Published: April 20, 2008 10:10 PM ET - Associated Press
PITTSBURGH Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton was endorsed Sunday by a former foe who personally funded many of the investigations that led to her husband President Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998. The unexpected nod came from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper, whose owner and publisher, billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, in the 1990s helped support conservative groups and publications investigating the then-president's financial dealings and sex life. It was one of a handful of endorsements the New York senator has received from Pennsylvania newspapers before the state's primary Tuesday. Most of the state's major papers have endorsed Barack Obama.
Read full article here.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003791695
This is a satire (for those of you who take these things too literally, I thought I should point this out).
In an interview with a conservative Pennsylvania newspaper yesterday, Hillary Clinton took the opportunity to address an issue that she has studiously avoided discussing in public during the current Presidential campaign. Over the past year the media has gingerly tiptoed around the 800 pound gorilla in Hillary Clinton's baggage (mixed, non-biblical metaphor intended), Bill Clinton's record of indiscretions culminating in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
When asked about her public humiliation as First Lady, Hillary cautioned "It's a very personal matter." However she went on to say that if she had known what Bill was like from the start: "He would not have been my husband. You don't choose your family, but you choose what marriage you want to be in."
Meanwhile, on her 70th college campus visit in Indiana promoting her mother's candidacy, Chelsea for the first time discussed her part in Tuzlagate in response to a question from a pro-Clinton student at Butler College in Indiana. Recalling her visit to Bosnia with her mother in 1996 when she was 16 years old, Chelsea said she and her mother were "very disappointed" by the fireworks display they had been promised at the airport. She had gotten over it however, but was even more miffed the following year upon hearing that U2 had put on a concert in Sarajevo in 1997 which Bono declared "Belongs to the Future". "And all I got was Sinbad and Cheryl Crow. Can you believe it?"
Ms. Clinton would not answer a question about whether she is on paid or unpaid leave from the Avenue Capital Group, a New York hedge fund whose co-founder Marc Lasry has been a major contributor to Democrats over the years, but also has donated to George W. Bush's campaigns. There is no evidence the FEC is investigating Chelsea's status, which could constitute a significant donation to the Clinton campaign far in excess of the limits permitted by law.
When asked to comment on Chelsea's remarks about the disputed nature of the trip to Bosnia, campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson explained: "Chelsea Clinton, unlike her illustrious parents, is not a politician. So you cannot expect her to misspeak as well as they do."
As per the New York Times -- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/photograph-of-bill-clinton-and-rev-wright-surfaces/ -- in fact, Jeremiah Wright was one of her and her husband's pastors of choice -- at least for a day (September 11, 1998) -- when former President Bill Clinton convened a prayer breakfast at the Whitehouse to apologize for having "sinned" with Monica Lewinsky. It is also clear from the Clinton Whitehouse calendars that were recently released because of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, that HRC was in attendance that day. Indeed, former President Clinton sent Dr. Wright the following thank you note for attending the prayer breakfast:
Dear Pastor Wright:Thank you so much for your kind message.I am touched by your prayers and by the many expressions of encouragement and support I have received from friends across our country.You have my best wishes.Sincerely,Bill Clinton
Given the foregoing, perhaps Chelsea Clinton should answer the question about whether her mother's credibility should be questioned given the Monica Lewinsky scandal and -- oh yeah -- that extremely dangerous trip to Bosnia.
Having stoked the Dr. Wright controversy behind the scenes, having tried to minimize Barack Obama's candidacy by likening him to failed black candidates of the past, having questioned his patriotism by omission, and having branded some who endorse him as Judas-like traitors, the Clinton campaign is now screaming bloody murder because we have likened former President Bill Clinton to Joseph McCarthy, dared to mention his unfortunate history with Monica Lewinsky, and pointed out Senator Hillary Clinton's repeated lack of candor and loose relationship with the truth. Well ... well, it seems that Senator Clinton can dish it out but she can't take it. Why is it "dirty politics" to remind the voters that by electing Hillary Clinton to the Whitehouse they would usher in another Clinton era that included the bitter with the sweet. Why is it illegitimate to point out that HRC, like her husband, is not only a tenacious politician but an accomplished shader of the truth and that the price we would have to pay for the possibility of another Clintonian economic recovery would be the certainty of Clintonian politics with all its mendacity? From Bosnia to Northern Ireland, from S-Chip to NAFTA, with HRC, we cannot be sure of what the meaning of is really is.
From: Rick Basora [the_dragonwolf@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 6:00 PM
To: letters@time.com; WebEditors@newsweek.com; Letters@newsweek.com; letters@usnews.com
Cc: 'Atlarge@foxnews.com'; 'Hannity@foxnews.com'; 'JER@foxnews.com'; 'Lineup@foxnews.com'; 'Martha@foxnews.com'; 'Ontherecord@foxnews.com'; 'Special@foxnews.com'; 'Cavuto@foxnews.com'; 'yourcomments@foxnews.com'; 'editor@ajr.org'; 'rrieder@ajr.org'; 'rsmolkin@ajr.org'; 'tkunkel@ajr.org'; 'president@nytimes.com'; 'executive-editor@nytimes.com'; 'managing-editor@nytimes.com'; 'washington@nytimes.com'; 'national@nytimes.com'; 'metro@nytimes.com'; 'news-tips@nytimes.com'; 'public@nytimes.com'; 'letters@nytimes.com'; 'CEO-CarolineLittle@wpni.com'; 'executive.editor@washingtonpost.com'; 'letters@washpost.com'; 'ombudsman@washpost.com'; 'metro@washpost.com'; 'national@washpost.com'; 'wsj.ltrs@wsj.com'; 'a.murray@wsj.com'; 'a.latour@wsj.com'; 'd.pettit@wsj.com'; 't.cullen@wsj.com'; 'j.fry@wsj.com'; 'darren.mcdermott@wsj.com'; 'tips@tribune.com'; 'ctc-tribletter@tribune.com'; 'publiceditor@tribune.com'; 'EAchenbaum@tribune.com'; 'ctc-editor@tribune.com'; 'bdold@tribune.com'; 'TMcNulty@tribune.com'; 'gdelama@tribune.com'; 'JCWarren@tribune.com'; 'aaguilar@tribune.com'; 'aahmed@tribune.com'; 'KAlleynemorris@tribune.com'; 'LBAnderson@tribune.com'; 'rranderson@tribune.com'; 'kataiyero@tribune.com'; 'NBendavid@tribune.com'; 'lbowean@tribune.com'; 'SChapman@tribune.com'; 'LCohen@tribune.com'; 'JChase@tribune.com'; 'JCrewdson@tribune.com'; 'HDardick@tribune.com'; 'MDorning@tribune.com'; 'askamy@tribune.com'; 'national@latimes.com'; 'tvtimes@latimes.com'; 'op-ed@latimes.com'; 'letters@latimes.com'; 'ctc-TribLetter@Tribune.com'; 'info@ap.org'; 'headlinenews@cnn.com'; 'mediainquiries@msnbc.com'; 'letters@msnbc.com'; 'Nightly@NBC.com'; 'Dateline@NBCUNI.com'; 'transnet87@aol.com'; 'countdown@msnbc.com'; 'race08@msnbc.com'; 'Inquirer.Letters@phillynews.com'; 'views@phillynews.com'; 'letters@post-gazette.com'; 'opinion@tribweb.com'; 'mm-tips@mediamatters.org'; 'barrett_td@yahoo.com'; 'wholesalershoppers@yahoo.com'; 'karendillard@hotmail.com'; 'dplouffe@barackobama.com'; 'john@greenskydesign.com'; nancymillinger@theamericaninitiative.org; Blackberry Muppet; Mutt; Sis; Cousin Jeannette; Marmaduke's Office; Marmaduke ; Mike Beauregard; Rick Basora ; Tuneta; Gizmo Chula; Broomrider; The Wielder of the Wand; Wiccan Bride of the Elder God
Subject: Shawn Hannity - STOP the anti-OBAMA FOX VIRUS NOW
Dear Mr. Hannity;
By now you must certainly be aware that a NATIONAL MOVEMENT is in motion against you and against what America has come to know as THE FOX VIRUS that comes forth from the RADICAL EXTREMIST NEO-CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN mouthpiece that you and FOX have become. Presenting our voice to the media of America now comes in the form of the Robert Greenwald film “Fox Attacks Obama (Spreading the Virus)” which, as you can see, is the envelope sent “special delivery” and containing the national petition now underwritten by moveon.org and their Political Action’s Adam Green.
After the travesty of ethical journalism perpetrated by FEMA on October 26, 2007, where it hosted its own “staged” televised news conference reporting on the state of EMERGENCY SERVICES to victims of Hurricane Katrina, it was brought to the attention of America that, not only was the person addressing this “skit” a FEMA official, but so were those asking the questions who, while posing as reporters, were exposed by Al Kamen of The Washington Post in his article FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA. The fact that the article alleges that you carried this charade LIVE, and then passed on the video to MSNBC and other news outlets, renders FOX Television, and its agents, complicit in the efforts of what Christy Hardin Smith, of FIREDOGLAKE, calls The Department of Planting Your Own Propaganda And Hoping No One Notices assigned to the Bush administration.
Mr. Hannity, neither you, nor your colleague-at-arms, Rush Limbaugh, can be allowed, by a nation on the very brink of social, economic, political and global chaos, to continue manipulating puppet strings, pushing buttons and pulling levers the outcome of which you CLEARLY know nothing about. Mr. Limbaugh’s disgracefully titled attempt at hijacking the current Presidential election has earned him the dubious distinction of being named WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23908634#23908634) by MSNBC's KEITH OLBERMANN. It now appears on his own website with the headline Operation Chaos Under Assault.
As you frantically attempt to continue the milking of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy, synthetically created by your Conservative minions, you appear less than pathetic before an increasingly intolerant nation that, as you can see, by Senator John McCain’s attainment of the honorable position of The Republican Presidential Nominee, America has declared you and your Neoconservative “cult”, politically, philosophically, morally and subversively UNDESIREABLE.
I, and America, continue to observe your frenzied contribution to the engineering and staging of a premeditated and choreographed conspiracy aimed at discrediting the legitimacy of Senator Barack Obama as a Presidential candidate, as well as the WONDER of the grass-roots movement taking shape around him. We watch in dismay as you question your guests, carefully selected to provide the most desirable answers for the damming of the voice of HOPE that FOX radio has described as “sounding like Hitler.” Yet, when Democratic Analysts, Tanya Acker and Bob Beckel, as well as your own Alan Colmes, have asked you questions as simple as “So, are you saying that every child whose parents took them to the Trinity United Church of Christ is, therefore, disqualified from growing up to aspire to one day becoming President of the United States,” you conspicuously, and at every turn, refuse to answer the question. You are fully aware that, answering that question, honestly, would reduce you to the hypocritical contradiction of yourself that you are. Take note, Mr. Hannity, your refusal to respond implicitly convicts you in spite of you.
I was held in utter disbelief … which then slowly grew to anger when, last night, you summoned former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, to join in the spreading of THE FOX VIRUS. I found two things to be in poignant opposition with your intention of subverting America. The first was Mr. Gingrich’s repeated insistence that he did NOT question Senator Obama’s integrity, his loyalty to America or his non-alignment with Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s apparent anti-American rants. Later in the same program, and despite your best efforts, this same opinion was echoed, with even greater emphasis and eloquence, by Senator John McCain, who insisted on addressing issues of legitimate concern to our country and clearly, refused to participate in your scripted outcomes. You must, as a consequence, Sir, be torn between wondering if the walls of correctness are closing in on you or whether they, in fact, are spreading so far apart that your only company would be the members of your own League of Liars.
The second observation, born of your program’s intentions, last night, was your patent set-up of “JUDGMENT” as the supposedly flawed characteristic displayed by Senator Barack Obama in his choosing to continue to attend Wright’s Trinity church. You spoke the word “JUDGMENT,” with diacritical accentuation, no less than a dozen times and consistently modified it with adjectives such as “flawed,” “poor,” etc in your transparent attempt to pre-empt the Senator’s platform of SOUND JUDGEMENT in the furtherance of his Presidential bid. I will excuse myself from redundancy and I will quote my own words from the letter that, on March 16, 2008, I sent to you and Fox Management titled SHAWN HANNITY - THE PINNACLE OF IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM AT ITS WORST:
“Gentlemen, if this was Shawn Hannity’s way of weaving “illusions of war-mongering” with which to surround a Presidential candidate who stands on a platform of DIALOGUE as his preferred weapon of pre-emption of war, you may want to advise him about the fact that we ARE, in fact, in a war unjustly started; a war that he endorsed and that he is a member of the political party that started it. Senator Obama was the legislator who attempted unsuccessfully to galvanize an effective movement to avoid it. History has proven him to have been STRATEGICALLY CORRECT and no degree of Mr. Hannity’s resenting him for it will grant him access to that elite minority reserved solely for the JUDGEMENTALLY SOUND.”
Last night, what achieved the “apex of the offensive,” Sir, was that you utilized former Speaker, Newt Gingrich, to assist you in making the point of presenting Senator Obama’s judgment as, somehow, flawed. Might I remind you that Newt Gingrich headed the 1998 charge to impeach President William Jefferson Clinton on charges stemming from the extramarital affair that he sustained with one Monica Lewinsky. In a March 8, 2007 Associated Press article featured on your very own FOX News, titled "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Acknowledges ...Having Affair During Clinton Impeachment," we are presented with an interview with James Dobson of Focus on the Family that reveals the following:
“Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.”
"The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge," the former Georgia congressman said of Clinton's 1998 House impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. "I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials."
Sir, translated into common English, this says…There are rules and laws that apply to ALL, including the President of The United States, but that I, because my name is Newt Gingrich, a Neoconservative, reserve the right to exempt myself from them. No, Mr. Hannity, your show, your network, your self-righteous, pontificating ploys called supporting guests, your intentions, your manic obsession with imposing dynastic rule… but most of all, YOU… are tacitly UNACCEPTABLE as is your effort to present this morally diseased neoconservative “fowl” as someone qualified to “judge the judgment” of EAGLES. I am taking the liberty of forwarding this correspondence to Representative Henry Waxman, who, last year moved to have yours and Mr. Rush Limbaugh’s actions investigated, as well as to Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Kevin Martin, who, I am advised, has been put on notice of the nature of your endeavors, that now appear to many, as being contrary to our very national security.
America will NEVER belong to your minion of disguised patriotic indigence, Sir, and, least of all, to YOU. I would suggest that you listen to a song, considered by many of my generation as an American Anthem, and that I recently sent to the Democratic Superdelegates as well. In ’64 Bob Dylan spoke of times that were “a-changing. I submit to you, Shawn Hannity, that there is an unmistakable wind of CHANGE in the air and MILLIONS, like me, bear witness to its hopeful reality. To you, and to those like you, frantically trying to stop this will be like trying to stop the wind. We have paid for this campaign and for this movement, unlike the politicians of yesteryears and of today, with our own monies, 5, 10, 25 dollars at a time. I know that you must resent the force that such a movement presents. Your colleagues must , as well, fear the threat to their lifetime relationships with lobbyist dollars that will scatter like fallen leaves on this wind. Yes, Mr Hannity, make no mistake. More than times a-changing, Sir, the times …THEY DUN HAVE CHANGED!
Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside And it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'.
From the song The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan (1964)
Complete lyrics - http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/times.html
Listen to it here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vou4qUu5YY
RICK F. BASORA
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Anyone who has been as deeply involved in this campaign as we here on OMS knows the feelings that pushed Samantha Power to call Hillary Clinton a monster. After all, even Tina Fay, who is unabashedly pro-Hillary, used much stronger language on Saturday Night Live to describe the former First Lady.
One of the main reasons I have been very happy to serve -- and I have done so with the strongest of commitments -- as a volunteer supporter of the Obama campaign was because it reserved for me the freedom of expression that is just not possible for those who have formal roles as staff or advisors. And having worked for the Bill Clinton Administration and some of its appointees, rest assured, I have strong feelings about the Clintons that are often difficult to contain. But if you're a senior policy advisor to the candidate, you have no choice but to keep such feelings out of the public domain.
So, it's too bad. Samantha Power's angry outburst reported by a foreign journalist has lead to her resignation from the campaign. Just in case it is not yet clear to her, this means that her role in an Obama Administration will probably be limited at least initially to a position that does not require Senate confirmation. There are lots of those at the NSC and State Department for a brilliant policy professional like Ms. Power, especially with her background on the crises in Darfur and the Balkans. In fact, she would find a precedent and suitable match in Bill Clinton's appointment of Sam Brown to head our delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has had a major institutional role in Kosovo, Chechnya, and as far away as Central Asia.
Brown's radical past and prior record at ACTION made it impossible to get Jesse Helms' approval for an ambassadorial appointment. So Brown served a full tour as the Head of Delegation, without the rank of ambassador, to the US Mission to the OSCE in Vienna. Intent on leaving government service with the title of Ambassador, however, Brown reached out to his former secretary Betty Curry, Bill Clinton's personal secretary in the White House (who had an interesting role herself in the Monica Lewinsky scandal), for help. She made sure that the President gave Brown an "interim" appointment, a temporary measure permitted under law while the Congress is in recess, that gave Sam Brown the title, but not rank, of Ambassador.
So Samantha Power, while things may look bleak today, you are now free to speak out, and still look forward to a fruitful role and position in the Obama Administration.
Here is an idea for an Ad to respond to Bill Clinton’s statement that, "Obama 'Literally Not Part of Any of the Good Things' From the 1990s." I think this Ad is a great idea and it would remind people of the not-so-good times during the Clinton's administration. Obama's Ad should state:
“My opponent failed to reach out to the youth vote, yet she says that she is experienced. My opponent failed to reach out to the smaller states, yet she says that she is experienced. My opponent failed to conduct an early grassroots platform, yet she says that she is experienced. My opponent failed to use current technology as a new force to get voters involved, yet she says that she is experienced. Should we revert back to the 90’s and decide to redefine the meaning of the word, ‘is’?”
For those of you who do not remember Bill Clinton's presidency in the 1990's, he was almost impeached for lying under oath about having relations with his intern, Monica Lewinsky, and he narrowly escaped by redefining the word, "is." Read this excerpt from Wikipedia on what Bill Clinton told the grand jury:
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."Timothy Noah, a senior writer for Slate Magazine went on to state, "Bill Clinton really is a guy who's willing to think carefully about "what the meaning of the word 'is' is." This is way beyond slick. Perhaps we should start calling him, "Existential Willie."
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
Timothy Noah, a senior writer for Slate Magazine went on to state, "Bill Clinton really is a guy who's willing to think carefully about "what the meaning of the word 'is' is." This is way beyond slick. Perhaps we should start calling him, "Existential Willie."
Are there any takers out there who would like to produce a supporter video? Until then, I am going to continue making calls. Go Obama!
