Posted on 01/27/2003 8:26:29 PM PST by Mia T
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9/15/98 John Kass
Chicago Tribune
SURE CLINTON'S TRYST IS A PRIVATE MATTER --JUST LIKE WAR IS
September 15, 1998
President Clinton's defenders keep making their case that his private life has no bearing on how he does his job.
They prattle on about his job approval ratings, which actually track how fat our wallets have become, not whether he can lead this country in a serious crisis.
Maybe you think that Independent Counsel Ken Starr's report is about Clinton, the lothario.
But, if you want to learn something about Clinton as a leader, I refer you to the part about the pizza date with Monica Lewinsky at the White House.
That was also the night that Clinton was on the phone with a powerful Alabama Republican congressman, H.L. "Sonny" Callahan. What we didn't know is what they were talking about.
Now it's emerging that they were discussing sending American troops into harm's way in Bosnia--putting our sons and daughters into a dangerous place that is full of death.
The president needed a vote from Callahan--chairman of an appropriations subcommittee that controls billions of dollars in foreign aid--for the peacekeeping mission, which would augment an international accord being developed in Dayton, Ohio.
But while he was on the phone, Clinton was simultaneously occupied.
White House intern Monica Lewinsky was performing oral sex in the Oval Office.
Imagine someone receiving those favors while they're talking to you on the phone.
Now imagine that the subject you're talking about is literally about life and death.
At issue was the fate of American troops. And also the fate of the Balkans, one of the bloodiest killing grounds in the world. What's going on there threatens to spill over into Greece and Turkey, while Russia continues to crumble.
I called the White House on Monday on the chance they would dispute the facts as presented by Starr and Callahan on that night, Nov. 17, 1995. And as they have done in the past few days, officials declined.
Callahan, meanwhile, is issuing this statement: "I do recall talking to the president during which time he was seeking my assistance for the American mission in Bosnia. But I do not have any recollection of any inappropriate behavior or comments from the president during my conversation. . . .
"I had no knowledge that I was sharing the president's time or attention with anyone else."
That night, Callahan and a handful of other Republicans voted with the president's side in opposing a move to prevent funds from being spent to send those troops overseas. They lost.
Eventually, the Dayton Peace Accords were signed. The president sent thousands and thousands of soldiers to Bosnia. He promised he'd bring them back by the end of 1996.
They're still there.
I called Callahan's office on Monday and talked with his chief of staff, Jo Bonner
"Sonny has very mixed emotions about this," said Bonner, who added that Callahan was considering a critical public address about Clinton on the House floor. "He could be voting on this (impeachment) issue, and he's not trying to grandstand.
"But the president says it's a personal matter. It became a public matter when he lobbied the congressman, talking about sending men and women overseas, even as he was being entertained by Miss Lewinsky. . . . You could say it is an insult. And worse."
A White House official said on background that the president has great respect for those who serve their country overseas.
Yeah. Sure. He proved it.
According to her grand jury testimony, Lewinsky said that Clinton suggested she bring him some slices of pizza. When she arrived, she was immediately welcomed and ushered inside.
But during their loving caress, Clinton had a telephone call. She recalled that the caller was a member of Congress with a nickname.
While Clinton was on the telephone with the congressman, she testified that Clinton unzipped himself and she did her duty. She was at the White House that evening from 9:38 to 10:39 p.m.
White House phone records confirm, according to the Starr report, that Clinton had only one telephone conversation with a member of Congress. From 9:53 to 10:14 p.m., he spoke with "Sonny" Callahan.
While the House vote took place, diplomats anguished about whether the peace process would collapse. Muslims, Serbs and Croats, along with diplomats from America and other countries huddled in Dayton.
The people of the former Yugoslavia were desperate for relief from terror. American soldiers drilled. Their commanders planned, and most likely worried about their troops, as good officers always do.
Across this country, the mothers and fathers of soldiers worried and prayed. Some surely lit candles. U.S. representatives with opposing views fought it out with each other.
And the commander in chief, the president of the United States, his mouth full of pizza, entertained himself with a groupie in the Oval Office.
He is without shame. |
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By editing out clinton's culpability for 9/11, Hollywood edits out its own culpability for 9/11 |
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Columbia Pictures' "Black Hawk Down," the holiday action adventure movie about the 1993 Somalia debacle that cost 18 U.S. soldiers their lives, was set to explicity blame ex-President Clinton for the 9/11 terrorist attacks before the film's director and producers decided to soft-peddle the connection.
In mid-November, before the decision to tone down the Clinton angle, the film was previewed for a handful journalists.
Before its final edit "Black Hawk's" closing crawl highlighted a series of events following the Somalia mission, including Clinton's humiliating troop withdrawal from the country, the humanitarian disasters in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo and, finally, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
"With what happened in Mogadishu, with the way that all came down, you end up with the terrorism we see today," the film's producer Joe Roth told the New York Times on Wednesday. "It's so obvious now, eight years later."
Roth said his partner Jerry Bruckheimer and "Black Hawk's" director Ridley Scott agreed with him that "we would be remiss in not making this connection to the general audience."
But ultimately the filmakers, along with Mark Bowden, author of the best-selling book upon which the movie is based, decided that blaming Clinton explicitly would be "unnecessary and too distracting."'
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Dead Hero's Father Tears into Clinton
London Sunday Times
Copyright 1994 Times Newspapers Limited
May 29, 1994, Sunday
SECTION: Overseas news
It was the moment President Bill Clinton wanted to restore his tattered reputation with the military before his departure for the D-Day celebrations in Europe this week, James Adams reports.
He had just presented posthumous Congressional Medals of Honour, America's highest military decoration, to the widows of two soldiers for valour in Somalia. After inviting the families for a moment of quiet reflection in the Oval Office, the president approached Herbert Shughart, the father of one of the two soldiers, and offered his hand.
To his astonishment the handshake was declined. ''You are not fit to be president of the United States,'' said Shughart Senior. ''The blame for my son' s death rests with the White House and with you. You are not fit to command.''
The president reeled and the unprecedented onslaught continued for some minutes. According to witnesses it was a ''highly charged emotional moment'' which resulted in Clinton trying to explain to Shughart,Sr. why the events of that day last October were not his fault.
Shughart and his colleague, both sergeants, were killed trying to rescue fellow rangers from a vicious fire-fight in which 18 died and 75 were wounded. A later Pentagon investigation revealed that the troops had been refused the ri ght equipment and there was no political or military plan to justify the Americ an presence in Somalia.
Although the president has tried to escape the blame, he is largely credited with the failure of the whole American effort to bring peace to Somalia. According to witnesses to the Oval Office scene, the Shughart family remained unconvinced by the president's arguments.
''The medal doesn't help anything, other than that we are grateful that Randy will be remembered in such an honourable way,'' said Lois Shughart,the soldier's mother.
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Film Noir in the White House
by Mia T
Leni Riefenstahl, the film genius who outmaneuvered propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels to chronicle Hitler's 1934 Nuremberg rallies in perhaps the most notorious documentary ever filmed, Triumph of the Will, symbolizes the naïve actress and director who is induced to deal with devils -- pantalooned NAZI then, pantless/pantsuited NAZI now . . .
After the war, Riefenstahl excused her effort as pure documentary -- watch for Streisand, Spielberg, Geffen et al. to do the same one day -- yet she compiled one section, Hitler's motorcade to Munich, from several different events and shot the closeups of Nazi leaders at the podium in a staged studio sequence.
As Riefenstahl told it, editing-to-perfection was crucial. She insisted that the finished quality of Triumph of Will came from her editing, not from any imposition of "posed shots" or choreography on her part. With her innovative editing techniques, Riefenstahl deliberately and selectively aestheticized Hitler and the Congress' proceedings. By editing out a shot of Hitler wiping his nose and including instead "more interesting expressions," by eliminating the human, Riefenstahl eliminated the inhuman.
The only difference today, in this era of ubiquitous cameras, continuous news and the shameless auteur-tyrant, is that the useful-idiot Washington Press Corps, spun by and on the Hollywood-Arkansas Axis, edits out the clintons' inhumanity (and ineptitude) in real time. . .
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by Mia T
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The Real Danger of a Fake President: Post-9/11 Reconsideration of The Placebo President
What did he know. . . and when did he know it ?
BUSH: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather."
rodham-clinton reality-check
WRITTEN IN STONE: AN ARCHITECT DEFINES THE CLINTONS
The REAL clinton Virtual Office Update
BUMP! |
LEFT-WING TALK RADIO 2: "It's the terrorism, stupid."
NOTE: Program in two parts. Hear clinton stupidity, smallness, banality, fecklessness, ineptitude, prevarication, corruption, perfidy and utter failure directly from the rapist, himself. clinton provides the perfect foil for Bush, who makes a cameo appearance or two. Pay special attention to Dan Rather's little story about terrorism hitting the U.S. "bigtime" during the clintons' tenure. In particular, connect the following dots: the '93 WTC bombing. a certain bin Laden protégé and clinton's admission that he passed up bin Laden. Note clinton's spurious argument for this monumental failure. To this day, clinton seems not to understand that bin Laden is -- and was in 1996 -- an enemy of the state, not a simple criminal. clinton still seems not to get it -- the same terrorist (the terrorist he couldn't bring himself to capture) hit the same building in '93. Notwithstanding this, to hear clinton tell it, his disastrous decision not to take bin Laden when offered on a silver platter by Sudan, (arguably the worst decision ever made by a president), derived from his scrupulous avoidance of abusing power and trashing laws... Yeah, right.
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It is obvious to anyone who bothers to remove his political blinders. It is so patently obvious that even those whose political blinders are a permanently fixed fashion statement -- that is to say, even Hollywood -- can see it. (Just ask Whoopie Goldberg...or Rosie O'Donnell...) Bush's poll numbers are a reflection of this self-evident truth. What is manifestly obvious and confirmed on a daily basis is the plain fact that Democrats are, by definition, constitutionally unfit to navigate the ship of state through these troubled, terrorist waters. Democrats were unfit pre-9/11, but few could see it then. It was 9/11 and its aftermath that made this truth crystal clear even to the most simpleminded among us. The unwashed masses, the uninformed, the disinformed can see it now. All America can see it now. Self-preservation is kicking in, trumping petty politics at every turn. And this is why Democrat demagoguery and stupidity and sedition are achieving new lows... We are witnessing the last gasp of a political relic. The Democrat party is not merely obsolete. As 9/11 and clinton-clinton-Daschle action and inaction have demonstrated, the Democrat party is very dangerous. We must now make sure that this fact, too, is obvious to all... |
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LOL. Yeah. I too, envision legions of Clintophants pointing the finger, chanting "hater!" As if hating what the man did is somehow inappropriate. But that's usually the best they come up with.
Well, it's good to start the day off right in any case - in a foul mood, remembering the corruptions of a foul man. Works better than coffee.
For all his faults (not too many), I'm still relieved whenever I see GWB in front of that podium rather than The Great Stainmaker. It hasn't worn off yet.
Just yesterday I saw her on the senate floor speaking against the high salaries of company CEO's..... Hillary Rodham Clinton, as a New York State Senator, now comes under this fancy "Congressional Retirement and Staffing Plan," which means that even if she never gets reelected, she STILL receives her Congressional salary until she dies. If Bill outlives her, he then inherits HER salary until HE dies. He is already getting his Presidential salary until he dies. If Hillary outlives Bill, she also gets HIS salary until she dies. Guess who pays for that? WE DO! It's common knowledge that in order for her to establish NY residency, they purchased a million dollar-plus house in upscale Chappaqua, New York. Makes sense. They are entitled to Secret Service protection for life. Still makes sense. Here is where it becomes interesting. Their mortgage payments hover at around $10,000 per month. BUT, an extra residence HAD to be built within the acreage to house the Secret Service agents. The Clintons charge the Federal government $10,000 monthly rent for the use of that extra residence, which is just about equal to their mortgage payment. This means that we, the taxpayers, are paying the Clintons' salary, mortgage, transportation, safety and security, as well as the salaries for their 12 man staff - and this is all perfectly legal! When she runs for President, will you vote for her? 4 posted on 01/26/2003 5:10 PM EST by shaggy eel |
EXCELLENT analysis. It seems the most expeditious solution for us "regular people" is to make certain the clintons' primary residence is the hoosegow. I cannot think of a more satisfying way of killing two birds with one stone. |
HALF A HOUSE, HALF A BRAIN: Why the clintons hit on Simon & Schuster
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