Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

media news, national news, political news

‘Liberal media’ take no prisoners

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media

Ben Carson has counterattacked the “liberal media” for what he calls a “witch hunt.”

Questions about his past have become all the rage. CNN keeps poking around in the hunt for corroboration that he once stabbed someone in a fit of anger. The network can’t find anyone to back it up. Now we hear that Dr. Carson, um, didn’t exactly get offered a West Point scholarship in the manner he said he did.

The media want to know the truth.

The counterattack points to what the doctor/Republican presidential candidate said is a double standard as it regards Democrats running for president. The media don’t look quite as intently at them as they do Republicans, according to Dr. Carson.

Hold on, doc.

Barack Obama faced intense scrutiny over:

  • His relationship with a fiery Church of Christ pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
  • His friendship with anti-Vietnam War activist William Ayers.
  • His place of birth and whether he was constitutionally qualified to run for president of the United States.
  • His academic records at Harvard, which Carson brought up again this week.

And, oh yes, Hillary Clinton, the current Democratic frontrunner has, throughout her public career, faced down matters involving:

  • Allegations that she covered up information about Benghazi.
  • Her involvement with her husband, the 42nd president, in the Whitewater real estate matter.
  • The death of her good friend, Vince Foster, who some in the media have suggested was murdered.

So … let’s take a breath, shall we?

I also should mention the names of other prominent Democratic pols who’ve wilted under the media glare.

Do the names Gary Hart and John Edwards ring a bell? How about Anthony Weiner and Barney Frank?

Let’s get back to the story at hand. Did a leading candidate for president of the United States misrepresent whether he was offered a West Point scholarship?

Well … ?

 

military news, national news, political news

‘Cadet Carson’ never suited up

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deadstate-Ben-Carson

The vetting of the latest Republican presidential front runner has begun.

It’s gotten a bit bumpy for the noted neurosurgeon.

Politico reports that contrary to what he’s written about himself, Dr. Ben Carson never was offered a scholarship to the U.S. Military Academy. He didn’t even apply for admission, Politico reports.

Carson, though, says he was told when he was 17 years of age that if he applied, he’d be offered the full ride. Who told him? He said it was Army Gen. William Westmoreland, who had just finished commanding U.S. forces in Vietnam.

So … did the good doctor lie, fib, “misremember,” or what?

Carson’s record is under scrutiny more than ever now for a simple reason. He’s among the leaders of a still-packed GOP presidential field of candidates.

If he made it all up, then he’s likely guilty of something approaching stolen valor … you know, when folks make up war stories about themselves. It’s more or less what former NBC News anchor Brian Williams did when he claimed to have to been shot down by an Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade in 2003; oops, didn’t happen, we found out later.

Still, one shouldn’t be allowed to get away even with “misremembering” such details about one’s life when he seeks to become president of the United States of America.

It kind of reminds me of when Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton once said he didn’t remember getting a draft notice. Interesting. As one who did get such a notice from Uncle Sam, I can speak for others who did as well that you do not forget getting such a letter.

Dr. Carson has some serious explaining to do. His campaign now says he didn’t get the scholarship or the appointment to West Point.

Now, let’s hear from you, Dr. Carson. Did you make it up?

 

International news, national news, political news

Bush channels Billy Jeff

Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush seems to be channeling William Jefferson Clinton in trying to explain how President George W. Bush “kept us safe” from terrorist attacks.

You remember when Billy Jeff tried to explain the definition of the word “is.”

The former Florida governor, who’s running for the Republican presidential nomination, is struggling with the reality that the 9/11 attacks occurred on George W.’s watch. Thus, he is responsible — as commander in chief — for the failure to protect us against terror attacks.

Bush is correct, though, to assert that since the attacks the United States remained safe. President Bush and Congress created a new Cabinet agency — the Department of Homeland Security — and gave it specific authority to devise a strategy to prevent future terrorist attacks.

Bush says W kept us safe

It doe no good to quibble over the definition of “keeping us safe” and arguing over whether we mean pre-9/11 or post-9/11.

The attacks occurred nine months into George W. Bush’s presidency. There’s no denying that, right? Nor is there any denying that the president did rally the country behind the initial effort to go after the terrorists in their Afghanistan hideouts — and to take down the government in Kabul that was supporting them.

The unity evaporated when we went to war … in Iraq.

Did the 43rd president keep the nation safe? Yes — after the attacks that killed 3,000 innocent victims and changed the nation forever.

 

national news, political news

Conspiracy comes back

conspiracy

Conspiracies never die. They’re immortal. They have more lives than thousands of cats.

Who killed JFK? What did FDR know about Pearl Harbor? Was 9/11 an inside job?

These things make me crazy.

Now comes the “vast right-wing conspiracy” put forwarded by Bill and Hillary Clinton. It’s back.

Bill Clinton to join the fight

The former president says all this talk about e-mails and whether his wife, the former secretary of state and current Democratic presidential candidate, is part of the “right-wing conspiracy” cooked up by his foes as he was considering a run for the presidency way back in 1991.

I wish he and his wife, Hillary Clinton, would leave that argument alone.

President Clinton told CNN about a menacing phone call he got from the White House as he was preparing to challenge President George H.W. Bush. The caller allegedly told the then-Arkansas governor he’d better not run, or else his foes would dig up tons of dirt on him.

Media officials — such as Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, no slouch as a journalist — said the call never occurred. Others have said the same thing.

Hillary Clinton coined the term “vast right-wing conspiracy” early in her husband’s presidency. She said conservatives conspired to cook up lies about the president in an effort to destroy him.

There’s little doubt that some of the allegations of wrongdoing were bogus. Was it all part of a concerted conspiracy? No one has yet come close to proving that to be the case.

The conspiracy theory, though, is back.

Oh, brother.

 

national news, political news

HRC is an ‘outsider’? Really?

clintonhillary07282015getty

Hillary Clinton calls herself an “outsider.”

Hmmm. I heard that this morning on “Face the Nation.” I’m still trying to process her logic.

The Democratic presidential candidate answered a question about the leading Republican candidates — Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson — given that they are political outsiders.

Clinton then said something quite astonishing. Clinton said her gender makes her a supreme outsider.

Outsider label

Let’s see what the record shows.

  • Eight years as first lady during her husband’s two terms as president.
  • Eight more years as a U.S. senator from New York.
  • Four years as secretary of state.

OK, she’s run for president once already, getting closer than any woman in history to winning the presidential nomination of either party.

Is she an “outsider” in the mold of, say, Trump, Fiorina and Carson? Not by my — or most folks’, I’m willing to reckon — definition of the term.

She’s been at or near the center of power in Washington going back to when President Bill Clinton took the oath of office in January 1993.

That’s 22 years!

Outsider? I don’t think so.

 

national news, political news

Here’s what Gov. Kasich didn’t say

TAMPA, FL - AUGUST 28: Ohio Gov. John Kasich speaks during the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on August 28, 2012 in Tampa, Florida. Today is the first full session of the RNC after the start was delayed due to Tropical Storm Isaac. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Ohio Gov. John Kasich deserves the credit he sought during the Republican presidential debate for helping bring about a balanced federal budget back in the 1990s.

He spoke about his work — as chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee — in helping erase the chronic deficits that plagued the budget for previous decades.

However, Kasich left out an important element in that good work. It was that he was able — along with House Speaker (and fellow Republican) Newt Gingrich — to work with a Democratic president, Bill Clinton in crafting a budget that balanced and, in fact, produced surpluses. (Full disclosure: One of my sons brought this tidbit to my attention. So, I’m running with it in this blog.)

Oh yeah! I almost forgot. The former president is married to the Democrats’ current frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic nomination, someone against whom Kasich would face were he to win the GOP nod next summer.

Of course, any mention of bipartisanship — which is one of Kasich’s many strengths — doesn’t play well to a primary crowd starving for the red-meat rhetoric the candidates in both political parties are serving up to their respective bases.

Accordingly, Gov. Kasich wasn’t about to mention that those budget surpluses disappeared almost immediately after another Republican, George W. Bush, took office in 2001; we suffered the horrendous attack on 9/11, went to war with the terrorists — and then the government cut taxes at the same time.

I just thought it was important to add some context to what we heard on that debate stage in Cleveland.

national news, political news

Listen carefully to the thumping: Biden might run once more

BOCA RATON, FL - SEPTEMBER 28: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at the Century Village Clubhouse on September 28, 2012 in Boca Raton, Florida. Biden continues to campaign across the country before the general election. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Put your head to the ground and listen intently.

Those of us who are interested in such things are beginning to hear the faint thumping of feet. They’re the soldiers, so to speak, who want to see one more prominent Democrat enter the 2016 presidential primary campaign.

That would be Vice President Joe Biden.

Before you dismiss it as so much mindless chatter, I’d like to remind you of a few things about the vice president.

* First, he’s not a young man. He’s 72 and will be 73 when the campaign gets revved up next year, the same age that President Reagan was when he was re-elected in 1984. Biden has always wanted to be president and this represents his last chance to go for the gusto.

* Second, he and the president, Barack Obama, have formed a remarkable relationship during their two terms together. Did you notice their embrace during the memorial service for the vice president’s son, Beau, who died a few weeks ago of brain cancer? Did you also notice the kiss-on-their-cheeks the men exchanged after that man-hug? Only true friends do that in public.

* Third, their relationship puts the president in a highly unusual bind. Then again, it’s been stated time and again that Barack Obama and the Clintons — Hillary and Bill — aren’t exactly close. Yes, the president has spoken highly of Hillary Clinton’s work as secretary of state and, yes again, President Clinton delivered that stirring 2012 oration in Charlotte, N.C., extolling the president’s signature domestic accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act. But you get the feeling deep down there’s a reservoir of mistrust. Might that feeling get in the way of the president endorsing Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination?

* Fourth, the vice president — for all his well-known tendency to speak a little too freely and casually at times — is a foreign policy expert. He has built tremendous relationships with foreign dignitaries — from kings and queens on down to minister-level functionaries. He knows the ropes.

* Fifth, Joe Biden also has great friendships with many members of Congress — in both chambers and on both sides of the political divide. Those lawmakers with whom he has these friendships is dwindling, as many of them are retiring and are being replaced by whippersnappers with zero institutional knowledge of the relationships built between Congress and the White House. Thirty-six years in the U.S. Senate bought the vice president a lot of clout in the upper congressional chamber.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times recounts a moment near the end of Beau Biden’s life that perhaps speaks to the urges that might be pushing the vice president toward one more effort to reach the brass ring.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/opinion/sunday/maureen-dowd-joe-biden-in-2016-what-would-beau-do.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

I, of course, have no knowledge of what the vice president will do. Others are reporting that his team is “ramping up” its activities with the hope of launching a presidential campaign.

But from my perch out here in Flyover Country — where a Biden candidacy wouldn’t necessarily be welcomed — I think I would enjoy seeing this man mix it up with his party’s presumed 2016 frontrunner and the three men seeking to have their voices heard.

Run, Joe, run!

political news

“Four more years!” for Obama?

There can be no doubt about this: Barack Obama’s critics went ballistic when the president said he could win a third term in the White House if he had the chance to seek it.

He reminded his hosts in Ethiopia today that the U.S. Constitution prohibits him from seeking another term. But then he said he’s been a “good president” and well might win in 2016.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/28/politics/obama-third-term-win-ethiopia/

Ah, yes. And he’d say anything about it if he thought he’d lose? Hardly.

The 22nd Amendment was enacted in 1947, spearheaded by a Republican congressional majority that was alarmed by the four elections won by Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They feared an “imperial presidency.” An earlier Democrat, Grover Cleveland, sought the office over the course of three consecutive elections, but lost his bid for re-election to a second consecutive term in 1888; he would come back four years later and be elected to a second term.

I am not at all thrilled about the term-limits provision for presidents, although I understand that the stress of the office has persuaded almost all the men who’ve held the office to bow out after a second term.

Still, Barack Obama isn’t the only recent president to look wistfully at the possibility of a third term.

Republican President Ronald Reagan said as much as his second term came to an end in January 1989. Twelve years after that, Democratic President Bill Clinton also mused aloud over whether he could win a third term.

I don’t recall President George W. Bush ever broaching the subject in public, given that the economy was collapsing when he left office in January 2009.

Whatever the motive for bringing it up this time, President Obama well might have been talking way past his audience in Africa and sticking it in the ear of his foes back home.

I’m quite sure they heard him … loud and clear.

legal news, State news

Texas AG faces possible indictment

This one seems cut-and-dried, but it’s probably not going to be determined that way.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has actually admitted to securities fraud. He was elected anyway in 2014 as the state’s top lawyer, its chief litigator. He should be above reproach. Isn’t that correct?

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/28/grand-jury-looming-paxtons-team-and-prosecutors-sp/

He’ll be investigated by a Collin County grand jury, which will get evidence presented by the Texas Rangers, the elite investigative arm of the Department of Public Safety.

Cut-and-dried?

The Republican attorney general admits to soliciting investment clients for a friend without notifying the state in accordance with state law.

So, is Paxton guilty as charged?

Let’s walk back a few years to around 1998.

President Bill Clinton took an oath to tell the truth while testifying before a federal grand jury. The panel asked the president some questions relating to his relationship with a young White House intern. The president didn’t tell the truth about that relationship.

What did the House of Representatives do? It impeached President Clinton.

Ostensibly, the impeachment really wasn’t about the inappropriate affair with the intern. It was about whether the president followed the law. The House said his lying to the grand jury constituted an impeachable offense.

The Senate, though, acquitted the president of the counts brought against him.

So, when a state constitutional officer — the attorney general — admits to breaking state securities law, does that constitute an indictable offense?

Cut … and … dried. Maybe.

political news

Trump to launch third-party bid? Oh, boy!

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Donald Trump says the Republican National Committee had better treat him right at its presidential nominating convention, or else …

He’s going to run as a third-party candidate for president of the United States.

Wow! Where do I begin?

Exclusive: Trump threatens third-party run

Trump has been hammering the daylights out of his GOP foes. They, too, have returned the fire. The name-calling, insults and cheap shots are piling up all around the knees of the principals.

Trump, who will not be the nominee, is going to insist on a prime-time TV slot to make his speech. His Republican foes don’t want that. They’re going to insist he gets pushed aside, forced to speak at some pre-prime time spot, or perhaps not at all.

But truth be told, RNC officials must be shivering in fear at the prospect of a Trump third-party candidacy.

Trust me on this: He’ll take far more votes from the Republican electorate than he would from the Democratic side — unlike the 1992 independent candidacy of Ross Perot, who gets blamed by Republicans for costing President George H.W. Bush re-election that year and for handing the election to the young Arkansas governor, William J. Clinton.

Polling data from that election, though, suggests something quite different. It is that Perot took votes equally from both Clinton and Bush and that without the third man in the fight, Clinton would have been elected anyway.

Does anyone believe Trump would have a similar impact on a 2016 general election if the nominees are, say, Republican Jeb Bush and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton?

If the RNC is smart, it’s going to give Trump the prime-time spot he desires, let him yammer his nonsense, then show him off the stage, escort him out the door and then let the nominee accept his party’s nomination.

However, the RNC will have to determine which course of action will do the party the least harm.

Heck, it might decide that giving this guy maximum exposure at its nominating convention isn’t worth the reaction he’s going to get.

Let’s all stay tuned.