Clear Portrait of HRC - Jeffrey Hart
Randy Michaels
Conservative Chronicles - Jeffrey Hart
JANUARY 22 - Hillary Clinton is now traveling around
promoting a book she hasn't written called 'It Takes a
Village,' about raising children. Since she is up to her
ears in a huge public relations disaster and political mess,
the joke going around Washington is that the book should be
called "It Takes a Subpoena."
When a busy public figure "writes" a book, the usual and
indeed decent thing to do is acknowledge the service of the
ghost writer. The name of Barbara Feinman, who spent seven
months writing the early drafts of the book, appears nowhere
Feinman is no obscure hack. She's a professor of journalism
at Georgetown.
That tells you a lot about Hillary Clinton, right there.
THE EXCERPTS FROM the book I've read are astonishingly
preachy and cloying. I recall that a year or so ago the
first lady was talking about something called a "politics of
meaning," the nature of which was unclear, but it sounded
high-minded.
And what makes her such an expert on raising children
anyway? She's a relentless career woman and power freak who
somehow has managed to have one child. Nevertheless, we keep
hearing from the first lady and her crowd about children,
children, children- - as if heretofore people had not raised
children and now need their advice, which naturally consists
of more government programs.
The Sargasso Sea of troubles into which Mrs. Clinton is
sinking has two nasty items in the foreground. In both of
them she has managed to worsen her position by making
statements that seem untrue on the plain evidence.
The travel office firings were a nasty piece of work,
although in themselves legal. Egged on by Harry Thomason and
his wife, Hollywood producers and Arkansas cronies,
President Clinton and his wife kicked off a scheme to make
Thomason a bundle in plane leasing. That required the
firings. OK, nasty cronyism and patronage, but legal.
To justify the firing of seven longtime employees, the
Clintons and their henchmen called in the FBI (abuse of
power) in an effort to smear them, tried to make the FBI say
that it was investigating the employees (a bogus
justification for the firings) and then announced that the
investigation was under way (defamation of the employees).
Through her attorney, Hillary Clinton told the General
Accounting Office that she had no role in the decision to
terminate the employees.
NOW THE INFAMOUS nine-paget memoir from David Watkins has
appeared stating that Vince Foster "regularly informed me
that the first lady was concerned and desired action; the
action desired was the firing of the travel office staff."
Watkins added, "If I thought I could have resisted those
pressures, and undertaken more considered action, and
remained in the White House, I certainly would have done so"
Then we have Hillary Clinton's involvement with the slimy
Madison Guaranty bank in Arkansas. The issue is to what
extent the governor's wife used her clout to grease the
regulatory way for the bank, which failed and cost the
taxpayers $60 million.
She claims she did little legal work for it. Recently
surfacing records, which had been in Vince Foster's office,
show that is not true. She did 60 hours of work including
14 phone calls, much of it in connection with a trailer park
scheme with the grandiose name "Castle Grande."
Suzanne Garment has written tellingly, that "in regulatory
matters, 60 hours of jawing by a big name lawyer is the
opposite of insignificant."
"If the billing was honest, her participation in Madison
matters was substantial," Mrs. Garment says.
One can only speculate, but it seems quite possible that
Vince Foster's awareness of the can of worms -- his notes
are all over some of the documents -- might have been a
factor leading to his suicide.
Clinton attorney David Kendall says he doubts that the
Senate can subpoena the first lady, citing separation of
powers. The answer is that a Senate committee can subpoena
anyone it wants.
A "subpoena" means "under penalty." Anyone defying a
subpoena can be arrested. Whether the committee will
subpoena the first lady is purely a political judgment.
But, far beyond that, a clear portrait of Hillary Clinton
is emerging.
My own ears perked up about her early on when I read that on
a visit to Washington while Ronald Reagan was president, she
refused to take a tour of the White House "while those
Nazis" were still in there. Her self-righteousness and
imperial contempt are Himalayan in size.
THE PRICE THE CLINTONS are paying and will pay for the
cover-ups and the lies is so steep that there must be a lot
more back there to cover up.