Setting the Record Straight (An open letter to Hillary Clinton)

National Review Online ^ | June 12, 2003 | Dick Morris

[rockinonritalin]

Dear Hillary,

In your new book, Living History, you correctly note that when you asked me to help you and Bill avert defeat in the congressional election of 1994 I was reluctant to do so. But then you assert, incorrectly, that my reluctance stemmed from difficulties in working with your staff. You even misquote me as telling you: "I don't like the way I was treated, Hillary. People were so mean to me."

As you know, I never said anything of the sort. I had, in fact, no experience in dealing with either your staff or the President's at that point, and had not yet met Leon Panetta or George Stephanopoulos. My prior dealing with Harold Ickes had been twenty five years earlier.

The real reason I was reluctant was that Bill Clinton had tried to beat me up in May of 1990 as he, you, Gloria Cabe, and I were together in the Arkansas governor's mansion. At the time, Bill was worried that he was falling behind his democratic primary opponent and verbally assaulted me for not giving his campaign the time he felt it deserved. Offended by his harsh tone, I turned and stalked out of the room.

Bill ran after me, tackled me, threw me to the floor of the kitchen in the mansion and cocked his fist back to punch me. You grabbed his arm and, yelling at him to stop and get control of himself, pulled him off me. Then you walked me around the grounds of the mansion in the minutes after, with your arm around me, saying, "He only does that to people he loves."

I continued to work for Bill since I felt a responsibility to do so until Election Day in 1990. But our relationship was never close and never the same. After the 1990 campaign we parted ways as a direct result of the altercation.

When the story threatened to surface during the 1992 campaign, you told me to "say it never happened."

That, and not the invented conversation in your memoir, was the reason that I was reluctant to work for Bill again.

Yours,
Dick Morris

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

I don't know about you guys, but I've HEARD this before. Either heard him say it, or read it somewhere. I think I heard him tell this on Fox one night, although it's been awhile, maybe just after GW was elected, when Morris began talking about the Clintons.

[Tancred]

"He only does that to people he loves."

You mean like Juanita and Kathleen?

[Sunshine Sister]

I would love it if he would. Him and the guy who wrote "Unlimited Access." His name escapes me at the moment.

[Tancred]

In a way, I'm not surprised. The Clintons have always behaved like bullies in the political arena. Besides this, haven't there been plenty of other times when Bill has just gotten into someone's face and screamed at them when they have dared to contradict the big C?

[windchime]

"I would love it if he would. Him and the guy who wrote "Unlimited Access." His name escapes me at the moment."


He's Gary Aldrich who has a new book 'Thunder on the Left'.

[esopman]

Thank you for posting this.

Hillary Regina 'wrote' her mendacious epic for a host of reasons - all linked to her gambit to gain the presidency. She figured to put the past to bed with her definitive first-hand account (later, any accusations are "old news"), gain sympathy by putting a human face on her Borg countenance, keep her presence before the public with the complicity of the media...and incidentally pick up $8M.

I have followed the saga of Bubba Rex since 1991 and this is the first time I have seen the Dick-Morris-Tackled story. While it fits well with what we know of Bubba's psych profile (narcissistic, volatile, manipulative, socio- if not psycho-pathic), it is just the kind of thing Hillary did not expect to come out.

In short, Hill's book may be just the stick in the normally quiescent anthill she really didn't want. What she cannot possibly realize in her megalomanic bubble existence is that she is trapped: to try and 'put the past to bed' only reminds everyone but the Klinton-Kool-Aid minority just how much sleaze and criminality is buried there, but to just keep quiet does not accomplish the goal of promoting her publicly.

Thank God for the internet and Jim Robinson.

[mewzilla]

Liar, liar, pantsuit on fire.

Again.

[tbpiper]

"He only does that to people he loves."

Musta never laid a hand on hillery (probably cause she'd beat the piss out of him).

[Hostage]

Yesterday, overheard in a medical clinic, a receptionist 55 years of age, 26 years working at the same clinic doing the same job, remarked:

"Oh she sounds so good, and she looks pretty".

A few nights ago on Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, a PhD from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government became emotional about how the FNC and the right-wing were unwilling to acknowledge Hillary's "success".

These are not an isolated examples. Such women everywhere support Hillary. We can list many possible reasons all irrational in our view. But how do you debate a "strong" female who is the victim of the right-wing?

Hillary is not smart, she is cunning like her husband. There is a difference between smart (or intelligent) and cunning.

Hillary has the ability to not say the wrong thing most of the time. That she doesn't say the right thing is irrelevant to her supporters. She just stands there and says a whole lot of nothing while her opponents attack her for what she really is, only she is careful never to show who she really is in public (except on extreme rare occasions).

We know Hillary is shrill, she is hardcore left or "progressive" in her political orientation, she is a liar and on and on. But in public she wears soft pastel colors, softens her face with makeup, softens her voice and demeanor, and does not respond to "allegations" thrown at her by her opponents, who are protrayed as right-wing, Christian anti-abortionists, anyone who disagrees with her. She will stand in a debate like a statue, her chin up high while her accusers scream the truth, and her supporters just look on in admiration "how strong she is", etc.

The question is: how does one overcome this image?

48 percent of Americans can't stand the sight of her. But how many of them vote?

[rockinonritalin]

Found this in the FR archives:

From "First in His Class" by David Maraniss, Chapter 24:

One day at the Governor's Mansion, after a meeting of Clinton, Hillary, [Gloria] Cabe and [Dick] Morris, the relationship exploded. Clinton was on edge, worried that he had made a mistake by entering the race [for Arkansas Governor in 1990]. Morris was hounding Clinton about his treatment of Betsey Wright. They got into a shouting match near the side porch, with Morris, nearly a foot shorter than the governor, screaming up into his face. As Hillary and Cabe stood by, Clinton suddenly lost control, according to Cabe, and slugged Morris, sending him reeling. "Clinton apologized", Cabe later recalled. "But he was still pissed." Morris did not resign. He stayed on for the rest of the campaign, though every now and then, according to Cabe, he would mutter, "I can't believe Clinton hit me!"

[lainie]

Wow. Dick must be pretty pissed off.

[lainie]

My thoughts too. Guess Dick believes Juanita.

[IncPen]

Dickie's P.O.'d

[Xenalyte]

That's funny. I don't care who you are.

[Conservomax]

Whoops, i just posted this under a different title.

[Rennes Templar]

Dick got off easy...Bill didn't bite his lip.

[Constitution Day]

All this time I thought Slick was a lover, not a fighter! =^)

[Conservomax]

I wonder how many other things like this "never happened".

[Labyrinthos]

After the 1990 campaign we parted ways as a direct result of the altercation.

I would like to believe Morris' story, but if in fact they had parted ways, then why did they have phone sex together when Clinto was the pres.

[Eva]

Hillary was stupid to make up lies about Dick Morris. He must know so many of the Clinton secrets that you would think she would be smarter than that. I bet Dick even knows who hired Craig Livingstone.