BTW, I wish I was up there right now; I'd love to go to Putney!
BTW, I wish I was up there right now; I'd love to go to Putney!
I remember that incident. Sperry asked Clinton a question which he didn't like and he got all red-faced and hostile, and I think Perry was afterward denied access to the White House. I can't remember the question, though.
I live in Florida now. 30 years in Vermont was enough! ;-}
Drawing a blank on the fund raising scandal. There were so many!
I remember that one...
"It was my turn to meet the celebrity president. As he approached me, I politely, if coolly, asked him when he would hold his next formal press conference. It had been several months since his last and he's had fewer than any recent president. I admit I was trying to agitate the proper forum for questions about the FBI agents' charges. But, to me, this was still a rather innocuous question, even within the supposedly neutral zone of a party. A relevant question, too, given the gathering. Other hard-nosed reporters surely were wondering when they'd get another crack at Clinton.
Or so I thought. My simple question was rewarded with boos and hisses from the adoring Clinton groupies around me. So much for the adversarial press.
But that was nothing compared with Clinton's reaction to my inquiry about his next press confab. In an instant, his 100-watt charm shut off, replaced by a taunting belligerence. "Why?" he barked.
"Because the American people have a lot of unanswered questions," I replied, struggling to hold my bladder. At that point, he moved back down the rope, pulling up square in front of me, and demanded, "Like what?"
"Well, like illegal money from China and the campaign-finance scandal ..."
What happened over the next 10 minutes was nothing short of a "scene." The party-goers collapsed in around us. I watched the blood rush to Clinton's gargantuan face as he launched into a tirade against ex-Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour, the FBI, Bob Dole and Republicans in general. All the while, he tried to belittle me by making faces (to get a rise out of his fans) and intimidate me by getting in my face.
And now I can see how he can do that to people. Clinton's not just intellectually intimidating, he's physically imposing. He's tall (6-2) and big-boned.
Luckily, I'm the same height and was able to stand toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye with him. I'll never forget the maniacal look in his bloodshot eyes. There was a moment, fleeting, where I sensed he wanted to try to take a swipe at me. I was getting full frontal Clinton. His volcanic temper, hidden so well from the public by his handlers, erupted less than 12 inches from my eyes.
Clinton always is game for a debate. That I asked him hard questions at a party wasn't what ticked him off. It's what I asked him about. He clearly doesn't want to talk about the mother of all scandals -- Chinagate.
He also may have been thrown by my grasp of the facts. I'd been tracking the Beijing-tied Lippo Group's influence in the Clinton White House since 1996 and have been suspicious of the probity of Attorney General Janet Reno's special task force since she let John Keeney Sr. set it up -- a month after the election -- to look into Lippo's influence.
Keeney's son is none other than a defense attorney for John Huang, the former Lippo executive and convicted Clinton-Gore fund-raiser. Junior, who's also a long-time Democratic National Committee lawyer, cut Huang a deal with daddy's old task force that got him no jail time and immunity from prosecution for espionage.
Clinton also was unprepared for my tenacity. Other reporters may back down after he singes their eyebrows with a verbal fusillade. Dummy me, I hung in there for more abuse, challenging his answers, following up with more questions. Which only made him madder.
Take, for instance, the exchange we had after I asked him what he thought of the FBI agents' charges two days earlier that they'd been blocked from following trails back to the White House in the Chinagate probe. (When I first mentioned the agents, he acted dumb: "What FBI agents?")
"The Eff-Bee-Ahh," Clinton said, his tone dripping with contempt and suspicion. "What do you think of the FBI?"
I don't have an opinion, sir. My question is to you.
"Yeah, the FBI wants you to write about that rather than write about Waco," a reference to lingering questions about the agency's role in the 1993 fire that killed Branch Davidian separatists in Waco, Texas.
It was an extraordinary remark. The president was questioning the motives and veracity of his own agency.
I piped up that these were career FBI agents. One had been with the agency 25 years. And they made these charges under oath.
"Are you suggesting they're not telling the truth, Mr. President?" I asked.
Clinton's face turned a darker hue of red, almost the purplish color of raw hamburger meat that's been left out on the counter. Changing the subject, he attacked Republicans for their own fund-raising woes.
After Clinton had had enough of me, he tried to move on. But, I pressed, reminding him that he still hadn't answered my original question: When will you have another formal news conference?
"You just had one," he snapped. "