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 f there is one
word that came to mind while listening to Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton's news conference Thursday, it would have to be "disappointed."
If there is one phrase that fully encapsulates how I feel about
my junior senator, it would have to be, um, "don't know."
That doesn't really tell you much now, does it? But, hey, sorry
to disappoint you.
Quick digression: What do you think? Consider: This was the first
time that Cabal Clinton and Team Bush
found
themselves going head-to-head with dueling news conferences within
hours of one another. Did Hillary Rodham Clinton call her news conference
together because she knew that George W. Bush was going to have
his first one and that the pack mentality of the Washington press
corps would be enough to have her "tell-all-about-brother-Hugh"
be completely obscured? Or did the Bush White House, noting that
Hillary had hastily scheduled a press conference quickly add their
first news conference, recognizing that the press corps obsession
for all things Clinton would cause any possible flub by Dubya to
be totally ignored? Who's fooling whom here?
Meanwhile, is Al Gore thinking about what his first 100 days would
have been like with all this Clinton mess coming to light? Might
he perhaps be thinking that he's fortunate that he dodged a major
bullet? Would the press be giving him the easy pass that it's giving
Bush? How could they? After all, Gore had enabled Clinton all this
time. Al and Bill are still members of the same party. We've seen
already how Democrats are twisting themselves in knots dealing with
the pent-up hangover guilt incurred from an eight-year binge-lying
bender. Al Gore's administration would be DOA right about now.
"Disappointed." "Disappointment." Variations of those words appeared
ten times during Hillary Clinton's news conference.
"Don't know." Another ten-spot of that phrase was tossed out. So,
we've gotten a complete snapshot of Senator Clinton's emotional
state in relation to her brother. She's "disappointed" that he took
money from a client to use his influence to attain a pardon. Or
is she just disappointed that the news came to light? Don't know.
In one sense, Hillary is proving herself the bolder of the Clinton
duo. Bill has been in something of hiding holding pattern over the
issue of the pardons the last couple of weeks. He had a friendly
walk down 125th street last week to unveil his new office building.
He then drafted the wonderful Sunday New York Times op-ed
— which promptly blew up in his face. He left it to John Podesta
and Joe Lockhart to try and bail him out of that one. He reappeared
to pass "go" and collect $100,000 from the Oracle shareholders conference.
Then, just as the Marc Rich stories seemed to subside for a day
or two, the National Enquirer has to go and bring up the fact that
Hugh Rodham collected $400,000 to help pardon Carlos Vignali and
Glenn Braswell. Hillary and Bill send out separate press releases
underscoring that neither knew what Hugh was up to. And who steps
out front to, ahem, "meet the press"? Nope, not Mr. Warmth, but
it's Senator Ice Queen instead.
Where can Bill be? Oh, yeah, right. He must be out doing the work
of the American people! Just like always. Speaking of just like
always, there was one another word
| “Where
can Bill be? Oh, yeah, right. He must be out doing the
work of the American people!” |
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that
popped up a couple of times in Hillary's chat: "context." Let's
take a look at that: "[T]here is a context for all of this, and
it's important to put these things into context. And there have
been controversial pardons in our country's past going back, you
know, hundreds of years, 100 years. And what goes into the mind
of the person who makes the decision is something that is very hard
to determine." Now, why does that sound familiar? Hmm…couldn't have
anything to do with a certain Today Show interview from three
years ago now, could it?
Compare Hillary Rodham Clinton's words from January 27, 1998: "I
think when all of this is put into context, and we really
look at the people involved here, look at their motivations, look
at their backgrounds, look at their past behavior, some folks are
going to have a lot to answer for." (Emphasis added) There's that
little word, "context," again. At one time, Mrs. Clinton felt that
once everything was looked at in context, all would be explained.
We all know how that little venture turned out, right? Any
guesses as to where this particular train might be heading?
So basically, that's it. "Disappointment" and "Don't know"--with
a little bit of context to give it some substance. Come to think
of it, that's about all you've gotten from this column today, right?
You somehow feel almost cheated, right? You've invested a certain
amount of faith in me; you've come to trust me. And here, I'm giving
you--nothing!
Geez, the way things are going, I'll be eminently qualified to run
for Senate someday real soon!
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