We previously discussed Hillary Clinton’s claim that she and Bill understand economic hardship because they were “dead broke” after leaving the White House. The claim has been widely ridiculed after it was shown that within one year, not only were legal fees paid off by supporters but the Clintons amassed nearly $12 million. What is most striking however with the coverage of this statement and the problems in Clinton’s book is, again, the lack of much neutral coverage in the media which has become robotically programmed along liberal and conservative lines.
As we discussed earlier, Clinton was using the legal fees to claim that she and Bill were virtually indigent and struggling to pay for the tuition of Chelsea and their mortgage. However, these were heavily Democratic firms that would never have pursued the Clintons for payment. This was debt on paper only. Politicians in Washington routinely run up such debts that are paid off by friends and lobbyists in fundraisers. Indeed, there was coverages at the time on how lobbyists and supporters were lining up to pay off the Clinton’s bill to curry favor with the powerful couple. That reportedly happened within roughly a year.
When the Clintons left and filed their 2000 forms, they reported assets between $781,000 and almost $1.8 million — and liabilities between $2.3 million and $10.6 million in legal bills. However, the wolves were hardly at the door for those legal fees. In addition, Clinton was guaranteed a large annual salary and had promises of millions in speaking fees. Moreover in 1999, the couple bought a five-bedroom home in Chappaqua, N.Y., for $1.7 million and then in 2000, they bought a seven-bedroom house near Embassy Row in Washington, D.C. for $2.85 million.
Faced with a backlash over the clueless claim, Clinton insisted that “we’ve continued to be blessed in the last 14 years.” She repeated this spin later in stating “We were obviously blessed and worked hard for everything.” However, she still maintained that they “fully appreciate how hard life is for so many Americans.” It is hard to see how this life lesson was learned while the couple was racking in millions while friends paid off millions in debts and secured their loan for a mansion in New York.
The Clintons rank as one of the richest couples ever to occupy the White House. USA Today reported “former President Bill Clinton, has made millions on lucrative book deals and more than $100 million on the speaking circuit. Secretary Clinton has recently begun to earn that kind of money as well.”
As with Romney’s disastrous “47 percent” statement , it is amazing to see candidates (particularly notoriously scripted candidates like Clinton and Romney) make these mistakes. This is a comment which is likely to be replayed for months just as Romney’s comment was replayed. For people who are struggling to pay their mortgages (and do not have Terry McAuliffe to pony up the scratch), Clinton’s claim of being broke will reaffirm the view that Clinton lacks authenticity and honesty. It was also remarkably dim to even try to suggest some “rags to riches” or “hard times” narrative.
While Democratic sites have struggled to somehow convince people that Hillary really was dead broke, the Pultizer Price winning organization Politifact found her statements largely false and implausible. Some of the pro-Clinton reviews of her book seem to take the flaws pointed out by others and convert them into curious strengths or at least excusable half-truths. The breathless pro-Clinton review by Sharon Poczter in Forbes is an example. Poczter writes of Clinton’s book Hard Choices:
[Her] book is not a completely truthful account of everything that has happened. It can’t be and it’s not meant to be. It’s an autobiography. It is a personalized account of what happened, written by a politician in a political way. By construction, this means it may not be the entire truth.
It is a depressing spin that we now do not expect politicians to be truthful. They get a type of moral Mulligan on the truth because that is their nature. I actually thought that autobiographies were reviewed on the basis of their honestly and completeness. Instead, Poczter heralds the book as showing “how much she loves her country.” Indeed, one of the most important aspects of the book for Poczter is not the discussion of Bergdahl or Benghazi but how the jacket of the book shows Clinton smiling and laughing and that the book (which she concluded is less than truthful) was Clinton’s brave stand that “she will not make the mistake of letting others be in control of how people see her.” It is a telling measure of our review of candidates today that the fly-leaf is highlighted as the counter to criticism of the content of a politician’s book.
Then conversely on the conservative side, commentators are returning to conspiracies of how Clinton is behind every catastrophe since the Hindenburg. Ironically, the hate is so great, that her critics tend to inflate her role and significance in many of these crises. The result is the usual “night and day” coverage between the liberal and conservative media. It is either spin or attack. We have lost the core of independent coverage. People want to watch news that is an echo-chamber of their own views and follows stations and blogs that give them a reaffirming narrative. The result is not magnify the hate on both sides and push people away from any fair dialogue. Clinton consciously put out this image and narrative as part of the rollout for her book (and possible campaign) and the statement is worthy of ridicule. However, like all contemporary issues it must be cycled through partisan spins in the media. It is possible to criticize Clinton for her statement or her book without supporting the other side. Yet, as with the Romney statement, it is either radio silence or endless chatter depending on your source for news. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Richard III (my favorite Shakespearean play) when the Queen mother explains to her daughter-in-law how to hate:
Compare dead happiness with living woe;
Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,
And he that slew them fouler than he is.
Bett’ring thy loss makes the bad-causer worse;
Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.
Dredd ~
“As judge on the D.C. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, she held that torture is within the scope of employment of government crusaders and therefore the tortured plaintiff had no cause of action (Allaithi v Rumsfeld).
Hillary, Mitt, Chris Christie, Bratt, Cruz, and the rest will be good crusaders and continue to continue ancient darkness.”
I fear you are correct.
Poor Poor Shillary
One cannot be so sure that Stalin was as much of an atheist as he claimed.
“… these words about Stalin’s deathbed scene, as described by his daughter, Svetlana, in Allen Bullock’s ‘Hitler and Stalin.’ She says:
“The death agony was terrible. God grants an easy death only to the just. He literally choked to death as we watched. At what seemed like the very last moment he suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance, insane or perhaps angry and full of fear of death. . .Then something incomprehensible and terrible happened that to this day I can’t forget. . .He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something up above and bring down a curse on us all. The gesture was incomprehensible and full of menace. . . The next moment, after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh.”
If he was defiantly cursing God at his death then he wasn’t an atheist at all, just someone who hated God posing as an atheist. That’s as bad as a wealthy snob posing as dead broke; or a lifelong Chicagoan misrepresenting herself as an “always Yankee fan,” or some 1946 baby boomer telling people in New Zealand that they were named after the great Kiwi explorer, Sir Edmund Hilary, who was not great, nor a Sir until 1954.
And, remarkably, some people will still trust the Left all the way to the Gulag FEMA Camps.
Lee – and I’m sorry for your circumstances. Financial struggles can be extremely stressful.
Lee:
Actually, we DO know who was waiting to pay her bills. For example, there’s her Clinton Legal Defense Fund and PAC, which are public record. Campaign donations are public record. Who helped her get her NY house is public record.
I think you pegged it, that to HER she WAS tightening her belt. To a wealthy woman, 2 mansions may be deprivation.
I agree that Romney’s 47% earned him a rebuke. He also worded it very poorly. People preaching personal responsibility just cannot compete with a guy driving by in his campaign van, throwing “free” money and “stuff” out the window. Who are people going to vote for? Aesop’s ant can’t compete with the grasshopper. So you don’t bother campaigning in Chicago districts that voted 100% for Obama. It’s not like you’re going to change their vote no matter what you do. You’re wasting your breath. You focus on swing states and other areas where you can actually appeal to voters. He worded it so badly, however, it was the albatross around his neck.
By the way, Romney’s 47% remark made people believe he didn’t care about them. What do you think Obama’s remarks about Republicans make millions of conservatives feel? Do you think they feel like he cares about them, their vote, or their opinions?
Please note that not one lawyer in America has offered to investigate and fight judicial corruption, though all know without a doubt that it is a cancer destroying our third branch.
I know it and I can’t tie my shoes
Bill should be in prison for sexual assault. Hillary should be in a nuthouse for marrying the pervert.
I.M.HIPP – She needs to stand by her man. She would have expected any other woman in America to throw the S.O.B. out, but she stayed with him. I think a political deal was struck much earlier in their career about his womanizing.
@Dredd “The winners of wars are determined by who killed the most, the losers are determined by who lost the most”
The above statement clearly posits that war-winners killed the most. Always. I proved you wrong by giving one example. If you had written, “The winners of wars are usually determined by who killed the most,” then you would have a point. But you did not.
Here’s another one for you: in the Winter War, Soviet casualties were ten times as high as Finnish ones. Yet the Soviets won.
“Your religiosity did shine through there for a bit, and I got a glimpse of it.”
Prove it. State for the record my position on religion. I guarantee you are wrong because I often play devil’s advocate.
Dredd, you have had another comment deleted for violation of our civility rule.
TheSaucyMugwump
I wrote “[Dredd’s] posts are simply laughable when you do not specify the reference, the author, and pages. Or a URL.”
Never mind the page, you included that. But Asbridge has three Crusades books listed on Amazon. As for Carroll, are we talking about Lewis?
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So you admit you don’t know and don’t care.
All sauce but no meat.
TheSaucyMugwump (@TheSaucyMugwump)
Dredd wrote “I am quoting a source that uses the better historians”
Your posts are simply laughable when you do not specify the reference, the author, and pages. Or a URL.
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Here are my comment times and number of links / URL in them:
comments … links
8:47 2
4:44 1
5:10 1
5:23 2
5:32 1
5:36 1
5:45 1
5:59 1
6:23 1
6:40 1
7:05 1
7:25 1
So, are you trying to be a zero links / URL troll that way or does it just come naturally?
I wrote “[Dredd’s] posts are simply laughable when you do not specify the reference, the author, and pages. Or a URL.”
Never mind the page, you included that. But Asbridge has three Crusades books listed on Amazon. As for Carroll, are we talking about Lewis?
TheSaucyMugwump …
Dredd wrote: “The winners of wars are determined by who killed the most, the losers are determined by who lost the most”
Wrong.
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You are quite selective in your response. Feels good I suppose.
You selected part of the countries in part of the wars.
I mean, there have been many wars over the past 5,000 years (you mention one recent one).
The general rule down through history is that who kills the most wins the war, and who gets killed the most loses the war.
It is a military generality.
Anyway, your opinion is yours to keep.
I will stay with the competent historians.
Your religiosity did shine through there for a bit, and I got a glimpse of it.
Dredd wrote “I am quoting a source that uses the better historians”
Your posts are simply laughable when you do not specify the reference, the author, and pages. Or a URL.
Evidence that even Afro-American women lawyers have the neoCrusader mentality.
As judge on the D.C. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, she held that torture is within the scope of employment of government crusaders and therefore the tortured plaintiff had no cause of action (Allaithi v Rumsfeld).
Hillary, Mitt, Chris Christie, Bratt, Cruz, and the rest will be good crusaders and continue to continue ancient darkness.
Dredd wrote: “The winners of wars are determined by who killed the most, the losers are determined by who lost the most”
Wrong. The Eastern Front in WWII resulted in over 20 million Soviet Deaths (the current figure from Russia is 27 million), while the number of German deaths is less than 8 million. The Soviets won the war in the east handily.
“Pol Pot was an instrumentality of U.S. policy”
A Khmer Rouge defendant was responsible for that rumor. Do you always believe defendants in multiple murder cases?
“like al-Qaeda and other mujahideen”
Here you have a point, given that the U.S. gave military aid to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan after the Soviets invaded.
“Hitler was a crusader”
And you say this because of that one painting depicting him on a horse holding a lance? If anything, he was a failed artist.
Goebbels wrote in late 1939: “The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race. This can be seen in the similarity of their religious rites. Both (Judaism and Christianity) have no point of contact to the animal element, and thus, in the end they will be destroyed. The Fuhrer is a convinced vegetarian on principle.”
Saw Frank Lutz (sp) a repub analysts on CBS morning show. He said the repubs have notoriously bad luck with their polling, it showing good numbers only to have them end up losing, like for Romney and apparently for Cantor too. (And I agree Karen there is a throw the bums out mentality as well./ Everyone hates congress, for the most part. It is the one thing a majority of Americans, dems, repubs, liberal, right wing, agree on.
I don’t know why it wortks Karen because Gonzales faced no repercussions (that I can recall) and Ms Clinton did not use it, based on what I could find in a quick google search, not in Benghazi at least. She may have said it in Whitewater. Absent the uberrightwing site cited above I did not find that either.
Karen S
Dredd:
Stalin and Hitler killed millions of people. As for claiming that Christianity has killed the most people – you cannot make something true simply by saying it.
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I take it that you learned that by experience or from Paul CS.
Karen S
Dredd:
You are confusing the Spanish Inquisition with the Muslim Expansion …
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You should read my comment before spouting off like PCS does.
“These crusader attacks on Jews amounted to Europe’s first large scale pogroms, and the hostilities spread east through Germany in the cities of Speyer, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Cologne, Worms, Mainz and seven other locations.” (circa 1095, my comment upthread)
Last I checked Germany is not in Spain.
The Spanish Inquisition started about 400 years later in the 1400’s (“the Spanish Inquisition (Inquisición española), was established in 1478”).
Karen she has been getting rebukes from all corners. And the indefensible is taking something out of context then saying it is an out and out lie. You don’t know who was waiting to pay her bills, you don’t know when his first check came in etc (I am on a fixed income below the poverty level. I am not appalled that she said what she said. It was, as I said already a bad choice of words but it was not a lie no matter how you spin it. They were in debt. Was it a struggle like many in this country have? No. But the rich are different then you and I.
I have a friend who has a decent amount of money. I am amazed when she complains she will have to tighten her belt then tells me she bought the most expensive microwave even though theirs still worked. She shells out hundreds to buy gifts for the grandkids etc. She cries poor when the issue of my finances comes up, her crying poor when she has not a worry while I have legit worries is appalling to me because she doesn’t get it.. When she complains to her well off friends I am sure they don’t see it as being complaining but a reality Secretary Clinton probably was not thinking how will this play. She was stating it as she and her friends see it. at least at the time.
Romney on the other hand made his infamous remark not about his finances but denigrating 47% of the population “There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. … These are people who pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,”
I find that was a lot more offensive and appalling and completely out of touch. Did you complain at that time about Romney?