ickes, William Meddoff, Alexis Herman, Jamie Gorelick, Hazel O'Leary, Mark Middleton, Nancy Hernreich, Craig Livingstone, Lynn Cutler, Neal Ainley, Maria Hsia, Robert Meyerhoff, Roger Tamraz, Joseph Landon, David Wang, Indonesian Arief Wiriadinata and his wife Soraya and convicted Miami drug trafficker Jose Cabrera; and also her ongoing association with China Poly Group Corporation / "Polytechnologies Incorporated," along with Hillary's ongoing ties with Ted Sioeng, Mochtar and James Riady and the Lippo Bank-Lippo Group & Lippo Pacific in Indonesia.
WHY HILLARY IN THE OVAL OFFICE IS A NATIONAL-SECURITY NO-NOPART ONE
It is no secret that Hillary's past takes us through a pile of hard, cold cash from the Chinese army, Chinese army agents roaming the White House and photos with a wide variety of scoundrels. For example, the one prominent name missing from Hillary's recent "tell-all" book is Riady. Mrs. Clinton failed to mention the Riady family at all. One would get the impression that the Riadys were not present in the Clinton White House. Hillary Clinton certainly overlooked listing the table settings and menus for White House dinners with the Riadys. The Riadys knew the Clintons from their Arkansas years, when Moctar bought out a local bank. Moctar and his son James were close to Bill and Hillary through 1992 and into the White House. Moctar even owned the firm selected by Hillary Clinton to replace the White House travel office. Riady and Hillary Moctar and James Riady played a key role in bringing the Clintons to power in Washington. The Indonesian billionaire and his Lippo banking company managed to contribute large sums of money to the Clintons' campaigns even though it was against the law. Moctar's gardener contributed $450,000 directly to Bill Clinton in a single check. James Riady, Moctar's son, eventually pleaded guilty to campaign violations. The connections between the Riadys and the Clintons have a much more sinister theme than simple foreign money inside U.S. elections. Testimony before the U.S. Senate revealed Moctar Riady's involvement in Chinese espionage. The Lippo Group is in fact a joint venture of China Resources, a trading and holding company "wholly owned" by the Chinese communist government and used as a front for Chinese espionage operations. Mrs. Clinton not only knew the Riadys but took their money as well. To prove my point I need only to cite photographic evidence. Her picture with Moctar Riady is certainly damning evidence of a relationship that spanned several bank accounts and two decades. It is often said that a picture tells a thousand words. However, Hillary's pictures not only tell stories left out of her book but they also netted $10,000 each for the DNC in illegal donations. Hillary's Most-Wanted Mrs. Clinton has left us with a wide selection of photo evidence. Mrs. Clinton has had her photo taken with drug dealer Jorge Cabrera. Jorge donated a load of drug money to the DNC in order to get close to the first lady. Jorge is currently serving federal time for smuggling 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States. |
bttt
Katherine Prudhomme challenges Susan Estrich -- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1511356/posts
Massive conflict of interest (especially when combined with the clintons' perfect record of allowing their self-interest to trump national interest) is yet another reason we must never ever allow the clintons to retake the White House. Evidence of the clintons' massive conflict of interest is everywhere, yet no one besides Byron York seems to see it.
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY: |
As for Byron York's comments on The New York Times article about the clintons' weird marriage, let's not be fooled: The Times article is simply part of a carefully orchestrated clinton-conflation/clinton-'divorce' triangulation ploy.... Sprinkle a bit of conflated clintons (the "twofer" construct) HERE, a dash of 'divorced' clintons THERE. This NYT piece is intended to emphasize the latter clinton state.... Or rather, it's supposed to de-emphasize the former, which has, in fact, bombed. The clintons' recent promotion of the clinton 'twofer' construct seems to have worked against clinton self-interest, (which, in case you haven't noticed, is the only kind of interest that interests the clintons). It is not surprising that iterative instances of clinton conflation would increase--not decrease--the rate of decline of the sock-puppet's already sinking poll numbers. (2 x 0 = 0) Thus enter Pinch to help the clintons reverse the process, which I don't believe will work any better. (1 x 0 = 0, too.)
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He spoke for both of them, alternating between oily racist and reliable misogynist. Instead of striking out as her own person in this friendly venue--it was the Coretta Scott King funeral, for heaven's sake--she reprised their '92 electoral refrain. 'Two for the price of one' would be, at it had always been, the order of the day. NO BARGAIN If they didn't know in '92 that one was not enough, they certainly know it now. (Refuting the axiom that 2 x 0 = 0), their 'twofer' construct remains the lifeblood of her electoral--(and, arguably, non-electoral)--life. She of the 'plantation' blunder simply wouldn't play here. He, as First Black President?, was providing cover. And still, the central question remains: Can spilt oil raise a sinking ship? by Mia T, 03.18.06 |
Posted on 05/24/2006 5:51:56 PM EDT by JeanS So Bill and Hillary Clinton lead separate lives -- sort of. That's pretty much the conclusion of a New York Times story that was the result of interviews with 50 friends, aides and associates of the Clintons. The Times traced the former first couple's whereabouts for the past several years and found that Mr. and Mrs. Clinton have seen each other an average of about 14 days each month since the beginning of 2005. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. In February 2005, the paper says, the Clintons saw each other just once -- on Valentine's Day. On the other hand, last August the two were together for 24 out of 31 days. Just why is the Times telling us this? It's not entirely clear. After all, a lot of senators and representatives spend time away from their wives or husbands. Telling us that is not telling us a lot. Instead, the Times seems to be dancing around the question of whether Bill Clinton is on the prowl again, and whether that might affect his wife's presidential ambitions. But of course the paper can't just come out and say it. So it says things like this: "Because of Mr. Clinton's behavior in the White House, tabloid gossip sticks to him like iron filings to a magnet. Several prominent New York Democrats, in interviews, volunteered that they became concerned last year over a tabloid photograph showing Mr. Clinton leaving BLT Steak in Midtown Manhattan late one night after dining with a group that included Belinda Stronach, a Canadian politician. The two were among roughly a dozen people at a dinner, but it still was enough to fuel coverage in the gossip pages." Belinda Stronach? Why were prominent New York Democrats concerned about Bill Clinton being photographed near her? The Times didn't say. Indeed, a search of the Nexis database reveals the paper has never even mentioned Clinton and Stronach together. But readers of other newspapers will know. In 2004, for example, The Washington Post ran a brief gossip report that "Canadian papers were running items about what was called a 'close personal and business relationship' between Clinton and Canadian billionaire Belinda Stronach." The Times apparently doesn't want to traffic in such rumors. So it threw out a little tastefully understated innuendo instead. It's all part of what the paper calls the "soap opera of infidelity." And yes, the Clintons have provided a lot of soap opera over the years. But their marriage raises a far more serious issue as we contemplate the idea of Hillary Rodham Clinton running for president. And that is, we have never, ever had a first spouse like Bill Clinton. The former president has so many business deals and so many political entanglements that his presence in the White House, even as first spouse, would make life very complicated. Just go back a few months to the Dubai ports deal. Remember when we found out that, even as Mrs. Clinton denounced it, Mr. Clinton was giving his friend the crown prince of Dubai advice on how to make it work? The former president wasn't working pro bono. He has gotten tons of money from Dubai in speaking fees and in business deals involving Dubai and something called Yucaipa, which is a wildly profitable company owned by the man the Times describes as Clinton's "bachelor buddy," Ronald Burkle. Clinton has also hit on many, many world leaders to help build his presidential library and to give money to the Bill Clinton Foundation. In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, the foundation took in $57 million. It has certainly taken in much, much more since then. The money comes from all over the world; Bill Clinton operates on the world stage and is well-paid for it. Now, all of that is the standard stuff of ex-presidents. But they only do that kind of business after leaving the White House. Doing so in office would be absolutely forbidden and would create enough conflicts of interest to keep an army of investigators busy for years to come. But what if Bill Clinton, after leaving office and pulling in money from around the world, were to return to the White House as first spouse? It would be a terrible mess. Would it make sense if Laura Bush had business deals in Dubai, and Brunei, and Taiwan, and all sorts of other places? Would that be accepted as normal practice? Of course not, and it wouldn't be for Bill Clinton, either. So the role of the former president in a possible Hillary Rodham Clinton administration is a very serious issue indeed. It's not as sexy as the "soap opera of infidelity," and it certainly won't receive as much attention in the papers and the talk shows. But it's a problem -- a big problem -- waiting to happen. York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week. E-mail: byork@nationalreview.com |
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