It's Up To You New York, New York
Monday, February 7, 2000
Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham has formally announced her candidacy for Senator from New York. The response of many New Yorkers? We got 18 million people already here. We had to import somebody from a state that starts with a vowel?
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is leading HRCR in the latest Zogby poll 48-42. And the campaign hasn't even started yet.
Shouldn't we now officially refer to Mrs. Clinton as "the former First Lady"?
Last week there were reports that White House lawyers were fighting a subpoena for the former First Lady to be deposed in that little matter of the FBI files of former Republican White House employees being pawed over by such skilled investigators as former bar bouncers and (how to say this delicately?) White House interns.
The White House is claiming executive privilege (or some variant on that theme) on the grounds that Mrs. Clinton is a high-ranking federal official. Now that she is a candidate for office, not living in the White House, and spending time perfecting entries for the Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-Rodham-Official-Former-First-Lady-Tossed-Salad-Recipe-Book maybe she's not the high ranking federal official she used to be.
Here's a great side-bar to that "Al Gore Races Back to Washington" story of last week. To review the bidding, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) telephoned Prime-Time-Al to tell him there was an amendment on abortion coming to the Senate floor which looked like it might end up in a tie. Al, unable to scramble his air force pilots in time, took a commercial flight back to Your Nation's Capital in order to be able to prove to pesky opponent Bill Bradley that Gore is strong, STRONG I tell you, on abortion.
Republicans in the Senate went for the amendment so there was no tie to break and Gore had to wait for Air Force II to get to Andrews Air Force Base so he could resume the use of Air Force assets for his political purposes.
OK, here's how I heard the story: It seems that Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) who has a wonderful, dry wit was taking his turn presiding over the Senate. Gore rolls in the tells Roberts to scram so he can assume his Constitutional role as President of the Senate. Roberts tries to tell Gore that the Republicans are agreeing to the amendment so there is not going to be any close vote, but Gore angrily (or at least airily) insists Roberts move out. Roberts goes.
After Gore realizes he has changed his schedule, flown with unwashed New Yorkers on a commercial flight, wasted half a day, does not get to break a tie and pander to the pro-abortion forces, he catches Roberts' eye and signals him to resume the chair. Roberts looks at his watch, looks at Gore, shrugs, and turns away leaving Prime Time Al to cool his heels in the Chair for a while longer.
I don't do this every week, but I did happen to glance through the NY Times Book Review section yesterday. There were reviews of two books about Chairman Mao (who may have killed up to 35 million of his own people) and two books on Russia: One by Mikhail Gorbachev - already revising history to suit his purposes, and one about Siberia - including a close look at unheated punishment cells, prisons, and gulags. These are the guys many of my contemporaries took to the streets demanding the U.S. emulate back in the 60's. Hillary may have had a copy of The Little Red Book. Let's ask.
The Gorbachev book was reviewed by historian Michael Beschloss who did not particularly like it. In fact, the title of the review should have been: "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Up This Book!"
Mullings spent the weekend in Key Largo, Florida with the GOP's largest donors. I'm not saying this was soft money, but the phrase "� as a baby's tush" came to mind once or twice.
-- END --
Home | Secret Decoder Ring | Past Issues | Email Rich | Rich Who?
Copyright �2000 Richard A. Galen | Site design by Campaign Solutions.
|
