We KNOW the Reich Wing attacked the Clintons relentlessly, but

[Rick Myers]

When did it start? What was the 'trigger' event'? Did the RW freaks start beating on Hillary during her health care initiative?

[napi21]

1. They started way before he was elected!

Remember the big deal about Jeniffer Flowers?

They were determined to bring him down one way or another. Truth or not, they tried everything they could think of. I was a little pissed at him for being so foolish as to do his game playing in the WH, but I also don't know very many, if any, people who's life could withstand 8+ years of investigation and not produce SOMETHING!

[niceypoo]

14. Every dem candidate/president from now on be attacked by the GOP

They are stuck in attack mode and it is fueled by their propagandists AKA savage/Limbaugh etc. Had Kerry won the GOP would have immediately tried to Impeach him.

[rsdsharp]

2. No, it started earlier, during the campaign.

They were pissed that she wasn't a stay-at-home Mom, and had the temerity to have(and use!) a law degree from Yale. That, coupled with the 60 minutes defense if Bill during the Gennifer Flowers deal (how dare she keep her family together rather than divorce him!), her statement about not just being some little woman standing behind her man and baking cookies, coupled with Bill's comment about voters getting two for the price of one sort of drove them over the edge.

[cassiepriam]

7. yep, and then really geared up after the inauguration.

They put the Clintons thru a living hell. D*mn those repugs.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

3. He got elected

I'm telling you, something about Clinton - maybe because he was a Washington "outsider," as the press saw it - rubbed the Washington press corps the wrong way, and I remember thinking, when I saw that morons on Meet The Press talking about Clinton's "angry outburst" at a press conference, "He is so screwed."

I had seen the same press conference, and someone had asked him a question that was full of inaccuracies, and Clinton very methodically - as is his wont - set the questioner straight. No anger, no outburst, just Clinton cleaning up the sloppy question.

They never liked Clinton because - this is my theory - he was cocky, he looked like a guy who loved pussy, and he was a guy who got all he wanted.

To top it off, he became President of the United States.

Jealousy, Rick. Jealousy.

Then they went after Hillary because she was "uppity."

Snakes, all of them.

[texastoast]

9. And it still just kills the freepers

That Bill is having a good time, making lots of money on his own, and playing the sax. Too bad that the Rhodes scholar didn't get to do as much good for the country as he could have because he served on the receiving end as the biggest prototype for "politics of personal destruction" and had to fight against Newt's "Contract on America."

Hope all those fuckers are happy now.

[Solly Mack]

4. 1988-1989, Lee Atwater "opened a file" on Clinton

Thought him the only real threat coming their way - it grew and grew from there.

After Clinton gave a speech at the convention ('88), was when Atwater "noticed" him.

I'd opine that Hillary was always an intended target as well - and anything they could attack her on (health care) was just a bonus.

Even before Clinton took office, Bob Barr called for his impeachment. (1992)

[OldLeftieLawyer]

11. I don't even feel guilty

Whenever I think of how and when Atwater died, I get a little tickle of delight.

He just didn't suffer enough for what that prick did to American politics.

Maybe now his precious handmaiden, Rove, will pay the earthly price that Atwater ducked out of paying?

[noahmijo]

5. Check the movie "The Hunting Of The President"

It gives a great primer and overall look at how and why the thugs got started in their mission to attempt to take Clinton out.

[bostonbabs]

13. Great movie ...saw it wilh a packed

house in a very Republican town and you could hear a pin drop....people who came out of that movie, like myself, were angry ...you could feel it in the air..we need to brig that back and also "the smartest guys in the room"...is great...( about Enron)

[HughBeaumont]

18. Just watched that tonight . . .

Also watched Unprecedented . . . weirds me out that the library had BOTH of these movies on DVD.

Yeah, if you really want to get your blood boiling, or you just want to prove to someone once and for all how unabashedly shameless and ruthless the Republican Rich Reich is, show them these two DVDs.

[mattclearing]

6. The second he won the nomination. n/t

[Rick Myers]

8. Thanks!!!

I'm debating a RW idiot on another board who claims the RW NEVER targeted Hillary during Bill's years in ofiice!!! What a friggin' moran!!!

[blm]

10. Right after Bush1 won in 88, Atwater and W started files on potential Dem

candidates for 92. Clinton was one of them. That's why they tried to embroil him in various financial scams, but discovered he wasn't interested in money.

The first run of their smear campaign tactics using Scaife and Moon papers was against Kerry when he was opening up the IranContra and BCCI can of worms.

They used that type of smear journalism against Clinton when he took office.

[AtomicKitten]

12. The answer is in "The Hunting of the President"

Rumor has it it started when Clinton was approached by the Bushies prior to the '92 election asking him to sit out that election so GHWB could have a second term, and Clinton told 'em to sit on it. And they decided for his impudence and particularly his win that Clinton must pay and pay and pay.

[Neil Lisst]

15. Rick Myers, come on down!

As some have mentioned, the attack on Clinton began during the presidenial race, and escalated into a full blown lynch mob after the 1994 taking of the House by the Pukes.

A key player in those days was Richard Scaife Mellon, who, along with Rupert Murdoch and Sun Moon, drastically impacted political news to its detriment.

[Neil Lisst]

16. Here's the face of evil ... Richard Mellon Scaife

here

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/04/27/scaife.profile/

[Andromeda]

17. It started long before he decided to run for president.

Read "The Hunting of the President" by Joe Conoson and Gene Lyons.

[bluedawg12]

19. He wasn't hawk enough for the neoconnie's

http://www.davidfrum.com/archive.asp?YEAR=1997

SHOWDOWN WITH SADDAM SHOWED UP A HOBBLED U.S. MILITARY
Clinton's horror of shedding blood causes more suffering among Iraq's civilians than a war would
November 22, 1997, The Financial Post


>Saddam is a man of violence; force is the only thing he respects. But Clinton is afraid to use force. When he sent aircraft carriers to the Gulf, he ordered them to sail as slowly as possible -- to postpone the moment at which he would have to decide whether to order air strikes. Worse, it's not clear how effective the U.S. military remains. Since the Gulf War, U.S. military spending has plunged by one-third, adjusted for inflation, from US$ 273 billion (in 1987 dollars) in fiscal 1990 to $ 180 billion (1987 dollars) in the current fiscal year. Clinton often boasts that fewer people work for the federal government today than at any time since the Kennedy administration. That's true. What he fails to point out is that all the net reductions in federal employment are due to the shrinkage of the military.<