Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

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?

national news, political news

Trump takes low road while seeking high road

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Donald J. Trump sought — in yet another awkward pronouncement — to make nice with Hillary Rodham Clinton by saying he could have said something “very negative” about his opponent. He chose not to that. I guess he wanted us to believe that he is such an oh, so decent human being.

The Republican presidential nominee’s comments came during the joint appearance at Hofstra University.

Afterward, he told reporters that he was referring to Bill Clinton’s marital infidelity. He said “Chelsea was in the room” and he didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable.

So, there you have it.

Trump said during the event he showed restraint; then he told reporters later — on the record — precisely to what he was referring.

He chose not to say something, then he said it.

It reminds me of when then-Sen. Walter Mondale was asked during the 1976 presidential campaign whether Watergate would be an issue in the contest between Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican President Gerald R. Ford.

“No,” said the Democratic vice-presidential nominee with a huge smile, “I am not going to mention President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon.”

That is the disgraceful non-denial route that Donald Trump is taking these days.

national news, political news

Sideshow dominates pre-appearance chatter

mark-cuban

Hillary Rodham Clinton has invited Dallas billionaire Mark Cuban to Monday night’s joint appearance with Donald J. Trump.

Is that a big deal? Apparently so.

Cuban happens to detest Trump. The feeling is mutual. Cuban is backing Clinton. Cuban is a successful businessman. He owns the Dallas Mavericks pro basketball team, which happens to make a lot of money for the in-your-face, brash, loudmouthed owner.

What was Trump’s response? He reportedly considered inviting Gennifer Flowers. You remember her, right? She had an affair with Bill Clinton before Clinton became president in 1993.

Now we hear that Flowers isn’t coming to the joint appearance Monday night after all.

Oh, but Cuban will be there. Apparently his task — such as it is — will be to get under Trump’s skin just by being there on the front row, in plain sight for Trump to see.

But you know, there’s a part of me that wishes Flowers would attend this event. I almost can hear Trump make some catty reference to the former president’s misbehavior, which would give Hillary Clinton an opening to say something like:

“Perhaps I need to remind you that my husband and I worked out our difficulties and have remained in the same marriage — to each other — that we began more than 40 years ago. We still love each other very much.

“Now, tell us about your marital record, Donald.”

national news

How is Trump able to make morality an issue?

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I’m perplexed and puzzled by so much of Republican Donald J. Trump’s nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Perhaps no set of issues baffles me more than Trump’s ability to make morality an issue to use against his opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Trump has gleefully told us that Bill Clinton’s misbehavior while he was president is relevant in this campaign. He questions why Hillary Clinton has stayed with him. He asserts some sort of moral authority that, to my way of thinking, he simply does not possess.

Trump is now married to his third wife. His first two marriages ended in divorce.

While his first marriage was ending, Trump actually boasted out loud and in public about his sexual infidelity. He has bragged about his extramarital sexual conquests.

I cannot help but think of these things when this guy campaigns for the presidency of the United States and throws out canards about a previous president’s misbehavior.

Someone needs to help me understand: How does this guy get away with this kind of duplicity?

Seriously. Can someone out there explain it me?

national news, political news

Clinton Foundation needs to end certain practices … now!

clintons

Hillary Rodham Clinton has been accused — although not formally — during her during her entire public life of just about every possible crime imaginable.

Even murder!

They are bogus, phony and meant only to smear her and her husband. They come from those who hate them both.

A situation exists, though, that needs the Democratic presidential nominee’s immediate attention. The New York Times editorial board has come up with a reasonable solution, not that it will stop the critics from piling on.

It involves the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which Bill Clinton founded in 2001 to help raise money for his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark. It has become, of course, much larger than that.

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has forced her to make some pledges, such as refusing to take money from foreign governments. She did so, with some exceptions.

The Times has suggested that the foundation cease at this moment taking money from any foreign government, period, for as long as Hillary Clinton is a candidate for president and certainly while she serves as president if she is elected in November.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/30/opinion/cutting-ties-to-the-clinton-foundation.html?ref=opinion&_r=1

I do not believe Hillary Clinton has broken any laws. Nor do I believe she fits the epithets being hurled at her, particularly by her Republican campaign foe, Donald J. Trump. However, this foundation has created many more problems for her than she might have imagined.

The Times also suggests that if she’s elected, her husband and daughter need to remove themselves completely from any day-to-day operations at the foundation, leaving all administrative matters to others.

The Clintons’ foundation has done tremendous work around the world and it ought to continue.

It can continue raising money and spending it on valuable medical research without the Clintons’ involvement.

Would any of this quell the critics? No. It would, though, send the message that the candidate has heard the concerns — and the criticism — and it willing to provide transparency and accountability to those who are demanding them both.

education news, political news

Ken Starr calls it quits at Baylor

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Oh, the irony of it all.

Kenneth Starr has quit his job as a law professor at Baylor University. You’ve heard of him, yes?

He once was a special counsel who was hired by Congress to investigate a real estate deal involving President Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton. Then the investigation turned into something quite different. He began sniffing around about allegations of an affair between the president and a young White House intern.

His investigation resulted in the impeachment of the president on grounds that he lied under oath about the affair to a federal grand jury. The Senate acquitted Clinton.

Starr moved on, first to Pepperdine University and then to Baylor.

But … while he served as president of Baylor, the university got caught up — wait for it! — in a sex scandal involving star football players. The school was accused of covering up some serious misbehavior.

It all happened on Starr’s watch.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/08/20/ken-starr-resigns-as-baylor-law-professor-cuts-ties-with-university.html

The head football coach was fired. The athletic director quit. Starr was demoted from president to chancellor. He kept his classroom job.

Now he’s quit the professor post, severing his ties with the university.

Do you get the irony? Sex propelled Ken Starr to a form of political stardom and sex has caused his fall from grace at a major Texas university.

As the saying goes: Karma’s a bitch, man.

media news, national news, political news

Trump finds an old nemesis: the media

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Donald J. Trump is not known for his self-awareness or for an ability to look inward.

He likes to assess blame everywhere else, even where no reason exists to assess such blame.

The Republican presidential nominee has launched another tweet storm in which he blames — get ready for it — the media for his collapsing poll numbers.

There you go. Blame the media.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-on-nyt-their-reporting-is-fiction-226988

It’s a time-honored dodge that politicians use on occasion whenever they seek to divert attention from the real problem at hand — which usually happens to be the message they’re peddling.

He said the media are giving Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton political cover. Trump said the media don’t cover his rallies in an appropriate fashion. He said the media are distorting his message.

It’s the alleged Clinton-Mainstream Media alliance that I find most interesting.

I guess Trump hasn’t read much about the coverage the media have been giving to — in no particular order:

Benghazi, the e-mail controversy, the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, her husband’s dalliance when he was president, the Whitewater real estate probe, her reluctance to meet with the press regularly, her own negative poll numbers, the public perception that Clinton isn’t “trustworthy.”

So now he’s suggesting the media are to blame because his own poll numbers are plummeting and that he cannot seem find a message — let alone stay on one?

The word “delusional” comes to mind.

national news, political news

Clinton and the foundation require serious answers

hillary

I’ve long believed the Clinton Global Initiative was founded to do good work around the world.

My faith in CGI’s intended mission, though, has been shaken with reports of favors being done for political allies of the former president and the current Democratic presidential nominee.

Hillary Clinton? You have some answering to do.

Some more of those pesky e-mails are surfacing to suggest that Hillary Clinton’s motives aren’t all that pure. She signed an ethics pledge when she became secretary of state in 2009. There are now suggestions that she has violated the spirit — if not the letter — of that pledge.

Is this a deal breaker? Does it suddenly swing yours truly into Republican nominee Donald Trump’s corner? Does the GOP now get my vote for president of the United States of America?

Not even close! Never!

It does, though, cause me serious heartburn.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/hillary-clinton-emails-state-foundation-226897

The e-mails suggest that CGI catered to donors to the foundation. What, though, does all this suggest were she to become president of the United States?

It’s been my understanding that Bill and Hillary Clinton well might disband the CGI or put it into some sort of blind trust if Hillary Clinton wins the election. Remember what President Carter did after he was elected in 1976? He put his peanut business into a blind trust, meaning that he couldn’t derive any income from it while he served as president.

Clinton pledged to stay away from the foundation for the time she served as secretary of state. It’s looking as though she didn’t make good on that promise.

As Politico reports: “Meredith McGehee, policy director for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, said that the actual language of the pledge is ‘not surprisingly, very lawyerly … [and] there is an argument to be made that Clinton herself has not violated what was in the pledge.’

“’Whether she or her aides have violated the spirit of the pledge … yeah, of course they have,’ McGehee said. ‘The notion of continuing contact between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department — that was not supposed to happen.’”

We need answers, Mme. Secretary.

national news, political news

Allow this dissent on ‘most qualified’ candidate for POTUS

HOUSTON, TX - DECEMBER 01: President George H.W. Bush waits on the field prior to the start of the game between the New England Patriots and the Houston Texans at Reliant Stadium on December 1, 2013 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

“I can say with confidence there has never been a man or woman — not me, not Bill, nobody — more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America.”

So said the current president, Barack H. Obama, this past week at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Clinton to run for the presidency.

I am going to quibble with the president on this one.

Hillary Clinton probably is more “qualified” on paper than either Obama or her husband to become president. Obama served in the Illinois Senate and then briefly in the U.S. Senate before being elected president in 2008. Bill Clinton served as Arkansas attorney general and as governor of his home state before being elected president in 1992.

Clinton’s wife served in the U.S. Senate and as secretary of state after serving as first lady — while taking an active role in policy decisions made during her husband’s administration.

But is Hillary Clinton the most qualified person ever to seek the office?

For my money, the honor of most qualified candidate — in my lifetime, at least — goes to a Republican.

I give you George Herbert Walker Bush.

You are welcome to argue the point with me if you wish.

But G.H.W. Bush’s pre-presidency credentials are damn impressive.

He flew combat missions in World War II as the Navy’s youngest fighter pilot. Bush then came home, moved to Texas and started an oil company. Then he served in Congress, where he represented the Houston area for a couple of terms before losing a Senate bid to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen.

That wasn’t nearly the end of his public service.

He would later be appointed to serve as head of the CIA, as special envoy to the People’s Republic of China, as chairman of the Republican National Committee, as ambassador to the United Nations — and then he served as two vice president for two terms during Ronald Reagan’s administration.

I get that President Obama wants to cast his party’s nominee in the best possible light. Given that she’s running against someone — Donald J. Trump — who is likely the least qualified candidate for president in U.S. history, the president perhaps can be excused for a bit of embellishment.

But a great man is still with us.

Sure, President Bush lost his bid for re-election to Bill Clinton. That, though, must not diminish the myriad contributions he made in service to our beloved country.

national news, political news

Trump might get his wish after all

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Donald J. Trump says he wishes his daughter Ivanka and Chelsea Clinton weren’t such good friends.

That churning in my gut tells me he might get his wish before this presidential campaign ends.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, says he plans to “take gloves off” as he campaigns against Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Big surprise, eh? Hardly.

But what about Ivanka and Chelsea? And their husbands, for that matter? The in-laws of the two nominees happen to be friends, too.

I’ve thought this might become one of the more interesting back stories of this campaign as Mom and Dad battle it out to see who voters will elect to become the next president of the United States of America.

I don’t know too much about Ivanka Trump, other than what I’ve read recently about her, that she’s an intelligent and engaging young woman.

As for Chelsea, well, we’ve all sort of watched her grow up before our eyes. She, too, is intelligent and engaging.

My curiosity, though, might be drawn to whether she’s able to compartmentalize her relationships the way her parents so famously have been able to do.

Bill Clinton got impeached by the House and was put on trial in the Senate, which acquitted him of the charges brought by House members. He was able to continue working through the rest of his presidency with the very men and women who voted to impeach and to convict him.

Hillary Clinton then ran for the Senate in 2000, promising to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans who wanted her husband kicked out of office. Who became one of her best friends in the Senate? Republican John McCain, who was among those who voted to convict the president.

Did their daughter inherit that ability to put the nastiness aside to preserve her friendship with the daughter of a famously crass politician who’s shown quite an ability to say just about anything to and about his political foes?

We’re about to find out.