I first heard of Whitewater in a multipage story in the Sunday New York Times

[hedgehog]

after Clinton had the Democratic nomination. I don't want to go through that again. This story hasn't made the MSM, but it is in circulation all over the right wing blogs. Here's my nightmare scenario: Hillary Clinton receives the nomination and the story hits the headlines the next day. Instead of talking about universal healthcare and ending the war in Iraq, the election is turned into a referendum on whether you believe the Clintons to be innocent victims of a right wing smear. Enough people throw up their hands in disgust and stay home on election day to allow the Republicans to steal the election (again).

I've had to hunt to avoid linking to a right wing blog, but here is what I found:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_F._Paul

http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation_CCA_J.shtml

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118973400928827314.html

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/hillary_rodham_clinton/index.html?query=PAUL,%20PETER&field=per&match=exact

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/malcolm-friedberg/clinton-in-court_b_63308.html

[MonkeyFunk]

1. And you think they

won't make up such stories about any other candidate?

Clinton has been through the wringer. She's the most-investigated woman in America and they pinned nothing on her.

[hedgehog]

3. At this point, it may not matter if they pin anything on her.

All it takes is enough smoke to convince people that there's at least a little fire. If enough people are convinced and stay home on election day.....


If there is nothing to this, we need to drag it out into the sunshine and let it shrivel up now. If there is something to this, why wait until after the nomination to let it blow up in our faces?

[MonkeyFunk]

5. My point

is that they'll pull the same exact shit on ANYBODY who gets the nomination. Remember the Swiftboaters?

The notion that Clinton is uniquely subject to attacks is nonsensical.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Nobody Is Preventing You From Flogging This Story

I know of a couple of websites where the memembers will be more than happy to help you bring this story into the "sunshine".

I have been defending the Clintos from these attacks for sixteem or so years and I'm not stopping now...

[William769]

13. They tried that with Bill and it didn't work.

I am sure the rightwing thanks you for your help though. :eyes:

[Just-plain-Kathy]

25. I'm sure the right wing knows everything there is to know about Hillary.

[JDPriestly]

7. In the minds of many, many voters, she has been pinned and

placed tails on and the pins and tails are not coming out. Would you buy and Edsel? How about dog food made in China? People shy away from products with bad reputations. Hillary has a bad reputation -- however ill deserved. She will not overcome this. If you think the campaign will be bad, wait and see what happens if she is elected.

We have already seen the Hsu scandal in which her name was linked to a donor who is accused of something or other. There will be one "scandal" after the other if she is nominated. And people will readily believe it, in part because they heard nothing but bad-mouthing of the Clintons for the past 15 years and also because of her manner which is pretty defensive and calculated. She does not come across as someone who looks you in the eye and tells you the truth. She has an arrogant manner and does not come across as someone who admits her own failings very easily. She still hasn't really apologized for being so gullible about the Iraq War. Come on now. That is arrogance to the nth degree.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. Don't Vote For Her...

You think she has a bad reputation... I don't...

[MonkeyFunk]

12. And in the minds of more voters

she's been the target of an orchestrated right-wing campaign for 16 years, and she's fought back successfully.

No other candidate can claim to have fought and beaten those bastards as long and as well as she has.

Why are you helping them?

[JDPriestly]

15. I don't think she has succeeded in beating them.

I think she has caved in over and over. I don't think she can be elected. That is why Fox News's Murdock likes her so much. She is the least likely of the Democrats to win.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. "I don't think she can be elected."

I think she can be and the polls bear me out:


http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08gen.htm

[MonkeyFunk]

20. Of course she beat them!

Twice in Senatorial elections. And if Bill Clinton could've run in 2000, he would've won, too.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. Don't Confuse Em With Facts

eom

[JDPriestly]

23. In New York? Against who?

[MonkeyFunk]

24. In 2000? Ric Lazio

And she was statistically tied with him shortly before the election. It wasn't a shoo-in.

She earned the seat.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

26. As a New Yorker I can tell you that the GOP didn't try to unseat Hillary in '06.

They didn't advertise or anything.

[MonkeyFunk]

28. right

because they had nobody to beat her. But she ran a real race in 2000 and won, despite a LOT of people saying she couldn't possibly do it.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

14. MonkeyFunk don’t take this personally but....

After seven years of Bush’s crimes...nothing has been pinned on him either.

I just got a mailing from Bill Clinton... I didn't read it, I don't know if he was looking for money for Hillary's campaign, or what.

I turned over one of the pages looking for a blank space to write on and I wrote something like this:

Fuck you Bill Clinton!

Don't come to me looking for anything. ....NAFTA!! The Iraqi Liberation Act??? Keeping our military in the hands of Halliburton!! Advising senators to sign the IWR!! The Telecommunications Act!!!! Pardons!!!

I don’t care if you screwed in the White House, But you screwed America. Fuck you.

-------


....I’m still mad. And it drives me crazy to see people here (at a place where I think smart people gather) support the wife of a president who was impeached. We need to win in ‘08 to make changes!!

Whitewater, treating the White House like it was a motel. ...By no means should Hillary be our top candidate. ...We’re lead around like sheep by our corporate owned media!!


edit to add: I mailed the note this morning.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. He Was Impeached By A Rogue, Right Wing Lynch Mob

And if wasn't for the 22nd Amendment he could run in 08 and win...

[Just-plain-Kathy]

17. We need a left wing lynch mob.

I, like you (more than likely) defended Clinton for years, at one point we just have to admit, the man was all smoke and mirrors. We didn’t feel the ramifications of his actions until Bush took the ball and ran with it.

Who made the most money in the last decade? BushCo’s investment interests and Hillary’s NAFTA loving Wal-Mart. ....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. Who made the most money in the last decade?

You do know that twenty two million new jobs were created during the Clinton adminisration, the percentage of people living below the poverty line was the lowest in a generation, and African American employment was the highest in a generation... He also eliminated the federal defecit...

[Just-plain-Kathy]

22. I think when Bill took office he went in with gusto....

...he wanted to change the world and go down in history as a great president. He always spoke about Jefferson's legacy, but something happened along the way.

I don't know if there were some back room deals made to make Hillary our first female president. Like I said, we're not feeling the down fall of his presidency until now.

Why he enacted the Telecommunications Act, -I don’t know. I blame that legislation for giving us the corporate owned media we have now. Rupert Murdock loves the Clintons.

If Hillary is our candidate, I’ll have to hold my nose and vote for her, because a corporate democrat doesn’t hurt us as much as ANY repuke would.

I just wish we had a better choice of candidates. I just wish we could make a mega candidate out of Edwards’ (supposedly) good looks, Obama’s charm, Hillary’s brain and Kucinich’s sense of patriotism. ...But I know I’m just dreaming.

[BootinUp]

29. Bush's poll numbers have been pinned to his liver

don't cha think?

[JDPriestly]

2. I agree. Besides, Clinton's need to answer a lot of questions.

One being -- where do they stand on internet privacy. The U.S. government pressured the European Union to start collecting information to enable internet snooping during the late '90s.

Also, what about NAFTA? Hillary's answers to questions about this have been very troubling -- weak, vague, ambiguous. I want to know where she stands on changing laws on ownership of the media also. The first Clinton administration took a right-wing view on a lot of issues. Where does Hillary sand on poverty? What happens to all the people thrown out of the welfare system if we have an economic downturn thanks to Green span's inattention to the economy during the early Bush years? The questions go on and on.

And the rebirth of Whitewater is just one of them. I realize that the Republicans will attack any Democratic candidate. But the voters have already been inoculated with anti-Hillary venom and she is not going to be able to counter-attack that venom. It's there. It is in the subconscious of the voters, and she should not be running. She will damage the Democratic Party and the U.S. Sorry, Hillary. You are qualified. You are competent. But you are too right-wing and you are already hated by too many people.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. And After All The Investigations Of The Clintons...

And after all the investigations of the Clintons all they could get Bill for was lying about a blowjob...

[Bitwit1234]

6. And all the scandals about bush were buried

The call girl pregnancy and abortion bush paid for..
The suicide of bush's school time girl friend who returned years later filed a sexual harassment and stalking civil suit against him.
bush's running and hiding during the Viet Nam War after his Daddy got him a cushy berth in the Air Guard.
His two failed savings and loan and oil ventures where he went bankrupt after he was bailed out by the bin laden family.
His suspicious manipulation of property sales to enlarge 'his' Texas Rangers property.
The Franklin scandal where the sex ring of young boys had guided tours of the white house.
bush grand fathers attempted coup of FDR, his raising money and funding Hitlers rampage in Europe.


And too many more for me to type. None of these things made the headlines before, during or even after bush's campaigns. So we have a double standard for the MSM. I wonder every day, how do these people look at them selves in the mirror knowing what they are doing to this country. How do they justify it. We know they are just newsreaders, but they can refuse to READ them.

[hedgehog]

9. Absolutely there is a double standard! If you really want to be disgusted,

check out the article in Vanity Fair about the coverage of the Gore campaign. But just because it's not fair doesn't mean it's not real. Why would we want to hand lazy journalists the ready made narrative of the Clintons skirting campaign laws?

It wasn't fair when the MSM went after Gary Hart, either. Unfair or not, he wan't elected.

[JDPriestly]

10. What suicide of Bush's school time girl friend?

I never heard of that. What is your source on that.

[BootinUp]

27. The repukes lost that one

I am somewhat surprised you are so concerned about it. After 70 million dollars and an impeachment the Clintons have weathered that battle quite well. And no, I don't think the MSM is going to retry them on it.