Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

national news, political news

What happened to Trump’s high praise for Clintons?

donald-trump-hillary-clinton

Many eyes will be on Chris Wallace when the two major-party candidates for president square off later this week.

The Fox News anchor will moderate the upcoming debate between Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Donald J. Trump.

I have a long list of questions that Wallace ought to ask. I know he’s likely to ask Clinton about the e-mails being leaked and whether they undermine her ethical standards. I also believe he’ll ask Trump about that “Access Hollywood” recording about the GOP nominee’s conduct with women.

But here’s a potential set of questions I hope Wallace will ask. They should go to Trump:

“Mr. Trump, you once praised Hillary Clinton as a ‘great person.’ You have played golf with her husband, the former president. You have attended parties with them. You’ve been photographed arm-in-arm with both of them.

“What changed? How did the former president and the current Democratic nominee for that office go from being friends of yours to becoming mortal political enemies?”

There’s somethingĀ potentiallyĀ revealing to me about Trump’s change in attitude toward the Clintons, now that he’s launched this scorched-Earth campaign against Hillary while seeking to drag Bill into the discussion over his wife’s fitness to become president.

It’s fair to wonder if Trump is nothing more than an opportunistic back-stabber. It’s also fair to ask if he schmoozed with the Clintons for self-serving purposes only. It’s also fair to wonder if he still harbors warm-and-fuzzy feelings toward them and he’s saying all these venomous things about Hillary for purely political purposes.

TrumpĀ did, after all, declare that he said those nasty things about women for “entertainment.”

 

national news, political news

Hillary remains mum on Trump’s latest trouble

hillary

Hillary Rodham Clinton likely has a lot to say about Donald J. Trump’s sexual behavior.

Her problem? She cannot say it out loud. The Democratic nominee for president of the United States must rely on surrogates to express their outrage on her behalf.

She happens to have a couple of powerful surrogates: PresidentĀ Barack H.Ā Obama and his wife,Ā Michelle, who haveĀ done a masterful job of peeling the bark off the Republican presidential nominee.

Hillary Clinton’s own history — as well as the history of her husband — compel her to remain mum on the subject of those ghastly Trump comments we all heard the other day aboard that “Access Hollywood” bus in 2005.

As the New York Times has reported: “Though Hillary Clinton has stood at the center of feminist debates for more than two decades, she has also been an imperfect messenger for the feminist cause. That has never been more true than now, as her old missteps and her husbandā€™s history have effectively paralyzed her during a moment of widespread outrage.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/missteps-in-hillary-clinton%e2%80%99s-past-leave-her-muted-in-furor-over-donald-trump/ar-AAj00Y1?li=BBnb7Kz

And the outrage hasn’t let up since the video and audio recordings were released to the public.

As for whether any of this damages Hillary Clinton’s political standing, I happen to believe it will not.

Her tactic so far has been to change the subject when the talk turns to Trump’s statements about attempting to seduce a married woman, or how his “star” status allows him to grab women in their private areas, or allows him to kiss them aggressively without their consent.

The two of them have one more joint appearance to endure before voters have their final say. It will occur, interestingly, in Las Vegas, Nev., where Trump has some significant business dealing and where — one might presume — he has engaged in some of his untoward behavior with women.

Will any of this come up when the event opens? Uhhh, let me think for a second … yes, it will.

Do not look for Clinton to go there. She’ll likely just let Trump rant like a madman over the former president’s misbehavior.

From where I will be sitting while this event occurs, thatĀ will lookĀ like a good call.

Then she’ll likely sicĀ Barack and Michelle Obama on him.

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Trump’s record ‘too controversial’? Hmmm …

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This is too good to keep to myself.

OK, it’s already out there in the public domain, but I have to share a bit of it here. It involves something Donald J. Trump told columnist/TV commentator Chris Matthews in 1998.

It comes from the Guardian in Australia. A friend of mine sent it to me overnight in an e-mail. To wit:

“During a 1998 appearance on CNBC with host Chris Matthews, current Republican presidential nominee and then simple tycoon Donald Trump declared that if Bill Clinton’s personal peccadillos were enough to prompt impeachment proceedings, his own history with women was more than sufficient to keep him out of the White House.

“‘Can you imagine how controversial I’d be?’ Trump said at the time. ‘You think about him with women. How about me with women? Can you imagine?

“Trump was still confident that ‘his women’ would be better received by the American public. ‘Yeah. They might like my women better, too, you know?'”

Hmm. Well, time will tell — probably around, oh, Nov. 8 — whether Americans like Trump’s women better. My strong hunch tells me the decision voters make — once they get past his utter ignorance of the substance of anything at all — will also be based on Trump’s “own history with women.”

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‘Because you’d be in jail’

trump-vs-clinton

Donald J. Trump scored perhaps the biggest knee-slapper of the evening at his debate Sunday night with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

He said she’d “be in jail” if he were president.

Why? Well, I’d like to visit that notion for a moment.

Trump has been accusing Clinton of breaking the law while she was secretary of state. He and other Clinton critics have presumed her guilt for unspecified “crimes.” Trump also has tried and convicted Clinton’s husband, the former president of the United States, of various crimes against women. He called President Clinton the “worst abuser” of women in the history of the American politics.

To punctuate whatever point he sought to make Sunday night, Trump brought four women with him to St. Louis, all of whom have accused the Clintons of various crimes against them.

That’s it, then! They’re guilty because these women said so.

How about holding on for a second.

The FBI examined whether Hillary Clinton broke any laws by using her private e-mail account while serving as secretary of state. She testified before Congress for 11 hours over that very issue. FBI Director James Comey — the Republican career prosecutor who runs the agency — determined that there was nothing on which he could prosecute Clinton. In other words, she didn’t break any laws.

It doesn’t stop there.

Congressional critics now have accused Clinton of perjuring herself in her testimony. That’s it. They have leveled the accusation. Have they brought formal charges? No. Have they produced proof of her committing a crime? No again.

They’ve just leveled the accusation.

As for her husband … and the women whom Trump flew to St. Louis to create a spectacle in the debate hall, they, too, have leveled accusations.

Has anyone brought formal charges against the former president? No. Has any of them testifiedĀ — under oath — in a courtroom to accuse the president of raping, groping or otherwise abusing them? No.

He, too, is presumed guilty of these accusations. I hesitate to call them “charges” because, I must stipulate again, he’s never been charged with a crime.

What we are witnessing is a perversion of the legal system that is supposed to presume someone is innocent until prosecuting authorities can prove guilt.

Both of these individuals — Bill and Hillary Clinton — have their flaws. I don’t for a second deny that. Their flaws are personal and political.

However, in all the accusations brought before both of them, only Bill Clinton has been charged formally with a “high crime and misdemeanor.” It involved lying to a federal grand jury about his relationship with a young White House intern. The House of Representatives impeached him for it.

Then he was acquitted of the charges by the Senate. He was allowed to finish his second term as president.

Are these two individuals guilty of any of the crimes others have accused them of committing? No.

They deserve the same presumption of innocence to which all American citizens are entitled.

Moreover, the know-nothings who keep saying otherwise ought to adhere to the laws they allegedly cherish.

national news, political news

Trump prepares to go low … very low

donald-trump-flickr-cc

Donald J. Trump has just introduced four women to the press corps covering the upcoming debate with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The women all purport to have been victimized by Bill Clinton, the former president and the husband of the Democratic presidential nominee.

That’s his answer to the videotape released this past week showing him talking in quite vulgar terms about sexual assault on women? This is how he’s going to respond? This is the Republican nominee’s answer to questions about his own character, his moral fiber, his fitness for the job he seeks?

This stunt very well could explode in Trump’s face.

Someone help me out here. Is Bill Clinton running for president yet again?

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Trump using tenuous ‘defense’

trump

What am I missing here?

Donald J. Trump — at the time newly married — went off on a hot-mic rant 11 years ago in which he talked about having sex with a married woman, groping another woman,Ā about how his “star” status enabled him to have his way with women, disparaged another woman’s appearance … all while dropping f-bombs and using crude references to the female anatomy.

Then he defends himself by saying essentially two things:

* The audio recording is more than a decade old and does not reflect the person he is or was — or will be as president of the United States.

* Bill Clinton abused women and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, fought savagely to defend her husband over what he did more than two decades ago.

So, which is it? Does the 11-year-old audio recording count more or less than a 20-plus-year-old series of alleged sexual dalliances — plus an actual relationship that occurred while Bill Clinton was president of the United States?

Trump, the RepublicanĀ nominee for president, is running against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee.

I’ll ask one more question: Does the behavior of a nominee’s spouse even rise the level of actual relevance that’s equal to the behavior of a current candidate for the presidency?

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Here’s another spin on the fidelity issue

bill-and-hill

I feel the need to put another brief twist to this business about marital infidelity and its emergence as an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign.

For starters, Donald J. Trump’s assertion that Hillary Clinton’s husband’s transgressions disqualify her for high office is ludicrous on its face. Bill Clinton made a mistake in the late 1990s. He got impeached for it; the Senate thought better about tossing him out of office and acquitted him of the charges brought against him.

Hillary’s role? She became the aggrieved wife of the nation’s foremost politician.

OK, but that entire episode spurred another kind of politician.

This was the guy who would boast on the campaign stump, in TV ads, on printed material about how he is faithful to his wife.

“Elect me!” he would say. “I’m a loving husband and devoted father. I believe in the traditional concept of marriage.”

I never could stop wondering: Since when does staying faithful to your sacred marital vows become a bragging point?

Oh, and yes, this kind of phony fealty to marriage does get politicians into some serious trouble. Do you remember former Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate who ran with Sen. John Kerry in 2004? I recall Edwards boasting of his love for his late wife, Elizabeth, while he was cavorting with Rielle Hunter … and with whom he brought a daughter into the world.

It’s all so much crap.

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No, Mr. Mayor, ‘everybody’ doesn’t cheat

rudy

Rudolph Guiliani used to be considered one of the great political heroes of the 21st century.

He stood tall amid the ruins of New York City’s financial district in the wake of the 9/11 attack. He became known as America’s Mayor. He rallied his city and, thus, the nation to fight the terrorists who brought such destruction to our shores.

Then he became a crazy man.

His latest bout of lunacy occurred this past weekend with an assertion that “everybody” cheats on their spouse. He was defending Donald J. Trump’s attack on Hillary Clinton — or, more to the point, his attack on Bill Clinton’s misbehavior while he served as president.

He defended Trump’s assertion that Hillary Clinton isn’t faithful to her husband.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/02/politics/rudy-giuliani-infidelity-everybody-does/index.html

Given that marital vows have become an issue in this campaign, I feel the need to remind the mayor that not “everybody” does what he, himself, did to at least two of his wives. He cheated on them. Trump cheated on his first two wives as well.

I know for an absolute fact, moreover, that breaking one’s marital vows of faithfulness is not something that “everybody” does. No need to mention the example I can give of someone who’s never done what Rudy and Donald and, yes, Bill Clinton have done.

Mr. Mayor, here’s some unsolicited advice:Ā Keep your mouth shut when this subject comes up.

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Nothing is ‘impossible’ with Trump

presidential-debate

I thought it would have been impossible for the 2016 presidential campaign to get any lower, more miserable than it has been to this point.

Silly me. I forgot about Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president. He has all but pledged to bring Bill Clinton’s sexual behavior forward as a campaign issue against the former president’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The lesson apparently is that never put anything — anything at all! — past Trump.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-vows-attack-clinton-husband-sex-scandal-article-1.2813694?utm_content=buffercb642&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=NYDailyNewsTw

He said Clinton can get “nasty,” but adds he can get “nastier.”

That appears to be his signal for what is to come.

I’ve wondered — in this forum and in conversation with others in the Texas Panhandle — what does Bill Clinton’s behavior have to do with Hillary Clinton’s ability to run the country?

Oh, I get it. Trump is going to assert, perhaps, that if she cannot control her husband, she cannot be expected to take command of the U.S. military, that she cannot become head of government, head of state, leader of the Free World. Is that it?

Well, it’s utter horse manure.

Trump knows it. I know it. You know it. Bill and Hillary know it.

That will not stop Trump from making an absolute ass of himself — in the eyes of those who haven’t already climbed into I fear we haven’t yet hit bottom.

national news, political news

Gingrich, Guiliani: spokesmen for marital fidelity?

how_common_is_infidelity_anyway

Donald J. Trump has enlisted two of the more ironic choices to stand up for him as he ponders whether to raise the issue of former President Bill Clinton’s marital difficulties during the presidential campaign.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani are two of the GOP nominee’s main men on the subject of marital fidelity.

The irony is rich!

For starters, Trump is now on his third marriage. He has bragged about cheating on wives No. 1 and 2.

Gingrich? Well, let’s see. He, too, is on his third marriage. Calista Gingrich once worked for Newtie when the speaker was railing against Bill Clinton’s affair with the White House intern. It turns out Newtie was fooling around with Calista while he was married to wife No. 2 — and while he was telling Americans that the president had the morals of an alley cat.

Guiliani? OK, there’s this. He’s on his third marriage as well. The first marriage ended in divorce. But then Rudy decided later to seek and annulment from his first wife. Why annul the marriage? Because he’s a practicing Catholic and church doctrine doesn’t allow divorce. So, an annulment wipes a marriage off the books as if it never happened. I guess I should mention that Guiliani also engaged in extramarital activity.

Three politicians. Nine marriages among them. Several extramarital affairs, too.

I truly dislike talking about this stuff in the context of a presidential campaign. Trump, though, brought it up.

He might bring the issue of Bill Clinton’s transgressions to the forefront at the next joint appearance scheduled with the former president’s wife, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Someone as well will have to explain to me as if I’m a third-grader how Bill Clinton’s behavior really matters in the current campaign for the presidency.

Well … ? How is any of this relevant?