March 6, 2008:
Hillary Clinton has been coming down hard on Obama, claiming, among other things,he has not yet been fully vetted but she has. A recent comment posted at Huffingtonpost.com gave me a wake up call. It is a long list of some of the dirty laundry and scandals from the Bill Clinton administration (below). Regardless of the other side of the story, the Republicans are hoping and even working to get Hillary the nomination in part due to this huge list. They will be rattling it off every day, and asking if we really want to bring that history back into the Whitehouse. They will contrast those “shady” Clinton years with McCain’s solid record and comparatively paultry ethics issues.
Clinton won’t be able to play any ethics cards, because the Republicans will assert, with evidence, that she isn’t playing with a full deck. Today it fully dawned on me- it isn’t just that the Republicans think Obama is a stronger candidate, it is that they have been preparing and are fully ready to unleash a torrent of negativism- with evidence- of how shady the Clinton years were, and Hillary’s involvement with that.  It will lead to a very, very bitter, divisive and ugly election, and will only increase the negative vew half of the country has of Hillary. There IS more dirt to be dredged up, and the GOP is ready and eager to do it. The fact that they haven’t spoken up yet is only a sign of smart strategy, not a sign she has been fully vetted.
Here’s a list of some things the Republicans will assert against Hillary Clinton:
The Clinton Scandal Score Card.
THE CLINTONS – RECORDS SET
– The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
– Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates
– Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation
– Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
– Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
– First president sued for sexual harassment.
– First president accused of rape.
– First first lady to come under criminal investigation
– Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
– First president to establish a legal defense fund.
– First president to be held in contempt of court
– Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
– Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad
– First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a state court
Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty pleas (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 14
– Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
Number of individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 47
– Number of these convictions during Clinton’s presidency: 33
– Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
– Number of congressional witnesses who have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 122
As of June 2000, the Justice Department listed 25 people indicted and 19 convicted because of the 1996 Clinton-Gore fundraising scandals.
CLINTON MACHINE CRIMES FOR WHICH CONVICTIONS WERE OBTAINED
Drug trafficking (3)
Racketeering, extortion, bribery (4)
Tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2)
Fraud (12)
Conspiracy (5)
Fraudulent loans
Illegal campaign contributions (5)
Money laundering (6)
Number of independent counsel inquiries since the 1978 law was passed: 19
– Number that have produced indictments: 7
– Median length of investigations that led to convictions: 44 months
Number of times that Clinton figures who testified in court or before Congress said that they didn’t remember, didn’t know, or something similar.
Bill Kennedy 116
Harold Ickes 148
Ricki Seidman 160
Bruce Lindsey 161
Bill Burton 191
Mark Gearan 221
Mack McLarty 233
Neil Egglseston 250
Hillary Clinton 250
John Podesta 264
Jennifer O’Connor 343
Dwight Holton 348
Patsy Thomasson 420
Jeff Eller 697
FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES: In the portions of President Clinton’s Jan. 17 deposition that have been made public in the Paula Jones case, his memory failed him 267 times.
ARKANSAS SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME
– Number of persons in the Clinton machine orbit who are alleged to have committed suicide: 9
– Number known to have been murdered: 12
– Number who died in plane crashes: 6
– Number who died in single car automobile accidents: 3
– Number of key witnesses who have died of heart attacks while in federal custody under questionable circumstances: 1
– Number of unexplained deaths: 4
– Total suspicious deaths: 46
ARKANSAS MONEY MANAGEMENT
– Amount of an alleged electronic transfer from the Arkansas Development Financial Authority to a bank in the Cayman Islands during 1980s: $50 million