Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

national news, political news

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.

national news, political news

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: Keep your mouth shut when this subject comes up.

national news, political news

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?

national news, political news

Trump takes low road while seeking high road

ClintonTrump-Split_jpg_800x1000_q100

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?

gop-2016-trump

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

starr

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

doanld

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.