Politics - end of H's presidential ambitions?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News : One Thread

Kausfiles.com

Hit Parade--2/24 Updated at all hours

She's Alive! Alive! "It's the end of her presidential ambitions," says quote-king Larry Sabato, referring to Hillary Clinton and the Sordid Coda. I wish Sabato were right, and not just a pundit exaggerating the impact of the day's news to please the press. But he's so wrong. Three reasons: 1) HRC, as opposed to WJC, hasn't been that badly implicated in the central Marc Rich pardon scandal -- indeed, some of the e-mails (e.g. Denise Rich warning Marc's lawyers not to involve Hillary) tend to exculpate her. As for her sleazy brother -- well, he's just her brother; 2) She'll be in even better shape if/when the seemingly inevitable sex angle comes out (though it may then be obvious there was a reason, aside from HRC's rectitude, why Denise "was very sure" involving Hillary would be "a mistake"). If Bill's caught fooling around with a member of Marc Rich's pardon posse, not only will it help put the onus on him, but it will let Hillary reacquire her politically lucrative victim status, even if she has to get divorced to preserve her dignity; 3) If we've learned anything in the past couple of years it's that as information moves faster, it's being processed faster, and its impact tends to dissipate more quickly. (This is an implication of the Feiler Faster Thesis, a hardy kausfiles perennial.) Hillary has plenty of time to recover by the baseball All-Star break, to say nothing of the end of the year, or 2003, when she'd have to decide whether to run for President, or 2006, when her Senate term is up. ... And if she gets divorced, she can start dating! That will lead to lots of positive, Oprahble, scandal-displacing coverage. (Tim Noah has some suggestions in this regard.) ... Note that I'm not saying Hillary has a good shot at the presidency; I'm saying the current scandal so far has not hurt her chances that much, and may even help them. ... Forward slant on the news! If a sex angle does come out, will it be because people in the Clinton circle loyal to Hillary leak it, knowing it will help her politically, and that she's now the only Clinton with a political future? ... (2/24)

Am I the only one who thinks the Hugh Rodham Pardon Payoff story actually helps Bill Clinton? It distracts attention from the stunning Marc Rich scandal, in which Clinton has no defense, and replaces it with a very familiar sort of scandal, one that the defense of "every President has an embarrassing brother" makes eminently survivable. ... (2/22)

Just Dozoretz? Clinton's Marc Rich pardon now seems so overdetermined it's getting hard to believe he could have not pardoned Rich. I mean, the guy had no choice! There was the Jack Quinn vector of causality. And the campaign money vector. And the possible sex vector, with its attendant possible implicit fear-of-disclosure factor. And the poor man was awfully tired, you know! ... Now Michael Isikoff opens a new vein of causality -- a previously undisclosed pledge by fundraiser and rich Rich advocate Beth Dozoretz to raise a million dollars for the Clinton library. ... Dozoretz's lawyer says she only discussed the Rich pardon with Clinton "a very few" times. (That gets her off under the little-known "very few" exception to the bribery laws.) ... Actually, there are so many possible quids pro quoing around this pardon that it will be even more impossible than usual for prosecutors to prove any one of them. It's almost cunning -- the multiple chains of corruption cancel each other out, in fratricidal fashion, as in the old Densepack missile system. ... Even outside of court, Clinton's defenders can plausibly argue (as Joe Conason just did on the PBS NewsHour) that of course Clinton didn't do it for the campaign money -- after all, big donor Ron Burkle didn't get a pardon for Michael Milken! ... Now, that's probably only because Milken failed to also work the Quinn angle and he didn't have an attractive ex-wife handy. But Conason didn't mention that. ... (2/22)

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ