WASHINGTON, DC - Two weeks ago, I decided to commence research for a large writing project on ex-president Bill Clinton. My first task: Review some thirty or so articles in popular press about Bill Clinton’s flaws and mistakes. After that, I talked to three political scientists at my
alma mater, Williams College, about his administrative hallmarks and leadership
failures. Then I interviewed Juanita Broaddrick over the phone for roughly
twenty minutes. Her testimony was detailed, thoughtful, and sounded credible.
The information she gave me about Mr. Clinton was violent, severe, vivid, even
startling.
In Ms. Broaddrick’s words, Clinton inveighed after raping
her: “Don’t worry I’m sterile. I had mumps when I was a boy. You better get some
ice on that (her bleeding upper lip).” Bill, she explained to me, is a man
callous with no conscience.
I paused before responding.
Since my conversation with Ms. Broaddrick, I have read
another dozen articles about Bill Clinton’s shame and infidelity in The
Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic, and Boston Globe. Tomorrow I
should revisit books by David Maraniss and John D. Gartner that explore Bill
Clinton’s difficult upbringing in Hope, Arkansas. I might also peruse some
books that parse his muck and sexual repulse for Hillary Clinton. For example,
The Case Against Hillary Clinton by Peggy Noonan.
My writing on Mr. Clinton may take as its starting place an
interesting story I heard from a former colleague at a dinner party about how
Bill Clinton found himself emailing Hillary’s campaign staff with concerns —
because Mrs. Clinton did not want to hear from Bill herself. As my friend
explained, he emailed Robby Mook about Hillary’s deficits and received no
response.
This article for ABC leads me to believe that Bill Clinton
was heavily blamed for defeating his wife in 2008, so Hillary tended to ignore pudge of his ego.
Bill’s ego is gaseous and gooey. Imagine a rich spinach dip
with jalapeño, cheese, cream, onion, tomato, and green chilies. A blob of fatty
acid screaming excess and high cholesterol. Mr. Clinton, as one political
scientist told me, was a soft populist with talent who never matured as mama’s
boy.
I look forward to more.
Zachary R. Wood is an assistant curator at TED, as well as a former columnist and assistant opinion editor
at The Guardian, a former Robert L. Bartley Fellow at The Wall Street Journal,
and a class of 2018 graduate of Williams College. He is the author of Uncensored (Random House, 2019).
I’m been driving around this week with a burning question in my mind: Why would President Obama support a Ground Zero Mosque (GZM) when it is opposed by 2/3rds of the American people? Given the unpopularity of this mosque, it is as if the driver of the Democrat party’s new limo has just steered it into a junk yard crushing machine.
I think the simplest answer is that Obama was being loyal to his Muslim-American base...not to African-Americans...not to his Democrat party...and not to the American people. I have found some supporting evidence for this thesis in an article in Politico on August 15, 2010 in which Carol E. Lee writes that an undisclosed administration official says this was “purely” Obama's decision. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41077.html In Audacity of Hope, Obama writes that he is intent to assure Muslims that he will stand with them during the ultimate crisis. Apparently, Obama’s brain decided that moment has arrived.
What is missing from all the reporting on this issue is what an incredibly stupid thing this was for Obama to do in terms of electoral politics. Obama has ignited a firestorm of controversy that can only do damage to his party’s chances in November 2010 and to his own chances in November 2012. Already, Rasmussen shows Republicans opening up a 12-point lead in the generic polling results. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot
Obama’s job approval rating, according to Gallup, is at an all time low of 42%. On a scale of one to ten for political stupidity, Obama’s endorsement of the GZM is a ten. It is the equivalent of running toward a burning car wreck and then squeezing yourself into the trunk.
Since I knew President Obama while he was an extremist, Marxist sophomore at Occidental College, I think I have an unusual insight to share regarding this politically inept decision. Based on my face-to-face talks with the young Obama, I’m among those who do not see Obama as an intellectual genius. I’ve never gone along with those who think they can find evidence of a high IQ in Obama’s election as the editor of the Harvard Law Review, or his role as an adjunct at the University of Chicago Law School, or his success in winning office. Since I never bought into the inflated view of Obama’s intellectual skills, I was not surprised by his dependence on the teleprompter. I do, however, think I know why he has not released his undergraduate transcripts from Occidental College or Columbia University: His charismatic reputation for genius would not survive the harsh reality of his ordinary grades.
Accordingly, I’m not convinced that Obama’s endorsement of the GZM was an example of a political genius playing chess while we are all playing checkers. Instead, I see Obama’s recklessness as more similar to a funny, stupid criminal story where the bank robber submits his demand for cash on the back of his own business card. I think the stress of his job is getting to him. Under stress, Obama’s thinking has become cloudy, impulsive and irrational. Reviewing this last week, even Obama may now understand that he cannot drive and should not have the keys.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
Purely by chance, I happened to be in Little Rock, AR just when the news regarding President Clinton’s role in the Obama administration’s illegal effort to offer a job to Rep. Joe Sestak in return for a political favor broke last week in the national media. It turns out that ex-President Bill Clinton was in town that day to stump for beleaguered Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
Compassionate fellow that he is, President Clinton graciously served as the keynote speaker for the Neighborhoods U.S.A. luncheon on May 28, 2010. This was my first time seeing President Clinton face to face and I was curious to hear what he had to say.
As far as I could tell, President Clinton’s primary message was that those of us working at the neighborhood level were the most important people on Earth and that his experience at the national level had taught him that it was a more cruel world than what we were used to seeing or observing.
President Clinton argued that neighborhoods were a healthy and wonderful thing because citizens were forced to get to know each other as individuals. He pointed out that - at the national level - it was easy for his political enemies to create an inaccurate and unfair characterization of him and others.
For example, he shared the comments of one of his assistants who was with him in Washington who claimed, in relation to press accounts regarding President Clinton that "They keep writing about someone I am unfamiliar with."
As someone who has occasionally been in the public eye myself, I know President Clinton is telling the truth that the media does tend to portray people in a manner that best sells newspapers or keeps you holding on through the commercial instead of the manner that might satisfy your own ego’s needs. In my case, for example, I was never on the front page of a major newspaper for anything good or inspiring that I’ve done.
At the federal level, President Clinton pointed out there are special problems “…because…it's easy when you're a long way away and there’s a lot of people in between that have various interests in…turning you into…a cartoon, instead of a human being. It's easy to perform reverse plastic surgery on you. Particularly when it’s tough.”
Since I was attending the luncheon on business, I had to keep my mouth shut at the event. Nevertheless, it was clear to me that President Clinton has a real nature which leaks out once in a while, a real nature which is immoral, ruthless, and prone to lie. Unfortunately for him, that's the part of his character which really captures the public's attention and the media is more than happy to fill their appetite for more stories of President Clinton gone wrong. Based on the comments he was making even as this latest scandal broke, I think it is safe to say that he really is a manipulative liar…concerned only for himself and his political party.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
I've been taking some pride in the intellectual influence of the Tea Party Movement. I feel like I was sort of on the ground floor of it myself when I posted my first blog "Visualizing a One Term Obama Administration" at www.resistnet.com back on January 19, 2009.
I remember feeling so overwhelmed by the popularity of the Obama administration and anxious to do anything possible - within the law - to take our country back.
In my case, my alarm was fueled by my personal experience of knowing that the young Barack Obama was already a convinced Marxist at the beginning of his sophomore year at Occidental College. Since I had seen the evidence of his early Marxism face-to-face, I knew that it was wrong of him to hide and deny this fact to the general public during the Presidential campaign.
At the very least, I thought that if he was no longer a Marxist, then he owed the American people a description of the intellectual thought process which lead him away from that belief system.
In truth, his later associations with Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright demonstrated that he really hadn't outgrown his early Marxist beliefs. The fact that he appointed both Van Jones and Anita Dunn - as Glenn Beck properly reported - demonstrate that his Marxist faith is still alive and well today.
As a political scientist, I feel safe in suggesting that the Tea Party Movement arose as a response to the extreme Marxist socialist agenda of the early Obama administration.
Today, I think conservatives are winning the battle of ideas again. I feel safer this year knowing that Democrats were pushed back in NJ and VA and that a Congressman from Alabama defected to our side over the health care reform issue. I'm also grateful that the new social media - Twitter, Facebook, Ning - allowed so many of us to bypass the mainstream media and to take positive action under difficult circumstances.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
As you may know, the girls at Occidental College liked to dress up young men and take their pictures. There are some famous pictures of the young Barack Obama while he was at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA floating on the internet. Posted above, I have the rough equivalent from my own spell at this small liberal arts college. Personally, I was one of the founders of the anti-apartheid group that Obama mentions in his book, Dreams of My Father.
From what Obama writes, I guess I had the unusual opportunity to meet the young Barack Obama at a turning point in his life. According to his book, Dreams of My Father, Obama got one of the early signs of his interest (and ability) in public speaking during his participation in an anti-apartheid rally at Occidental College in Los Angeles in the fall of 1980.
I had graduated from Occidental College in 1979.
I met him later that same year in late December 1980. At the time, I was in my second year of graduate school at Cornell. I was visiting a girlfriend who was still attending Occidental College who introduced me to him and his friend Hassan.
My most vivid memory of my time visiting with Obama was the way he strongly argued a rather simple-minded version of Marxist theory. I remember he was passionate about his point of view. As I remember, he was articulating the same Marxist theory taught by various professors at Occidental College. Based on my more detailed studies at Cornell, I remember I made a strong argument that his Marxist ideas were not in line with contemporary reality - particularly the practical experience of Western Europe.
What is significant to me now, in retrospect, was the way he conceded to my argument. At the time, I remember that this was an early victory in my life...the ability to make a powerful, fact-based argument that changed minds. In retrospect, I don't know if he was just trying to restore peace...my gut feeling is that I persuaded him - at the very least - that his education at Occidental College was not really up-to-date or terribly valuable.
Ironically, he ended up leaving Occidental College and transfering to Columbia University in 1981.
I can identify with those "intellectuals" who report that Obama is easy to talk to and seems to take advice well. I think I was one of the first to see this behavior in action...at least according to the timeline presented about his intellectual development in Dreams of My Father.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
Lincoln once said: "Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong." In that spirit, Tricia and I did a crazy thing today and drove up to attend Speaker Newt Gingrich's book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Fashion Island, Newport Beach, CA.
It seemed like a crazy thing to do and so we did it. We drove along the coast and didn't have a clue where the bookstore was located. In the parking lot Tricia surprised me by asking some other folks for directions. We drove to the other side of the mall and were right in time to see Speaker Gingrich signing books with a thick felt tip pen.
I was first aware of Rep. Gingrich in 1988. I was a hopeless GOPAC candidate back back then and I was recruited by the local Republican party to play a small role in keeping some of Gov. Michael Dukakis' top lieutenants pinned down in MA instead of working for Gov. Dukakis in Iowa or where ever. The whole thing was a disaster, in part, because I was a registered Democrat at the time and needed to change my party registration and run for office at the same time.
Nevertheless, I listened to Rep. Newt Gingrich on tape for hours learning the details of how to run a political campaign. The summer I spent running for a state assembly seat in MA was one of the happiest of my life.
I wanted to use my scarce moments with Speaker Gingrich wisely so I shared with him something he probably already knew - that I had met the young Barack Obama while he was a sophomore at Occidental College and that he was definitely a Marxist at that time. "Did you ever think he would become President?" Gingrich asked. "No...never," I said, "he was a drinker and a drug user...a party guy when I knew him." After that, we fumbled through the photos and Speaker Gingrich was gracious and charming with us. He observed that I was "efficient" and sort of made my day.
In a larger sense, however, I was wanted to make the extra effort to see Speaker Gingrich today because he is taking heat for defending a liberal Republican running for office in New York's 23 Congressional District. This is a special election caused by Obama's willingness to attract an otherwise unbeatable GOP Congressman, John McHugh, into quitting Congress to become Secretary of the Army.
The liberal Republican candidate emerged, in part, because New York state law requires each party's 11 county chairmen in the district to pick their candidate. The local GOP county chairmen chose Dede Scozzafava, a five-term state assemblywoman. Unhappy with this result, one of the more conservative nomination seekers, Doug Hoffman, bailed on the Republican party and got into the same race through a different party affiliation - the Conservative Party.
Gov. Sarah Palin and a lot of other Republicans I admire have endorsed Hoffman. Gingrich, however, has pleaded with them to show more deference for the local New York Republican party. As you might suppose, Gingrich is in a lonely position right now. Nevertheless, I think he is right to suggest that we should be focusing more on our enemies and less on the qualifications of our Republican candidates. I think he is right to assert that a stress on ideological purity makes it impossible to assemble large majorities. Purges of imperfect Republicans is the sure road to minority party status.
Part of the reason why ideological purity burns out political parties is systemic. Our U.S. Constitution sets us up with single seat, majority rule Congressional elections. Such election rules are murder for third parties. Luckily for Republicans, however, only a small change in the electorate can produce broad and massive change in party control of Congress and subsequent public policy achievements. As such, I think Newt Gingrich is on the right track in asking for some ideological slack in an environment where the conventional wisdom is demanding righteous purity to Republican ideals.
All in all, it was a pleasure and an honor to met Speaker Newt Gingrich face-to-face today. I was proud to stand with him.
