Woodgeard: Hillary 'heartbroken'

By Ron Woodgeard The Macon Telegraph

When Hillary Clinton held her press conference the other day to answer questions about her brother's role in two presidential pardons, something she said should have a familiar ring in the South.

Sen. Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, was paid $400,000 for his help in getting pardons for a convicted miracle-cure swindler and a drug dealer. To her credit, she did stand there for the better part of an hour to answer questions. That's a darn sight more than her husband has done.

However, that is not to say her answers were revealing. She kept repeating that she knew nothing and that if anyone had a question about the facts, they'd have to ask somebody else. But the phrase that captured my attention was this line: "I was just heartbroken and shocked by it, and, you know, immediately said it was a terrible misjudgment and the money had to be returned."

I was struck by her use of the word "heartbroken." This is a code word she's used before. She was no doubt "heartbroken" when she learned the awful truth about Monica Lewinsky. A heartbroken woman is something everyone can understand and sympathize with.

If a white Southern woman is deeply annoyed, she does not say she is "pi--ed off." No, she says she is "hurt." This guy had done something awful which has left her "heartbroken" and "hurt." Whether Clinton has studied Southern culture or not, this explanation is intended to parry criticism that she should have known about her brother and should have done something.

So, let's see what New Yorkers who elected her to the United States Senate are being asked to believe. Lawyer brother Hugh makes a fortune off two extremely controversial pardons and neither she nor her husband knew a thing about it. They don't know anything about Roger Clinton's lobbying for pardons. Roger, arrested last week for drunk driving, got his own pardon.

They didn't know that the Marc Rich pardon would be seen as a payoff. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager got paid to pursue two other pardons of tax cheats, but she doesn't know anything about those either.

She also didn't know that a lot of the furniture she had moved to her New York house didn't belong to her. Looking back on the last eight years, there is an awful lot she didn't know about.

According to the latest polls, most Americans are reacting to this seemingly endless string of denials with a collective "Yeah, right."

The fact of the matter is that at least eight of the presidential pardons have connections to the White House or upper-level Democratic Party officials. These included several former White House lawyers (Jack Quinn and William Kennedy), a lawyer who represented Al Gore in Florida (Kendall Coffey) and Democratic National chairman Terry McAuliffe.

The latest Gallup poll shows Sen. Clinton's approval rating dropped to 49 percent favorable from last November's 56 percent.

It has gotten so bad that top Democratic party officials are worried about the fundraising implications for themselves. Former President Jimmy Carter called the Rich pardon "disgraceful," while Carter's former chief of staff wrote the Wall Street Journal to say that if he had done what President Clinton's aides did, he would have been fired.

One amusing aspect of the Hugh Rodham story is that it was broken by a supermarket tabloid, The National Inquirer. The "serious" journalists at The New York Times and at The Washington Post probably choked on the story they had missed.

The headlines and stories from the mainstream press appeared sympathetic to Sen. Clinton. Few stories pointed out that she repeatedly passed the buck on most of the tougher questions. ("You'll have to ask the president about that.")

Trouble is, the former president isn't talking. He did have a one-way conversation with the country in the form of an editorial-page letter to The New York Times, but that isn't the same as standing up to questions the way Sen. Clinton did.

The far left asks whether any of these revelations matter and whether Congress ought to investigate. Yes. And if it were not for the likes of the tabloids, print and Internet, much less of any of this would have been revealed.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2001