Is Monica Lewinsky Ready to be President on Day One?

Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. "They said there might be sniper fire," Clinton said.

Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn't remember that, either.

"I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or 'Oh, God, I hope I'm going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.'"

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."

Say what? As Sinbad put it: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'"

Following up his Talking Points Memo questioning Hillary Clinton's honesty and credibility, tonight 3/25/08 Bill O'Reilly brought on Col. David Hunt, who disputes the whole story and takes it as a personal affront to himself and the soldiers stationed in Bosnia at the time of her visit, and Lanny Davis, Clinton friend and former Special Counsel to Bill CLinton. The exchange got heated and O'Reilly half-heartedly tried to reign it in - but hey, the folks like the excitement, right?

Hunt is offended that Clinton is implying that the troops there were inadequate to the job of protecting her. O'Reilly said he didn't get that at all; he knows what she's doing, trying to inflate her commander-in-chiefiness, embellishing the speech. My favorite lines from Hunt: "If you want to be a leader, you don't embellish.

Ms. Lewinsky hoped that in releasing the schedule she would put to rest nagging questions about her role in the Northern Ireland peace talks and the controversial NAFTA trade agreement. 

But shortly after the heavily redacted schedule was released to the press, it became clear that the document was raising more questions than it answered.

“There’s no question that Ms. Lewinsky spent hours in the Oval Office, but it’s unclear what she was working on,” said Democratic operative Carol Foyler. “If she was in there supporting NAFTA, that could be very damaging to her politically.”

The records show her to be an active first lady who traveled widely and was deeply involved in healthcare policy, but they are rife with omissions, terse references and redactions that obscure many of her activities and the identities of those she saw.

For months, Sen. Clinton has faced calls to speed the release of about 2 million pages of material covering her eight years as first lady. The records are stored at her husband's presidential library in Little Rock, Ark. But it seems doubtful that the schedules made public Wednesday will satisfy those who argue that Clinton touts her experience in her husband's White House, yet refuses to offer details about her precise role.

The records span some of the most historically rich and well-documented chapters in the Clinton presidency, including Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern, Monica S. Lewinsky; Hillary Clinton's failed healthcare initiative; and her role in the dismissal of several employees in the White House travel office. But in many cases, the documents refer only to "private meetings" and do little to illuminate the dramatic events unfolding at the time.

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton was home in the White House the day her husband had an infamous sexual encounter just outside the Oval Office with intern Monica Lewinsky, according to Sen. Clinton’s schedule, released Wednesday among 11,000 pages of papers from her years as first lady.

The words of the schedules are dry, but they take on emotional weight when coupled with revelations about the sex scandal that eventually came to light. A year later, the first lady’s schedules show her pressing ahead with public events and showing her face as the scandal upended her life and threatened Bill Clinton’s presidency.

The papers also shed light on her struggle for health care reform early in the Clinton administration, her scaling back when that effort failed, her travels abroad and the legal woes that dogged the Clintons in the White House.

It’s unlikely she would be surprised at this late date to learn that the president was cheating on her while she was at home in the White House. But the release of the documents reminds voters anew about Bill Clinton’s affair and the impeachment proceedings that brought Washington to a halt for a year.

The private crisis came at the most public of times for the the first lady.

She had speeches scheduled, at home and abroad. She appeared by President Clinton’s side at an education event where he angrily dismissed the reports of having sex with Lewinsky.

Her schedule has her choosing flowers for a black-tie dinner, congratulating “Guns Aren’t Cool” award winners and reading to kids in the week in January 1998 when allegations of the scandal begin coming out. She denounced a “vast right-wing conspiracy” in a TV interview.

Almost a year earlier, the schedules show, she was home on Feb. 28, 1997, the day when the Kenneth Starr report says Bill Clinton had a sexual encounter with Lewinsky in an Oval Office bathroom in the early evening, staining her blue dress.

Mrs. Clinton had “drop by” events or meetings in the Map Room and Diplomatic Reception Room between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. that day, according to her schedule. It also lists plays that night at Washington’s Arena Stage and National Theater, and a National Symphony Orchestra pops concert with singer Sarah Brightman at the Kennedy Center.

It is not clear whether Mrs. Clinton attended any of those.

The National Archives in Washington and former President Clinton’s presidential library in Arkansas jointly released the first lady’s schedules after months of pressure from critics who say the Clintons were delaying the disclosure. The issue has dogged her in her bid for the White House.

In all, 11,046 pages have been made available. Nearly 4,800 pages have parts blacked out. Archivists said that’s to protect the privacy of third parties. Schedules for more than 30 days of activities were not included in this release.

Clinton, now New York senator, said in her memoirs that she had little choice but to carry on with her appearances when the Lewinsky revelations came out. It was on Jan. 21, 1998, when her husband woke her up, sat on the edge of the bed and said, “There’s something in today’s papers you should know about.” He told her of the reports of his relationship with the former intern, and she said she believed his denials.

But on Saturday, Aug. 15, 1998, with the investigation closing in on the real story, he woke her up again and owned up to his misbehavior. She said in her book that she was grateful there were no public events that weekend.

On September 17th 2001, Hillary told Jane Pauley on NBC’s dateline that Chelsea had gone on “what she thought would be a great jog” and that she was going to go around the towers. She followed this with, “and then the plane hit,” leaving the impression that Chelsea was jogging downtown at the time of the collision.

In November, 2001, Chelsea wrote an article in the now-defunct Talk magazine about the day’s experience, and this is where the contradiction arises. Based on press reports of the article, Chelsea doesn’t mention anything about a jog, but she talks about seeing the plane hit the tower on television in the apartment.

Hillary later told the General Accounting Office, in a document prepared by her attorney, that she had no role in the decision to fire the employees, did not know the "origin of the decision," and "did not direct that any action be taken by anyone" other than keeping her informed

"The Arkansas man who accused Hillary Rodham Clinton last month of uttering an anti-Semitic slur in 1974 has passed a lie-detector test arranged by The Post. Paul Fray, who has charged Mrs. Clinton called him a "f- - -ing Jew bastard" after Bill Clinton lost his race for Congress, cleared the polygraph exam administered Sunday near his home here. "There's no doubt in my mind that Mr. Fray is truthful," concluded state-licensed Arkansas polygrapher Jeff Hubanks, who gave the three-hour test. . . The findings were reviewed yesterday by another expert, Richard Keifer, a former head of the FBI's polygraph unit who has 20 years of experience. Keifer judged the results "inconclusive" because they didn't meet the high federal polygraph standards - but said he found nothing to indicate Fray was lying. Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said, "Paul Fray is an admitted liar, and we're not going to be responding to his lies anymore."

That same year former Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson claimed that in their frequent arguments, Bill and Hillary Clinton would use such expressions as "Jew motherf*cker," "Jew Boy" and "Jew Bastard."

A reference to the semen-stained dress that helped bring about President Bill Clinton's impeachment has surfaced in the battle Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are waging to win the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential nomination. 

Former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer has a blog, a web log, on which he publishes commentary on the Internet. In a weekend post, Fischer said Bill Clinton shouldn't be forgiven for implying Obama doesn't love his country as much as Senators Clinton or John McCain, then Fischer went on to say Clinton's comments were a "stain on (the former president's) legacy, much worse, much deeper than the one on Monica's blue dress."

The Monica that Fischer's referring to would be Monica Lewinsky, the infamous White House intern.  A spokesman for the Clinton campaign called Fischer's statement the "most personal attack yet" from the Obama camp, suggesting Fischer's remark was both insulting and slanderous.

At about 10 o'clock this morning, Fischer, who is an attorney, deleted that statement and posted an apology. Fischer called his own Monica comment "tasteless and gratuitous" as well as "unnecessary and wrong."

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, says Senator Obama believes the comments Fischer made "have no place in our political dialogue and he strongly rejects them." 

"B. Clinton questions Obama's patriotism.  In repsonse (sic), an Obama aide compared B. Clinton to Joe McCarthy. This is patently unfair.  To McCarthy.

"When Joe McCarthy questioned others' patriotism, McCarthy (1) actually believed, at least aparently (sic), the questions were genuine, and (2) he did so in order to build up, not tear down, his own party, the GOP.  Bill Clinton cannot possibly seriously believe Obama is not a patriot, and cannot possibly be said to be helping -- instead he is hurting -- his own party.  B. Clinton should never be forgiven.  Period.  This is a stain on his legacy, much worse, much deeper, than the one on Monica's blue dress."

That's not quite the kind of comment that keeps with Obama's pledge to focus on policy differences instead of personal attacks, I think it's safe to say.

- jpt

By admin on 3/24/2008 10:12 AM

I sincerely apologize for a tasteless and gratituous comment I made here about President Clinton.  It was unnecessary and wrong.

I have since deleted the comment, and again apologize for making it.  It will not happen again.

I hope my readers will accept my apology and we can move on to the very important issues facing our state and country.  Thank you.