Posted on 05/17/2003 7:37:22 PM PDT by kattracks
Ex-President Bill Clinton will discuss his legacy at Boston's John F. Kennedy Presidential Library on May 28, in an event announced just hours after news broke that Kennedy, like Clinton, carried on a sexual relationship with a White House intern.
"Senator Edward M. Kennedy will introduce President Clinton, who will engage in a wide-ranging conversation with presidential historian Michael Beschloss," the Kennedy Library said, in a statement posted to it's Web site on Tuesday.
"President Clinton will reflect upon his own legacy and some of the central themes related to President Kennedy including the role of the U.S. in the world, domestic issues concerning the advancement of rights and opportunities for all Americans, and the importance of public service," the library explained.
News of the Kennedy intern scandal first appeared on Tuesday's front page of the New York Daily News, whose publisher, Mort Zuckerman, is a staunch Clinton media ally.
The revelation that Kennedy had the Clinton-like dalliance was merely alluded to in Robert Dallek's new Kennedy bio "An Unfinished Life," which offered a brief second hand account that an unnamed 19-year-old was kept on the White House staff primarily to provide Kennedy with "sexual release."
But Zuckerman's paper launched a full investigation. And by Thursday, the News had tracked down Marion "Mimi" Fahnestock, now a 60-year-old church worker in midtown Manhattan who confirmed that she carried on a sexual relationship with the 35th president from June 1962 to November 1963.
The result was a week's worth of front page headlines that made the JFK story one of the most talked about in the nation - and had conservatives wondering if those pushing the story hardest were actually more interested in rehabilitating Clinton's image.
Dallek himself is scheduled to address the Kennedy Library next Tuesday, in a session that will likely be dominated by Kennedy-Clinton comparisons - though the author himself has said that he considers the find relatively insignificant.
The JFK intern story wouldn't be the first time the Daily News publisher went to bat for Clinton in a big way. In 1995, both Zuckerman and then newly crowned House Speaker Newt Gingrich traveled with Clinton aboard Air Force One to and from Yitzhak Rabin's funeral.
Afterwards, the News published a front page story blasting Gingrich for throwing a temper tantrum - allegedly because he felt Clinton did not treat him with enough respect during the trip.
Under the headline "Crybaby," the News front-paged a characature of the leading Republican as a baby in diapers in the midst of a screaming fit. The report ended up being among the most damaging of all media attacks on Gingrich.
On Saturday the Daily News went so far as to make the JFK revelation the topic of an editorial - invoking the news to downplay the seriousness of the charges against Clinton.
"The story also fills a gap, however small, in the public record," the paper said. "And it provides some context: Bill Clinton, who was impeached because of his indefensible dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, was not, it turns out, the only Oval Office occupant with an eye for the interns."
In fact, Clinton was not impeached for his dalliance with Lewinsky, but because he perjured himself about the relationship in testimony before a federal judge and a grand jury in an attempt to obstruct justice in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
What a trade, his brother's legacy to try to rescue clinton's.
Maybe Ted Kennedy wants to live a few more years.
"President Clinton will reflect upon his own legacy...
How fitting.
Becki
Bet you can't wait to buy her heinous' book so we can read all about HER part in the most ethical administration in history.
It must be eating clinton up that President Bush is as popular as he is. So much so that clinton would dredge up Kennedy's past to get himself some media attention.
The overreaching JFK comparison serves only to highlight how, even in the cheating department, the impeached President falls so pasty-white-trash-band-geek-like short, managing only to betray his pig-shrew wife with furtive sweaty beret-wearing-fat-girl encounters of the sort Jackie O's patrician husband would skip even when extra hopped-up on pain-killers.
WE SHALL NOT.
LOFL!!!
Agents of the Clintons led them by the nose.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.