Bill Clinton Speaks to George Stephanopolous on Obamacare and 2106 Elections

People do bad things. Great men and women stumble and fall. Some are not broken by the public censure. They weather the storm and emerge stronger and smarter. Of those, some are more manipulative than ever, setting the stage unawares for another, more disastrous fall; others are more straightforward and a whole lot more likeable.  

Bill Clinton is one of the latter. He’s not the flirt he used to be. He’s more rooted, but he’s also disarmingly honest these days; outspoken, clear-sighted and focused, working for the good of humanity, enjoying himself immensely. He didn’t con the world into thinking he’s a good guy now; he genuinely changed. But he also has a real innate talent for enjoying life and moving beyond past mistakes. And he refused to be cowed. There's dignity in that.

GeorgeStephanopolous spoke to him about whether supporting Obamacare (which they both staunchly support) will help or hurt Hilary Clinton in the 2016 elections.

Stephanopolous: "I was really struck by something Lindsay Graham said the other day. He said ‘from now on’ – after Tuesday’s meeting – ‘I’m gonna call it Clintoncare.’...

[Breaking News (Fox News Live) showing On the Record]: “…if it’s a huge success Hilary Clinton will win the Presidency. If it’s the failure that I think it’s going to be then she needs to own the result of embracing this bill.” 

Stephanopolous: “How worried are you about that?”

Bill Clinton: “Not at all. There are some similarities and the one we proposed. His bill’s already produced a lot of good results. Look, they [Republicans] are desperate for this bill to fail. Because if it’s not a failure everything they’ve been telling us – since 1980 - they so badly want it to fail - I’ve never seen this – can you remember a time in your lifetime when a major political party was just sitting around begging for America to fail?”

Clinton’s recipe for winning a presidential election: “Two things: you’ve got to have a plan for the future that relates to the people – you know, this is not about the candidates as much as about having a plan for the future. 

“Secondly, you have to have a strategy for presenting your true self to the voters in an environment where there are unprecedented opportunities for those who don’t want you to win to paint a different picture of your true self.

“Learn the lessons of your mistakes and your failures without becoming a general who fights the last war. Because every new encounter will be shaped by different forces.”

Speaking about CGI – Clinton Global Initiative – he said something that showed an understanding of humanity that so many of us just don’t realize; that to move forward, you can have all the will in the world you could fail unless you have the right kind of support. “But I realized in the beginning when we started, we made unwarranted assumptions about how easy it was to decide what you wanted to do and then to do it.  And as we learn more about how people wanted to make informed choices and they need more help putting their commitments together, we did that.”

All in all, the man has a good understanding of the imperfections we all live with and how to get beyond them.

Republicans Back Off, Afraid of Backlash

Accusations against President Obama and his administration that seem based more on theory than fact are flying around thick and fast. Republicans gather like hungry vultures around their pet illusion, the carcass. But they don’t dare get too close. They have memory, it seems, of moving in with sharp beaks and beady eyes too soon on what they were sure was the Bill Clinton carcass. Impeach! Impeach! Only he wasn’t dead. And it lost them the election.

At first, this time round, good sense didn’t prevail. Republicans went crazy hawking and squawking. First Benghazi. What hasn’t made the headlines, according to Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Foreign Staff, is that Benghazi embassy officials drafted a cable on August 16 stating that US Mission Benghazi would request extra security from the Tripoli US Embassy. Army General Carter Ham read the cable and didn’t wait. He called Ambassador Stevens immediately and offered a special US military security team. Stevens turned him down. Ham offered again a couple of weeks later when the two met in Germany at the headquarters of AFRICOM. Again, Stevens said no. 

Hilary Clinton has insisted she didn’t read that cable or know that Stevens had turned down help. Which Republicans refuse to believe. She caustically commented that thousands of emails had gone through her office every day and that she didn’t personally read every single one.  

Even if she had, though, what are the chances that she would have been able to persuade Stevens if General Carter Ham hadn’t been able to? Doesn’t Stevens have any responsibility in this at all? Of course he does. But he’s the dead hero and this is just about electioneering in any case. In truth, that carcass has truly been picked to death.  

The furor over IRS officials targeting Tea Party members has been blown totally out of proportion. Obama has expressed his outrage; there’s an already an investigation, and there’s no proof at all that he sanctioned the misdeeds. And the other side of the story isn’t reported on. Tax officials’ job is to find defaulters. It’s a pretty rational step to single out people who openly rage against big government and paying tax. I have never seen any objection to exactly the same tactic being used to take down Mafia. If those investigated had been Muslim, African American or Latino, would any Republicans care?

While we're building conspiracy theories about the anti-social, corrupt, devious President and his administration why not add another - that the IRS officials targeting Tea Party members were paid by moderate Republicans who need to get rid of the Tea Party in order to have any chance in the next election. Or that some Tea Party members offered themselves up as a sacrifice and did a kind of suicide bombing act: persuaded a loyal IRS official to target them. Ridiculous? Of course it is. Conspiracy theories usually are, no matter what side of the fence you’re on.

Republicans are good at manufacturing dirt and now seemed to be their opportunity. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch compared Obama to Nixon. Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz (Republican) and Michelle Bachman called for Obama to be impeached.  

But just when it looked like the feeding frenzy was peaking, they pulled back. Californian Representative Darrel Issa, the Republican who’s been outspoken in his condemnation of Obama and is leading a couple of investigations, suddenly calmed down and said he was working with the President. Jim Boehnor also calmed down and so did Louisiana Representative Charles Boustany Jr., (Republican) who has been driving an investigation of the IRS. He said “I’m being very cautious not to overplay my hand.” (nytimes.com). It’s unusual for Republicans to act sensibly. But they’re on thin ice and they know it. And they’re terrified of backlash.

Ultimately, here’s the thing: when you’re telling the truth and you can back it up with fact, you don’t need to back down. They didn't back down over Richard Nixon, did they?

The Circus is in Town - Congress Grills Hilary Clinton

Photo: State Department Public Domain

When I was a kid, the circus used to come to town once a year. I only remember going a couple of times, but what a treat. That giant tent, pitched in a kind of dusty field; terrifyingly wild animals, utterly inhuman feats of acrobats sailing through the air recklessly – somehow the safety net didn’t diminish the danger for me. Toffee apples and popcorn. Mouth agape. Heart in my throat. Utterly absorbed, I.

I wasn’t fully grown then, and when I was the circus wasn’t coming to town anymore, so I held onto the memory of the hugeness of it all. Until the day in my twenties when I found a circus in another town, expecting the same thrill, the same huge tent. And realized I’d grown some.

It just wasn’t the same. I understood that there wasn’t any danger if there was a safety net, and the animals were all pretty tame. Pretty unhappy too. So I never went again. Imagine my delight when I began to be interested in American politics and subscribed to the New York Times and realized the circus comes to town practically every day for me.  Not because American politics per se are a joke; I don’t think they are. 

And not because the New York Times writes publishes ridiculous articles. Perish the thought. The circus is of course the GOP, and boy are they in town. These days, where so many corrupt leaders are being bumped off their thrones, it’s hard to understand how any corruptish politician wouldn’t take note and think to themselves “hmm, can’t get away with this forever.”  

It’s a perennial theme in politics – abuse of power bites itself in the ankle.  But politicians with that bent are always brilliant at self-deception and always have their heads in the sand about the consequences of their actions. They’re often successful at first, depending on how good they are at the con game or how gullible their electorate is.  But it never lasts.
 
The US seems to be at that thrilling tipping point. By the time Barack Obama won his second term, the GOP was having to admit that unless the party changed significantly, they had blown their last chance. Plenty of Republicans took note and commented about it. Not enough for Congress to change its obstructive tactics, though. So they held Obama and the US economy hostage over the fiscal cliff issue, believing Obama wouldn’t stand his ground. But he did and they lost face, and got a worse deal than if they’d compromised with him in the first place.

Oh, how they lost face.  But never mind, they had plenty of weapons in their arsenal. Their next threat was that they would never raise the debt ceiling. Obama’s response? “We can’t not pay our debts…we are not a dead-beat nation.”  He didn’t stand down on that one either. They raised the debt ceiling, tails between their legs. Lots of chest-beating, though – “we’ve only given him a few months; we’ll get him later”.

Riight.  The next act in their circus parade was to grill Hilary Clinton unmercifully over the Benghazi tragedy. They wanted one answer in particular from her – that she would admit she had seen a request by Chris Stevens for increased security.  They came at her from all angles, but stubborn woman that she is, she held to her story; that she hadn’t seen it. 

At one point she said that over a million emails have been addressed to her, but she doesn’t get them all. She didn’t get this one, which is why she didn’t take action.  I would have thought it would be self evident that she didn’t get it, because this is a woman who has travelled a million miles in her job as Secretary of State and who has worked harder than any other Secretary of State in US history. She’s heavily invested in doing a good job. Why would she slack off over security in Benghazi? 

I watched some of the Congressional hearing. The grilling was ugly to watch. Angry men playing the bully game, trying to shove her around. They didn’t succeed. She’s a formidable woman. She retained her dignity and her temper. She accepted full responsibility for the State Department’s security inadequacy but she refused to say that she had received an email she clearly did not. 

It didn’t look to me like her inquisitors were trying to find the truth. They were trying to smear Hilary Clinton. They didn’t succeed. Once again, their motives were transparent. Once again they did themselves a disservice.  Bring on the clowns.