An Interview with Senator Clinton: Relaxation and Friends Top Clinton Vacation Agenda -

Out of Washington but never out of the spotlight, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and daughter, Chelsea, are expected to arrive for a Vineyard vacation on Saturday.

The Clintons have been regular Vineyard visitors, but it was their visit in August 1993, during Mr. Clinton’s first term in office, that attracted the most attention.

Attention these days is on Mrs. Clinton, now a popular U.S. senator from New York, a best selling author, and if political pundits are correct, a future Democratic presidential candidate.

In her only scheduled public appearance, Mrs. Clinton will sign copies of her book, “Living History,” this Saturday at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore in Vineyard Haven.

Despite her very busy schedule, Hillary Clinton spoke with The Times in a telephone interview on Tuesday about the reasons she enjoys Martha’s Vineyard, and she shared some thoughts on her book and her continued commitment to reforming the nation’s health care system.

Although many people think the Clinton’s presidential visit was their first introduction to the Vineyard, Mrs. Clinton said she and her husband first visited the Vineyard back in the ‘80s several times as private citizens to visit friends, “but nobody would have ever known it.”

During past visits the Clinton family have stayed at the Oyster Pond house of Boston real estate developer and hotelier Richard Friedman. On this vacation the Clintons will stay in the Chilmark home of actors Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, a longtime friend.

Once they were living in the White House a Vineyard visit was a far more complicated affair.

What prompted you to make that sort of first official visit, if you will, in 1993? Was it just to come back and visit friends?

Senator Clinton: We had a lot of friends, and they encouraged us to come to the Vineyard and were very helpful in finding places that could accommodate the whole presidential entourage, which is no easy task.

So that was the incentive. But of course how can one say no to the Vineyard? I had really enjoyed the times that I’d been there before, and looked forward to returning.

What makes the Vineyard such a favorite vacation spot, given the fact that you have friends all over the country?

Senator Clinton: Oh, I think it’s just such a restful and welcoming place. And because we do have so many friends and we’ve just felt so at home there in the times we have visited in the past, and because we don’t really know, in most years, whether we will get a vacation, exactly when it will be, and how long it will last, it really works for us to come to the Vineyard.

You came here in the early ‘80s and then in the early ‘90s. Have you noticed any significant changes over the years?

Senator Clinton: Oh, I think everyone who has gone to the Vineyard can’t help but notice more people, more development. But the fundamental character of the place seems to me to be intact and impervious to changes over the decade.

Senator Clinton: Oh, I like to do as little as possible. Obviously, I love going to the ocean and walking the beaches. I like going into all of the towns and looking into the shops. I like going for long walks with my friends.

Senator Clinton: Yes, exactly. Curling up with a good book, going out to dinner. I mean, it’s just the usual activities that I guess everybody enjoys doing.

Will this visit that you’re about to make include any fund-raising activities?

Senator Clinton: No, it doesn’t. I’m going to be doing a book-signing at the Bunch of Grapes. And some of my friends are giving a book party for me. But that’s the only activity.

So this is just vacation, I can’t get you to announce your candidacy for presidency in the Martha’s Vineyard Times, right?

Senator Clinton: You know, the book originally was going to be about the eight years in the White House, and then, as I began working on it, I realized I would have to explain who I was when I arrived in the White House in order for much of my description of experiences to make sense. So it became a much broader memoir than I had originally intended. And of course I wrote much more than could fit into the size of the book that the publisher had intended to publish. So there was lots of what I thought of as wonderful stories left on the cutting room floor. It turned out really as well as I ever could have expected, and the response has been so rewarding, personally, to me. Now people are actually reading the book and coming up and talking to me about it, which I find very gratifying.

You have been in the spotlight a long time. Has that made it any easier to deal with critical reviews of the book?

Senator Clinton: Oh, I don’t really pay a lot of attention to that, to tell you the truth. I have, you know, enjoyed going out on the book-signing tour and have probably now signed about . . . I don’t know . . . 35,000 books. I just get such a positive reaction from the people.

Senator Clinton: Well, I’m sure they matter, but for me, much of what I wanted to do in this book was to tell the story from my perspective, and some of the people who have reviewed it have a different perspective. And they’re certainly welcome to it. But that’s not how I saw the years that my husband was president, and I’m very happy that so many thousands of people are interested in reading this book and drawing their own conclusions.

Senator Clinton: Well, I’ve just nearly finished this wonderful biography of Katharine Hepburn, which is a great read.

It’s called “Kate Remembered” by Scott Bird. It’s a wonderful story of her life based on many hours of conversation that the author had with her over the last 25 years or so. And, you know, I will be looking for good recommendations from Bunch of Grapes of what I should be reading.

You have made a lot of transitions in your life. Mother, first lady, senator. How are you getting on in the Senate?

Senator Clinton: Very, very well. I mean, I have appreciated greatly the collegiality and the warm outreach that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have shown toward me. It’s enabled me to work with many of my fellow senators on lots of issues in a bipartisan way, which is how I think the senate is supposed to operate. And where we agree, that’s real opportunity, and where we disagree, I try to at least do it in a very civil fashion, because I may work with somebody tomorrow that I disagreed with today.

How do you get on with George Bush given that it is not quite the normal sort of senator-president relationship.

Senator Clinton: Well, I mean, he certainly has been cordial and polite. And I appreciated greatly the commitment to New York after 9/11, which made a tremendous statement despite the horror of the attacks. The fact that the country stood behind New York and that the President pledged his support was a great vote of confidence at a time when we really needed it.

Health care is a big issue on Martha’s Vineyard. A number of groups on the Island have been working very hard to try to re-invent the way health care is delivered on the Vineyard, which includes providing affordable health care for the uninsured and under-insured. It is a problem faced by other rural communities, and one we are struggling with here. Do you have any thoughts on what the federal government can do to help communities like the Vineyard face that issue?

Senator Clinton: Well, I think the Vineyard is representative of communities all over the country that are finding it difficult to provide quality affordable health care. And it’s because we have a totally dysfunctional financing system for health care in this country. You know, we don’t spend the money where it needs to be spent on paying doctors and nurses and reimbursing hospitals to the extent that we should; we spend it on middlemen. And all kinds of administrative overhead, profit-driven costs that don’t put a single doctor in the operating room or nurse by the bedside. And until we face up to the fact that we waste huge amounts of money in the way we finance health care, we’re not going to have any effective solution. And it just absolutely boggles my mind that in a country as rich and smart as we are, we persist in this absurd system which nobody planned and which just developed over the last 50 or 60 years, and which is unsustainable.

And so in addition to people growing in numbers who are both uninsured and (I appreciate your observation) under-insured, we have so many problems keeping our institutions afloat. Hospitals all over the country are confronting huge unreimbursed costs. And this is a problem that is not going to go away, and it is not just a problem of the uninsured, it is a problem for everyone, because even the best insured person who might come to Martha’s Vineyard — if there’s not a hospital with a first-rate medical and nursing staff ready to receive that person, if she or he has a heart attack or an accident, then what good is all the insurance in the world?

You know, this is something I care deeply about and it is frustrating to me that we persist in refusing to deal with the special interests who make money out of this dysfunctional system, and try to rationalize how we’re going to provide, you know, quality affordable health care and invest in the very best health care infrastructure that the world’s ever seen, which we are now allowing to deteriorate.

Senator Clinton: That’s a huge question, but it’s one that I’m giving a lot of thought to and trying to come up with some new answers, since clearly what I tried in ‘93 and ‘94 didn’t work. I haven’t given up, and

They're baaaaaaaaaack freeloading as usual....I'm sure if Hitlery takes a stroll along Lucy Vincent Beach with Ted and Mary the thunder of those great fat thighs will drown out the roar of the surf.

The Clintons have been regular Vineyard........

FREELOADERS

3 posted on 08/15/2003 11:23:10 AM PDT by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I will defend to your death my right to say it)

Her state in a power crisis, Hillary leaves for a holiday out-of-state?

Anyone catch her gaff on King last night? Boasted how the New York City PD is the best in the world?

No complaint against the NYPD, but what of the Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, et al PDs who also serve the public in the STATE that the Senator is to represent?

This qualifies as an interview? All I heard while reading it were sycophantic slurping noises...

Wait a minute! Mrs. Evil is going to be vacationing while there is a crisis going on in NYC?

This was my first visit to the Vineyard. I suppose Hitlery likes it sooo much becuse she can swim with her fellow species, the sharks and the whales.

Last week it was 20,000. She has been jetting all over the country to make appearances and still managed to sign 15,000 more books?

Mrs. Clinton will sign copies of her book, “Living History,” this Saturday at the Bunch of Sour Grapes bookstore...

No relaxation, no friends. This is serious negotiations, all business, with acquaintances who are for the most part, adversaries.

A Mafioso don has a more comfortable degree of camaraderie with his underlings. And he knows they all want his job.

It’s called “Kate Remembered” by Scott Bird...

It's SCOTT BERG -- airhead.

Don't ya' love it? She's reading a book, it's a really good book, but she doesn't know the name the author. D'oh! Is she even really reading it? Who knows...

11 posted on 08/15/2003 11:30:44 AM PDT by veronica (http://www.petitiononline.com/KN50711/petition.html - Confirm Daniel Pipes to USIPF ......sign this!)

Meanwhile:

"Collapse of (Martha's) Vineyard deck injures nine"

Where was Hillary?

I'm sure that she has some hairy-legged female intern reading the book and telling her the major parts so that she can have little tidbits to toss out to the press.

The Clintons have been regular Vineyard visitors,

...only because they don't have to pay for anything. Hell, I'll pay for her to stay there -- or anywhere far away from here.

14 posted on 08/15/2003 11:37:11 AM PDT by NYC GOP Chick (Clinton Legacy = 16-acre hole in the ground in lower Manhattan)

Co-worker of mine stated she watched Hillary on CNN last evening. What really got on her nerves was Hillary's constant usage of the phrase: you know, you know, etc. I told my co-worker that's Hillary's way of sounding "folksy" with the common man.....

Collapse of (Martha's) Vineyard deck injures nine"
Where was Hillary?

She has gained alot of weight!

You know, this is something I care deeply about and it is frustrating to me that we persist in refusing to deal with the special interests who make money out of this dysfunctional system, and try to rationalize how we’re going to provide, you know, quality affordable health care and invest in the very best health care infrastructure that the world’s ever seen, which we are now allowing to deteriorate.

Oh, I think the woman has a depth of, you know, thought that goes far beyond, I mean, anything I could uhhhhh, ever hope to duplicate.

I read on another thread where liberals are up in arms because President Bush didn't personally call Governors and mayors. Why aren't they up in arms that their Senator is vacationing during the middle of a state crisis?

Remember when Chrissy Matthews had on that woman, JoEllen Demetrius, who would say that Bubba would always raise his eyebrows when making an insincere statement or lie? I think the same goes for Hillary, only she uses the phrase "you know."

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