Huffington Post Covered Up Bill Clinton Affair During 2008 Presidential Campaign

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 | Kristinn

[kristinn]

Huffington Post reporter Mayhill Fowler reveals today that she intentionally ignored reporting former President Bill Clinton's adulterous relationship with an unnamed mistress during his wife Hillary's campaign for the 2008 Democratic party presidential nomonation.

Fowler writes she knew the state of the Clintons' marriage had national security implications as she notes that Democratic voters were falsely comforted thinking the former two-term president would be by Hillary's side in bed at the White House when the "3 a.m." phone call came. But that was not enough for her to report the truth so the voters could decide for themselves. Huffington Post, the liberal, supposed alternative to the gatekeepers in the mainstream media became the same gatekeepers that they allegedly detested.

Fowler published the story today at the Huffington Post based on excerpts of her book, Notes from a Clueless Journalist: Media, Bias and the Great Election of 2008, available tomorrow as an E-Book on Amazon.

At the time I covered the rally in Victoria, I had decided not to follow up on another story about Bill Clinton that had come my way--one involving his longtime mistress. I mention the nature of the Clinton story with some specificity now only because months later, after the Democratic primaries, the National Enquirer wrote about the relationship. In Texas, staring this story in the face, immediately I turned aside. If I know all about this woman, then surely every national reporter does and is as wary of the story as I am. Nevertheless, I was careful never to mention anything to anybody at OffTheBus. I rationalized the refusal to follow through by telling myself that Clinton's private life was peripheral to the race. But then there came a moment in the Texas primary when the nature of the Clinton marriage suddenly appeared front and center.

A difference between Election 2008 and preceding presidential races is that only one political ad for TV had as much impact as any of half-a-dozen YouTube videos. The brilliant television ad was the "3 A.M. crisis phone call at the White House" that the Clinton Campaign ran in Texas before the primary. The Clinton team knew Texans--folks obsessed with all things big, including such big prospects as national security. So the red phone ad, as it was sometimes called, was powerful persuasion. If I heard a Texan say it once, I heard it a hundred times: thank goodness Hillary will have Bill next to her at 3 A.M. By late February, a piece that gave depth to this naïve view of the Clintons' relationship was suddenly something to think about. But in fact I never really considered it. Executing such a story could have had consequences for the mistress's children, who were still minors. There was no way I would write something that I knew in advance would mortify a high school student in front of his peers. My mother's outrage and pain at the political sex scandal that had blighted her adolescence was just too vivid a presence.

So I continued to rationalize. I told myself various truths: many different kinds of loving experiences make a good world; no one except partners themselves know what goes on behind the bedroom door. As a woman who has been married for thirty-six years, I appreciate the complicated and forgiving nature of long attachments. Nuance about the dynamic of a successful marriage had been one of the things lacking in the widely-criticized New York Times piece on John McCain's supposed infatuation with a lobbyist. Therefore, I told myself, the presence of a mistress really does not tell us all that much about the rich relationship between Bill and Hillary Clinton. But, in the end, I passed on the story for personal reasons. And I came to see that family history, which had always been a penumbra belonging to the dead, was shaping my own storytelling.

I'm calling BS (Barbra Streisand) on her rationalizations. She and the Huffington Post wanted to protect the Democrats and did not want to give conservatives the satisfaction of having been proved right yet again about the Clintons and the Democrat party.

[Artemis Webb]

I would love to believe both from the title of Ms Fowler's book and from the confessional tone of her article that both reality and guilt have finally taken their toll and she is seeing what she and the rest of liberal journalist truly are.

However since she is posting this article on The Huffington Post and freely admits to piggybacking on Game Change that this is all about getting a few extra bucks while covering her ass with excuses.

Bias indeed.

[Carley]

I don’t know anyone who would be shocked at bubba’s whoremongering.

[WaterBoard]

The NATIONAL ENQUIRER exclusively reveals the woman who broke Bill's cheatin' heart.

Meet Julie Tauber McMahon!

Bill's ex- mistress is 48-year-old Julie Tauber McMahon, the daughter of Michigan millionaire Joel Tauber, a top Democratic Party contributor during Clinton's presidency and a personal friend of the Clinton family.

McMahon lives in Chappaqua, New York. - the very same town where the Clintons bought a home after leaving the White House.

Their houses are just five miles apart - just far and fast enough for some bedside commuting!

Finally, Julie finally dumped the ex-Prez, breaking his heart and unleashing his libido!

So, while Senator Hillary Clinton attempted to make history to become the Democratic nom for President Bill repeated history -- as a serial cheater!

[rintense]

This was a bad move, unless HuffPo was hiding the truth to benefit Obama. Think about it. Had it been revealed Bill was cheating, Hillary would have been a very sympathetic figure and all of Bill’s past would have propelled her to the nomination.

[TankerKC]

She is neither fat, not ugly.

You are correct. That's her on the left.

[mquinn]

She looks like an aging S&M fetishist.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Oh, I get it. So NOW she tells us once she’s got a book to sell

[MissDairyGoodnessVT]

i guess someone will find out the name of his mistress when they buy the e-book

[STARWISE]

*snip*

A new book called “The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr,” written by Ken Gormley, a Duquesne University law professor and legal pundit, is due out in February but is already causing quite a bit of buzz.

For this book, Gormley had multiple interviews with many of the players involved in the Clinton scandals including Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Ken Starr, Susan McDougal, Paula Jones, and Robert Ray, Ken Starr’s successor.

Robert Ray was prepared to indict the Clintons after Bill left office if he did not agree to admit that he made false statements about Lewinsky under oath and accept disbarment.

According to excerpts from Ken Gormley’s book, Prosecutor Robert Ray “was ready to ‘pull the trigger’ if the conditions he imposed on Bill Clinton were not satisfied,” and had to be “cajoled” by a colleague into signing off on the final deal with Clinton.

“President Clinton would never fully grasp how close he came to being indicted,” Gormley writes in his book.

Unless you’ve totally blocked the Clinton presidency out of your mind - which I have tried repeatedly to do - you’ll remember that in the deal with Prosecutor Ray, Bill Clinton admitted, on his last day in office, that he gave false testimony in the Lewinsky scandal.

This in effect, saved him from being indicted. As part of his deal, Clinton said he gave “false” answers in that now famous “it depends on what the definition of is, is” January 1998 deposition.

*snip*

Other details in the book that I’m sure you’ll want to know include an assertion that Clinton and Susan McDougal also had an extra marital affair (blech!), that Ken Starr’s deputies prepared a draft indictment of Hillary Clinton and her former law partner, Webb Hubbell, but it was unanimously rejected by prosecutors more focused on the Lewinsky case (darn!); and that Monica Lewinsky says Bill Clinton lied in his grand jury testimony about the sexual affair they had:

“There was no leeway on the veracity of his statements because they asked him detailed and specific questions to which he answered untruthfully,” Lewinsky said according to the book.

http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=5197

Reported elsewhere, the cost of pursuing this whole stinking mess is staggering:

55 Million Dollars!

Still, God bless you, Linda Tripp.

[Sherman Logan]

If this story had come out when she says, it could only have helped Obama. Since he won anyway, it doesn’t seem to have made much difference.

If the story had come out, Obama’s win would have been blamed on the story, at least to some extent.

[holden]

Who is his fat, ugly mistress?

One mistress' name per book is all we'll get.   The conflicted, morally-compromised author is preparing a whole series of books on all the national security implications, I'm sure.

HF

[matginzac]

Thanks for the link to Gawker - er, I think...have never been on that site before (I avoid lefty sites like the plague...) but if this is what they are like typically, there is some serious dysfunction on the left side of the spectrum! Buncha yucks!

[Happyinmygarden]

LOL

Can’t you just imagine the rationalizations for her life that this POS is going to give good ole Saint Peter when she arrives at the pearly gates?

[Vendome]

Good for Bill

 

[Happyinmygarden]

Now if one of the wise and oh-so-enlightened journalists could only bring themselves to write about Hildebeast’s lovers THEN we’d have something!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Fat Chance.
Wait.... is that the name of his mistress?

"Not quite, Mr. Vendome. I am Fat Chance, Criminal Mastermind and purveyor to one Mr. Clinton and his extra marital predilections.
I am so very sorry to report that you will not be privy to the name of Mr. Clinton's mistress...unless you are eager to immediately thereafter meet your Maker! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

[grandpa jones]

How interesting. This is, of course, the same Mayhill Fowler who attended the Obama SanFrancisco fundraiser where Ubama made his infamous, "clinging to guns and religion" statement.

Somehow, Fowler initially didn't think this was newsworthy either.

Link

[holden]

Whoops! What kind of band in that on Belinda Stronach's left hand ring finger?

HF

[Vendome]

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!

Touche!

[musicman]

"Fat Chance."

"Wait.... is that the name of his mistress?"