The Rehabilitation of Bill Clinton
Barbara Anderson
January 21, 2006
He seems to be everywhere. There he is with former president George Bush the elder. There he is addressing the AIDS problem in Africa. There he is, making speeches. There he is with the victims of a tsunami. Former president Bill Clinton was barely through recuperating from surgery before he started his campaign for character rehabilitation.
Clinton knows perhaps better than most that keeping in the public eye while doing good things is the way to rehab. As time goes by his exploits will fade and he will be remembered as a Democrat the Republicans loved to hate, and who maneuvered to impeach him. He will be able to help his wife, who said their troubles were due to a “vast rightwing conspiracy”, in her run for the White House.
Bill and Hillary Clinton had some questionable baggage when they moved into the White House and it didn’t take long for it to become news. Whitewater was a land deal in which they had become involved. Because it was an intricate deal it was difficult to convey in the newsy sound bites that prevail today. Then there were Bill’s drivers who told all about his extracurricular affairs. The Clintons honed their obfuscation skills dealing with this story. When the Monica Lewinsky story broke, Hillary declared there was no truth to it and uttered the conspiracy theory. Bill’s cabinet all dutifully proclaimed that they didn’t believe it. When the blue dress proved beyond a doubt that the story was true, only one or two of the palace guard went on record as having been duped. Hillary never did.
The party that pretended to care about sexual harassment all put blinders on while Bill Clinton was in office. To this day most people will say that his impeachment was “all about sex”. Well, only peripherally. An Arkansas former employee of the state claimed that Clinton had sexually harassed her while she was on the job. Paula Jones was caricatured, called a “hick”, and accused of lying. When she decided to take Clinton to court, he asked some women to sign false affidavits in his favor. One of those women was Monica Lewinsky. When Gennifer Flowers stepped forward to say that she and Clinton had been carrying on a longterm affair she was immediately attacked and accused of lying. Kathleen Willey gave an interview on TV and spoke softly and with hesitation about a sexual advance Clinton had made when she went to him asking for a much needed job. She had fallen on hard times and her husband was deeply depressed. Shortly after, she learned that her husband had committed suicide.
Clinton’s sympathy for Willey’s plight came in the form of what she described as sexual groping. Kathleen Willey’s personal file was made public because she had once written letters favorable to Clinton. Other women were interviewed. Some were approached but would not say anything. Perhaps the most damning of all was the report that Juanita Broaddrick had been raped by Clinton. In a callous display of partisan reporting, NBC, which had the story in the can, finally ran its tape. By then the Senate had refused to remove Bill Clinton from office. Only then did the public learn that their president was an alleged rapist.
However, Bill Clinton does not seem to have a capacity for shame. Although he went on TV and bit his lip and looked remorseful, he did not give up his ambition for power. Now he is seeking it in the global community. He talks about his compassion for the people overseas who are suffering and vows to do something about it. However, that “something” will not be done on his dime. The first tax reports we saw of Bill and Hillary’s donations to charity were less than generous. However, Bill has formed his Clinton Global Initiative. He has gathered to himself some heavy hitters. George Soros came on board, along with Ernest Zedillo, former President of Mexico. The Deutsche Bank generously underwrote the inaugural session.
The Clinton Global Initiative has many “greenies” in it. Some are Earth Day Network, Global Green USA, Inter Religious Council of Mexico, National Wildlife Federation, U.S. Green Building Council - The Turner Corp., and Restoring Eden/Christians for Environmental Stewardship.
Attending the opening were: Condoleezza Rice, Kofi Annan, Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch, and assorted princes, presidents, a king, a prime minister, and a vice -president.
Inaugural Partners are: The Rockefeller Foundation, CitiGroup, Google, Goldman Sachs, Starbucks, Microsoft, Nokia, HP invent, and YAHOO! The CEOs of Sony, Time Warner and General Electric have made commitments.
Recognizing the power of religion in the world, the Board of Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation includes the powerful Catholic Theodore Cardinal McCarrick and Edgar Bronfman, of the World Jewish Congress, among others.
A main thrust of the Global Initiative is helping victims of HIV/AIDS in the Third World countries.
We see Bill Clinton now going into countries and lending his presence and power to get aid for them. While some of the people he has gathered around his initiative are wealthy, no doubt the taxpayers of the United States figure prominently in any source of underwriting the aid to be given. We have already seen that in President Bush’s global AIDS program, which awarded a grant to an advocacy group. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the key agency implementing the plan, decided to award the five year 15 Billion Bush AIDS money.
In going global Bill Clinton has put himself into the circle of entities such as the U.N., which has become more powerful even as it is seen to be more corrupt. There is no oversight for the U.N., no committees except internal ones who govern themselves. When we see the U.N. Oil for Food scandal we have no legal means by which to investigate and hold anyone accountable. While we have committees holding investigations, the U.N. cannot be bound by any results found. The only way we have to make the U.N. accountable is to withhold our dues. We have heard Kofi Annan say he will look into the corruption, but we have no way of knowing if he, himself, is part of that corruption.
Many think that Bill Clinton is preparing himself for the leadership of the U.N. It fits his global initiative undertaking and gives him credentials with some of the countries who would decide the leadership after Kofi Annan is gone. If the past is any indication, Bill Clinton at the helm of the U.N., with its growing power due to the money it takes in, would make Kofi Annan and his group look like petty pickpockets.
Clinton knows perhaps better than most that keeping in the public eye while doing good things is the way to rehab. As time goes by his exploits will fade and he will be remembered as a Democrat the Republicans loved to hate, and who maneuvered to impeach him. He will be able to help his wife, who said their troubles were due to a “vast rightwing conspiracy”, in her run for the White House.
Bill and Hillary Clinton had some questionable baggage when they moved into the White House and it didn’t take long for it to become news. Whitewater was a land deal in which they had become involved. Because it was an intricate deal it was difficult to convey in the newsy sound bites that prevail today. Then there were Bill’s drivers who told all about his extracurricular affairs. The Clintons honed their obfuscation skills dealing with this story. When the Monica Lewinsky story broke, Hillary declared there was no truth to it and uttered the conspiracy theory. Bill’s cabinet all dutifully proclaimed that they didn’t believe it. When the blue dress proved beyond a doubt that the story was true, only one or two of the palace guard went on record as having been duped. Hillary never did.
The party that pretended to care about sexual harassment all put blinders on while Bill Clinton was in office. To this day most people will say that his impeachment was “all about sex”. Well, only peripherally. An Arkansas former employee of the state claimed that Clinton had sexually harassed her while she was on the job. Paula Jones was caricatured, called a “hick”, and accused of lying. When she decided to take Clinton to court, he asked some women to sign false affidavits in his favor. One of those women was Monica Lewinsky. When Gennifer Flowers stepped forward to say that she and Clinton had been carrying on a longterm affair she was immediately attacked and accused of lying. Kathleen Willey gave an interview on TV and spoke softly and with hesitation about a sexual advance Clinton had made when she went to him asking for a much needed job. She had fallen on hard times and her husband was deeply depressed. Shortly after, she learned that her husband had committed suicide.
Clinton’s sympathy for Willey’s plight came in the form of what she described as sexual groping. Kathleen Willey’s personal file was made public because she had once written letters favorable to Clinton. Other women were interviewed. Some were approached but would not say anything. Perhaps the most damning of all was the report that Juanita Broaddrick had been raped by Clinton. In a callous display of partisan reporting, NBC, which had the story in the can, finally ran its tape. By then the Senate had refused to remove Bill Clinton from office. Only then did the public learn that their president was an alleged rapist.
However, Bill Clinton does not seem to have a capacity for shame. Although he went on TV and bit his lip and looked remorseful, he did not give up his ambition for power. Now he is seeking it in the global community. He talks about his compassion for the people overseas who are suffering and vows to do something about it. However, that “something” will not be done on his dime. The first tax reports we saw of Bill and Hillary’s donations to charity were less than generous. However, Bill has formed his Clinton Global Initiative. He has gathered to himself some heavy hitters. George Soros came on board, along with Ernest Zedillo, former President of Mexico. The Deutsche Bank generously underwrote the inaugural session.
The Clinton Global Initiative has many “greenies” in it. Some are Earth Day Network, Global Green USA, Inter Religious Council of Mexico, National Wildlife Federation, U.S. Green Building Council - The Turner Corp., and Restoring Eden/Christians for Environmental Stewardship.
Attending the opening were: Condoleezza Rice, Kofi Annan, Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch, and assorted princes, presidents, a king, a prime minister, and a vice -president.
Inaugural Partners are: The Rockefeller Foundation, CitiGroup, Google, Goldman Sachs, Starbucks, Microsoft, Nokia, HP invent, and YAHOO! The CEOs of Sony, Time Warner and General Electric have made commitments.
Recognizing the power of religion in the world, the Board of Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation includes the powerful Catholic Theodore Cardinal McCarrick and Edgar Bronfman, of the World Jewish Congress, among others.
A main thrust of the Global Initiative is helping victims of HIV/AIDS in the Third World countries.
We see Bill Clinton now going into countries and lending his presence and power to get aid for them. While some of the people he has gathered around his initiative are wealthy, no doubt the taxpayers of the United States figure prominently in any source of underwriting the aid to be given. We have already seen that in President Bush’s global AIDS program, which awarded a grant to an advocacy group. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the key agency implementing the plan, decided to award the five year 15 Billion Bush AIDS money.
In going global Bill Clinton has put himself into the circle of entities such as the U.N., which has become more powerful even as it is seen to be more corrupt. There is no oversight for the U.N., no committees except internal ones who govern themselves. When we see the U.N. Oil for Food scandal we have no legal means by which to investigate and hold anyone accountable. While we have committees holding investigations, the U.N. cannot be bound by any results found. The only way we have to make the U.N. accountable is to withhold our dues. We have heard Kofi Annan say he will look into the corruption, but we have no way of knowing if he, himself, is part of that corruption.
Many think that Bill Clinton is preparing himself for the leadership of the U.N. It fits his global initiative undertaking and gives him credentials with some of the countries who would decide the leadership after Kofi Annan is gone. If the past is any indication, Bill Clinton at the helm of the U.N., with its growing power due to the money it takes in, would make Kofi Annan and his group look like petty pickpockets.
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