hillary clinton to be on Meet the Press today / Will Tim Russert do an Alan Colmes?

C-SPAN | 12-9-01 | Mia T

[Mia T]

12-09-01

hillary clinton to be on Meet the Press today

Will Tim Russert do an Alan Colmes?

 

hillary's head revisited:

hillary clinton's brain (such as it is) II

 by Mia T

The smartest woman in the world would relish "the raucous give and take of American democracy, " as Charles Kuralt once put it.

hillary clinton, by contrast, subsists on cozy clintonoid interviews of the Colmes kind...

In her new book, Political Fictions, Joan Didion indicts the fakery of access journalism practiced by vacant politicos like the clintons, whom she sees as "purveyors of fables of their own making, or worse, fables conceived by political strategists with designs on votes, not news."

(More Didion: "No one who ever passed through an American public high school could have watched William Jefferson Clinton running for office in 1992 and failed to recognize the familiar predatory sexuality of the provincial adolescent.")

(And Bob Woodward: His accomplishment, she says, is to have produced "books in which measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent.")

Miss Hillary. . . strikes me as one of those innumerable people whose prose is so dull that they are reduced to using equally prosaic cusswords.

Paul Greenberg, The man is an artist: He's not just 'Slick Willie' anymore

John Podhoretz recently asked, "Whence comes hillary clinton's reputation for brilliance?" For the answer, he intuitively, rather brilliantly in fact, looked to her anatomy and noted,"This isn't the first time she's shot herself in the foot."

 

...The above anatomical analysis supports the Podhoretz thesis. Notwithstanding The Pod's erroneous conclusions concerning HILLARY! clinton's heart and nerve, he basically has it right. Anatomy is destiny.

 

Ian Hunter recently observed that our leaders are shrinking. "From a Churchill (or, for that matter, a Margaret Thatcher) to a Tony Blair; from Eisenhower to Clinton; from Diefenbaker to Joe Clark; from Trudeau to Chretien -- we seem destined to be governed by pygmies."

 

...The clintons' fundamental error: They are too arrogant and dim-witted to understand that the demagogic process in this fiberoptic age isn't about counting spun heads; it's about not discounting circumambient brains...

Mia T

Mindless rhinestone-studded-and-tented kleptocracy

 

 

"Hillary's people are very bright," said a well-connected Democrat yesterday. "But they think everybody else is stupid."

Stupid is as stupid does, says Off the Record. . .

OFF THE RECORD: AN OLD DOG NEEDS NEW TRICKS

 

Q ERTY4

hillary's typo

"Hillary thinks that Tipper is an unintellectual nice lady who doesn't have a brain in her head"...

DEBORAH ORIN

BIG CHILL FOR TIPPER & HILL

 

Talk about the pot calling the kettle empty...

To paraphrase Abe Lincoln: She can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any person I know. [NOTE: Lincoln didn't know HIM.] ...

And Adlai Stevenson :In America, anybody can be co-president. That's one of the risks you take.

more...

 

Rumor has it William Jefferson Clinton himself is to recite Honest Abe's lines in this New Year's Eve pageant. Whoever writes these scripts has a natural talent for irony. For some irrepressible reason, one cannot help but think of that costume party in "The Manchurian Candidate,'' complete with Red Queen and Abe Lincoln in stovepipe hat and fake beard.

Hillary Clinton says it's a great opportunity to unite the nation. (The way she's united New York?) But the Clintons are never so polarizing as when they are intent on uniting us. How can that be? Maybe it's their perfectly fabricated authenticity. The Nineties have had much the same effect, stirring the same vague dissatisfactions -- and sparking sudden outbursts of temper. What was it that poor, embarrassed David Brinkley, thinking his mike was off, said after the president's victory speech in '96¿ "We all look forward with great pleasure to four years of wonderful, inspiring speeches, full of wit, poetry, music, love and affection, plus more goddam nonsense.''

Still not finished, Mr. Brinkley added that this president "has not a creative bone in his body. Therefore, he's a bore, and will always be a bore.'' Oh, dear. The commentator's unintentionally public thoughts were all the more embarrassing for being so widely shared by any Americans still sentient four years into the Age of Clinton. But it's one thing to notice such things, quite another to say them out loud. Why belabor the obvious?

Hey, what a party! New Year's at the White House

 

Mindless rhinestone-studded-and-tented kleptocracy

by Mia T

John Podhoretz recently asked, "Whence comes hillary clinton's reputation for brilliance?" For the answer, he intuitively, rather brilliantly in fact, looked to her anatomy and noted,"This isn't the first time she's shot herself in the foot."

The above anatomical analysis supports the Podhoretz thesis. Notwithstanding The Pod's erroneous conclusions concerning HILLARY! clinton's heart and nerve, he basically has it right. Anatomy is destiny...

 

Ian Hunter recently observed that our leaders are shrinking. "From a Churchill (or, for that matter, a Margaret Thatcher) to a Tony Blair; from Eisenhower to Clinton; from Diefenbaker to Joe Clark; from Trudeau to Chretien -- we seem destined to be governed by pygmies."

 

The pols understand their anatomical limitations well; they attempt to mitigate them with veneer. And so we suffer mindless alpha-beta-beelzebubba grotesquerie. . .

 

 

 

and rhinestone-studded-and-tented kleptocracy.

 

With all the media genuflecting before the press-conference podium of bill clinton, it bears remarking yet again that the clinton intellect (an oxymoron even more jarring than AlGoreRhythm and meant to encompass the cognitive ability of both clintons) is remarkable only for its utter ordinariness, its lack of creative spark, its lack of analytic precision, its lack of depth.

 

The clintons' fundamental error: They are too arrogant and dim-witted to understand that the demagogic process in this fiberoptic age isn't about counting spun heads; it's about not discounting circumambient brains.

 

Politicos and reporters are not rocket scientists . . .

Professions tend to be self-selected, intellectually homogeneous subgroups of Homo sapiens. Great intellects (especially these days) do not generally gravitate towards careers in the media or politics. Mediocre, power-obsessed types with poor self-images do.

 

Thus, clinton mediocrity goes undetected primarily because of media mediocrity. ("Mediocrity" and "media" don't come from the same Latin root (medius) for no reason.) Insofar as the clintons are concerned, the media confuse form with substance, smoothness with coherence, data-spewing with ratiocination, pre-programmed recitation with real-time analysis, an idiosyncratic degeneracy with creativity.

Jimmy Breslin agrees. In Hillary Is the 'Me-First' Lady, Breslin laments:

"At the end of all these years and years that are being celebrated this week, the national press of America consists of people with dried minds and weak backbones and the pack of them can't utter a new phrase for the language or show the least bit of anger at a business or profession or trade or whatever this business is that is dying of mediocrity."

 

Listen carefully to the clintons. You will hear a shallow parody of the class president. Not only do they say nothing; they say nothing with superfluous ineloquence. Their speeches are sophomoric, shopworn, shallow, specious. Platitudinous pandering piled atop p.c. cliché

In seven years, they have, collectively, uttered not one memorable word save, "It was a vast right-wing conspiracy," "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky,"and, "It all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

Even the clintons' attempts at alliteration fall flat. Compare Agnew's (Safire's) "nattering nabobs of negativism" with clinton's "preachers of pessimism," an impotent, one-dimensional, plagiaristic echo (its apt self-descriptiveness notwithstanding).

Before they destroy their backs along with their reputations, media gentry genuflecting at the altar of the clinton brain should consider Edith Efron's, Can the President Think?

A wasted brain is a terrible thing.

 

 

 

"My client had nothing to do with the low-rent, trailer-park trash politicians who infested our country for the past eight years."

--Michael Rosen, lawyer for Thomas Gambino, son of late Mafia boss Carlo Gambino

New York Post via The Wall Street Journal

(Michael Rosen was understandably eager to distance his client, a convicted loan shark, from the clintons. Another Thomas Gambino reportedly paid $50,000 to roger clinton in an unsuccessful effort to get a pardon for his father, Rosario Gambino.),

It's not easy to play fair against Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, who, in the words of the authors, "operated like a crime family, expecting friends and aides to protect them even against their own best interests." What's amazing, of course, is that's exactly what Clinton friends and aides have always done, from Susan McDougal to Webster Hubbell to flocks of nameless White House special assistants. Even Jim McDougal died just in time to deprive the independent counsel of a key witness against Mrs. Clinton, thus derailing what the authors report to have been her likely indictment for perjury and obstruction related to the Whitewater investigation....     

Reading the tumultuous events of the Lewinsky probe in a comprehensive narrative is unlike attempting to make sense of it in daily doses. Something different comes through the heavy accumulation of detail of, for example, the duplicity of the Justice Department, or the sharklike behavior of the White House. One begins to get a choking sense of the atmosphere of corruption and ruthlessness the Clintons inhabit -- and, worse, have forced the rest of us to inhabit. Taken in one piece, the habitual, even casual abuse of power on display begins to resemble conditions one normally associates with a state of totalitarianism, where such concepts as truth and justice are only paid lip service. In the end, then, it makes you wonder when there will be fresh air again.

-----Crime-family values

"I did not have any involvement in the pardons that were granted or not granted," insisted Sen. KnowNothing, seeming to forget her presence at the New-Square/Oval-Office schmooze that secured pardons for the four Hasidic felons who set up a phony school in Brooklyn to swindle the government out of millions intended for the poor.

Mia T, Sen. KnowNothing Victim Clinton Effectively Pleads 5TH in Press Conference by Invoking Spousal Privilege

HEY, HEY MARY JO!

by Mia T

 

So many pardons 4 sale.

 

So many rodhams & clintons to nail.

 

Hey, hey Mary Jo!

 

Can you spell R-I-C-O?

Sen. KnowNothing Victim Clinton Holds News Conference

EFFECTIVELY PLEADS 5^TH BY INVOKING SPOUSAL PRIVILEGE

by Mia T

 

WASHINGTON- February 22. Sen. KnowNothing Victim Clinton held her premiere press conference today on Capitol Hill, ostensibly to answer questions about the peddling of White House pardons by her brother and her campaign treasurer. Notably absent among the press queries were any about her own involvement not only in those pardons, but in the larger universe of sold pardons--the incipient clinton scandal du jour--Pardongate.

KnowNothing's brother, Hugh Rodham, secured two of the 141 clinton midnight pardons, one for a cocaine kingpin and the other for a snake-oil swindler. Rodham netted a quick $400,000 for his "work" according to various rodhams and clintons and their assorted lawyers. KnowNothing's campaign treasurer, William Cunningham III, himself a law partner of longtime KnowNothing adviser Harold Ickes, helped obtain last-minute pardons for two convicted felons.

LA FAMIGLIA

Displaying a willingness to throw her brother (along with her husband) to the wolves, Sen. Victim Clinton was quick to make a distinction between her big, bad brother's pardon "work" and that of her campaign treasurer, "a fine lawyer and a fine man." The "family" connection of brother Rodham to Clinton made brother Rodham's "work" bad, bad, bad, whereas the campaign treasurer Cunningham's connection to the senator and her campaign coffers made his securing of two pardons in record time a sterling example of highminded, effective public service.

KnowNothing is apparently not the best of thinkers. If the "family" connection makes lobbying for cocaine-kingpin and snake-oil-swindler pardons bad, bad, bad for brother Rodham, then the "family" connection makes lobbying for the Hasidim 4 (see Keating 5) pardons bad, badder, baddest for the wife, First Lady and senator-elect. Moreover, pardons for votes is arguably worse than pardons for dough.

EFFECTIVELY PLEADS 5^TH BY INVOKING SPOUSAL PRIVILEGE

KnowNothing specifically declined to answer when asked whether she discussed the pardons with her husband, effectively pleading the 5^th. Turning aside questions about the pardon decisions her husband had made, she told reporters they should address those issues with him and his staff. She refused to say whether he should agree to appear voluntarily before congressional committees investigating the pardons. Interestingly, no one asked her whether she would agree to appear voluntarily before those same congressional committees.

I DIDN'T HAVE SEX WITH THAT PARDON

"I did not have any involvement in the pardons that were granted or not granted," insisted Sen. KnowNothing, seeming to forget her presence at the New-Square/Oval-Office schmooze that secured pardons for the four Hasidic felons who set up a phony school in Brooklyn to swindle the government out of millions intended for the poor.

RESURRECTING RUFF

KnowNothing noted that her"best memory" was that she never spoke to her brother or to Mr. Cunningham about the pardons. With variations of "I don't have a memory" and "my best memory, and avoiding the more obvious "I don't recall" and "my best recollection," KnowNothing reprised the Ruffian standard used during the clinton years to commit perjury without penalty.

I GET LETTERS

...or more precisely, envelopes. During her denials of involvement in any of the pardons, KnowNothing made the curious claim: "People handed me envelopes, I passed them on [and never opened a single one. Honest.]"

I AM VICTIM

Reprising the role of victim that enabled her to win a senate seat in spite of record-high personal negatives and public failures, the senator peppered her answers about big, bad Hugh (understanding that the subtext was big, bad Bill) with "saddened" and "disappointed" and "heartbroken" and "shocked."

UTTER CONTEMPT FOR THE PEOPLE

This session today was cut short by a staffer when reporters appeared dissatisfied by Senator KnowNothing's lack of candor.

In the end, this press conference full of poses, poll-tested phrases and prevarication was just another display of the clintons' utter contempt for the people. Bill Clinton committed the same error last Sunday in his shameless, lie-filled New York Times Pardongate Apologia.

The clintons' fundamental error: They are too arrogant and dim-witted to understand that the demagogic process in this fiberoptic age isn't about counting spun heads; it's about not discounting circumambient brains.

 

 

 

Don't lose

Your head

To gain a minute

You need your head

Your brains are in it.

--an old roadside ad, Pushme-Pullyou

 

 

 

 

HIM: "I didn't have sex with that pardon."

HER: Sen. KnowNothing Victim Clinton Effectively Pleads 5^TH by Invoking Spousal Privilege

Connect the dots, Helen...

HEY, HEY MARY JO!

Can you spell R-I-C-O?

[travelin_man]

IMO, this is a test for Russert. We all know his style. We want to see him treat her like he treats other pols...

Imus is watching, Timmy....

[spectre]

Well, we are in the Central Time Zone,so most everything we get from the alphabet News networks, (except FOX and CNN (barf), are taped.

Wondering if anyone will ask Hillary why they chose a New York Architect to design the Clinton Library in Arkansas?

Could someone please ask Hillary if she thinks the Library looks like a "covered airplane loading ramp"...or if it's intended to look that way in preparation for the now retired "Air Force One" to call home?

sw

[doug from upland]

Afghan women must get the message. When they learn the truth, they will not allow the b*tch in their country.

[Clara Lou]

Well, Hillary is very, very busy on "Meet the Press" being sure she sounds like a Bush supporter-- not a negative word have I heard. AND-- she says that the American found fighting for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan IS a traitor. And, she says the Clinton administration left things undone. (She's been talking to Carville-- following his talking notes for sure>)

[1 FELLOW FREEPER]

HE did kiss..........and I did turn!

[spectre]

Right now, Tim is busy drilling the VP

So Hillary is saying the Clinton Admin left things undone???? Boy, is SHE ever right, LOL! Like, did she mean offing Bin Laden?

sw

[CrossCheck]

Will Tim Russert do an Alan Colmes? Yes he did.

[spectre]

I can't take it!

She claims Clinton had "secret directives to go after Bin Laden"....BUT, there wasn't the Congressional support for it, BEFORE Sept. 11th.

Hillary is having a great time "being a Senator"...She does not "intend" to run for President.

Hillary ends interview with "It's Tim Russert Day in Buffalo...the people are so proud of you, Tim"...

Oh, throw-up time!

sw

[KJMorgan]

" You artisitic creativity is certainly abundant..so much so that I cannot handle the bandwidth and slow loading to read your posts any longer. Too bad."

I feel the same way, guess she wants to show off her HTML skills. Frankly I find it silly and a waste of time.

[majordivit]

Russert asked HIllary over and over again to comment on Ashcroft's statement about anybody opposing tribunals is aiding and abetting the terrorists (which is true by the way).. Russert of course opposes military tribunals an grilled Cheney on it. IF Russert was a fair and balanced journalist and not a democrat shill he would have challenged Clinton and demanded to know why the democrat committee did not call defense secreatary Rumsfield to discuss any issues with the military tribunals. Russert should have taken the view of many conservatives that this was just another way for liberal scum like Kennedy, Clinton Leahy and Schumer to score political points by attacking Ashcroft. Russert of course only plays hard ball devils advocate when interviewing conservatives, never when he is interviewing prize liberals...

[SerpentDove]

It's official.

RUSSERT IS A SHILL

[Carry_Okie]

The advertisers for the second half of MTP today are getting ripped. My TV is now off.

[joyful1]

Why didn't Russert ask Hillary when she will appear on Bill O'Reilly's show?

[Symix]

Can you imagine the first question Tim asked - he wanted her to report on war with Afganistan!! He is creating an impression SHE is in charge of that! And, knowing that all the questions in her interviews are pre-selected and the answers rehearsed, she was the one to make this impression!

[majordivit]

Russert is an ex democrat operative (just like Chris Matthews)..But, as Michael Savage of the Savage Nation correctly points out..

There Is No Such Thing As A EX democrat Operative

[Mia T]

Senator Dim Bulb ANNOTATED BUMP!

[Merovingian]

Ditto to you..Enough is enough, and too much is too much.........

[Trueblackman]

The Red Queen is lying her ass off.

[KLT]

I HATE THAT WOMAN! I ALMOST LOST MY BREAKFAST!

SOMEONE GET ME OUT OF NY, BEFORE I GO COMPLETELY INSANE!