Patterico's Pontifications

5/4/2015

Bill Clinton: Smooth Operator

Filed under: General — Dana @ 7:32 pm

[Guest post by Dana]

Bill Clinton was asked about the Clinton Foundation in a recent interview. He didn’t shy away from the conversation.

It was classic Clinton: smooth operator employing his noted charm with a splash of indignation and a “who me?” innocence. All that was missing was the wagging finger:

“There is no doubt in my mind that we have never done anything knowingly inappropriate in terms of taking money to influence any kind of American government policy. That just hasn’t happened.”

And about those lucrative speeches:

He also said he would continue to deliver speeches for which he is paid six figures during his wife’s presidential campaign because “I gotta pay our bills.” Clinton asserted that he had “taken almost no capital gains” over the past 15 years — a claim that does not jibe with public tax returns.

Clinton is so well practiced in the art of deception that it’s fascinating to watch the dishonesty just roll off his tongue. In his world, truth is malleable and can be shaped and finessed into whatever the moment demands. No one does this better than Clinton. And it doesn’t even matter if facts disprove his claim. He’s risen above those stubborn irritants. But don’t judge him too harshly: he wants you to know that he gives a lot of that speech money to… his foundation. The man is a giver. Any number of women could probably confirm that.

Additionally, Clinton, the perpetual victim, showed his sense of the absurd as he suggested – what else – a vast conspiracy was in play:

Clinton suggested his family was the victim of a double standard. “People should draw their own conclusions. I’m not in politics,” he said. “All I’m saying is the idea that there’s one set of rules for us and another set for everybody else is true.”

He added later, “There has been a very deliberate attempt to take the foundation down.”

–Dana

Comments (42)

42 Responses to “Bill Clinton: Smooth Operator”

Hello.

“All I’m saying is the idea that there’s one set of rules for us and another set for everybody else is true.”

You betcha!
Dana (86e864) — 5/4/2015 @ 7:35 pm
he actually said ” i am not in politics ” ??!!??

if so, then yepp, he still has it.
seeRpea (81fcfe) — 5/4/2015 @ 8:27 pm
Clinton is politics.
Dana (86e864) — 5/4/2015 @ 8:36 pm
Depends on what your definition of “in” is.
Gazzer (c1d25a) — 5/4/2015 @ 8:37 pm
Dana, do you remember the title of the book that the late much missed Christopher Hitchens wrote about WJC?
Simon Jester (67f74b) — 5/4/2015 @ 8:40 pm
Hillary dodges sniper fire and Bill wags his finger—if not other things.

The epitome and essence of liberals in the 21st century.
Mark (607f93) — 5/4/2015 @ 8:40 pm
No one left to lie to.
narciso (27beb6) — 5/4/2015 @ 8:40 pm
Check it, narciso:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ6oY4dMeYo

He was an orator, that’s for sure.
Simon Jester (67f74b) — 5/4/2015 @ 8:43 pm
I read that book, Simon. Hitchens had the Clintons’ number.

“Knowingly” will be a key word they’ll bandy about in their defense. The return of Lanny Davis. These people have no shame and “avarice” doesn’t quite capture it.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/4/2015 @ 8:54 pm
Seriously, this is a guy who was called “Slick Willie” before he left Arkansas. That doesn’t just happen.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:00 pm
Did not “knowingly” connect bribe to action? Just a strange series of coincidences!
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:01 pm
Hi Simon Jester,

I had to look it up as I had forgotten it. No One Left To Lie. It makes me miss Hitchens. He would be having field day with Hillary’s current scandals. As well as the outrage over Geller today.

Anyway, nobody plays the victim better than Bill.

Will his comments help or hinder Hillary’s campaign. You know he cant keep quiet…
Dana (86e864) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:10 pm
I’m not in politics,” he said.

Yeah, just as Hillary wasn’t in politics when she was laundering his bribes. That’s how this game works. One spouse is in office dispensing the quo, while the other is raking in the quid.
Milhouse (bdebad) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:12 pm
And Billy Jeff built his Presidential Library in deepest darkest Arkansas where his archived records and documents are miles away from eastern political reporters, and will likely never be sought out except by a very few. They apparently have a very nice gift shop, though, with a number of autographed items.
http://www.clintonmuseumstore.com/istar.asp?a=29&Search=qautographed&sortby=Alpha

The archives are the largest as well, containing 2 million photographs, 80 million pages of documents, 21 million e-mail messages, and 79,000 artifacts from the Clinton presidency. The Clinton Library is also the most expensive, with all funding coming from 112,000 private donations.

The museum showcases artifacts from Clinton’s two terms as president and includes full-scale replicas of the Clinton-era Oval Office and Cabinet Room.
elissa (3aef6a) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:17 pm
…where his archived records and documents are miles away from eastern political reporters…

I noticed the distance was not an impediment to a certain New York newspaper munching its way through thousands of emails from a former mayor of Wasilla.
Steve57 (818fa4) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:30 pm
So who here besides me is ordering Clinton Cash?
Dana (86e864) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:35 pm
The Clinton Presidential Library has 21 million emails? how?
seeRpea (81fcfe) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:38 pm
I’m afraid you will have to look elsewhere for that title, Dana. I do not see it listed in the inventory of the Clinton Library bookstore.
elissa (3aef6a) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:44 pm
Oh, they have a book with that title on it, except it’s a pass book. To a numbered account in the Caribbean.
Gazzer (c1d25a) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:53 pm
I hate to be a pessimist, but what has happened or what could happen in the next to two years to prevent Hillary from being President short of standing over Bill’s dead body with a bloody knife in her hand, videoed by a thinkprogress minion as it happened, and shown on Rachel Maddow’s show with her confessing to the murder?

You know what? She would still be elected. There is nothing, and I am being serious about this, to prevent her election. There is no Obama. The Clintons and the Dems have made sure that will never happen. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the former governor of Maryland, snort, yeah right. The press will make sure the GOP candidates devour themselves.

It’s our fault, though. Every candidate has to be Reagan. That was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, yet we act as if it’s better to have Hillary than someone who is short of him.

We can elect Representatives and Senators, but President, that is a bridge too far.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 5/4/2015 @ 9:56 pm
Carville makes me want to commit murder.
mg (31009b) — 5/4/2015 @ 10:31 pm
anything knowingly inappropriate is similar to mostly peaceful protest.
hadoop (657247) — 5/4/2015 @ 10:40 pm
Did not “knowingly” connect bribe to action? Just a strange series of coincidences!

See, that right there is part of the problem. If we had a national media that was worth a toilet flush, some intrepid reporter would have followed that statement up by asking, “Well, sir, even if you didn’t knowingly do anything inappropriate do you concede that it is certainly possible that you did so unknowingly? And if so, is that a problem endemic with how the Foundation is structured or how it operates?” But no, I’m sure the vapid reporter just gazed upon Bubba lovingly and nodded in meek affirmation.

I’ve been to the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor, y’all. It’s actually a very lovely building right off the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock. The gift shop was OK too; I don’t recall that I purchased anything (maybe a refrigerator magnet, though if I did I seem to have misplaced it).
JVW (8278a3) — 5/4/2015 @ 11:31 pm
Carville makes me want to commit murder.

It’s my sincere hope that enough of our fellow Americans are going to realize that a Hillary! Presidency would bring back the James Carvilles and Lanny Davises and Sid Blumenthals and Linda Bloodworth-Thompsons of the world and will decide that is too steep a price to pay just for the sake of electing the first girl President.
JVW (8278a3) — 5/4/2015 @ 11:35 pm
Will trey gowdy make mrs. clinton testify under oath?
I am willing to wager that he won’t.
Treyder Gowdy.
mg (31009b) — 5/5/2015 @ 2:17 am
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2015/05/05/race-politics-and-lies-n1994127
mg (31009b) — 5/5/2015 @ 3:03 am
There is nothing, and I am being serious about this, to prevent her election.

i think people understand – some of them on a less-than-conscious level to be sure – that Bill and Hillary – sleazy, corrupt, cowardly and whorish, are quintessentially failmerican

they encapsulate precisely what America has become
happyfeet (831175) — 5/5/2015 @ 3:35 am
I’ve been to the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor, y’all. It’s actually a very lovely building right off the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock. The gift shop was OK too; I don’t recall that I purchased anything (maybe a refrigerator magnet, though if I did I seem to have misplaced it).

JVW, things just naturally disappear when the Clinton’s are involved.
Dana (86e864) — 5/5/2015 @ 5:34 am
FAKE FACT: Elim Garak from Deep Space 9 was based Bill Clinton.
JWB (6cba10) — 5/5/2015 @ 5:49 am
Apparently the idea was to have Bill thousands of miles away from D.C. out of the country to deflect some of the attacks about the foundation, except it may not have worked quite the way they hoped:

The thinking was that it would be better to shield and distance the candidate from a growing controversy that is, at least technically, not of her making, according to interviews with Clinton staffers and allies.

But several people close to the Clintons say they weren’t happy about the way that he did it, stoking concerns that the former president’s aggressive efforts to defend his wife could prove a distraction to her campaign.

Dana (86e864) — 5/5/2015 @ 6:21 am
Please forebear my request for a little OT crowd sourcing help
1) does anyone have readily available their top references (specific pages, if possible, not just a website homepage) to make the global warming skeptic case. May include a book that has a downloadable e-version.
(My choices are to look through WUWT, roy spencer, PowerLines climate stuff, and to check out the new book Steyn and co have put out)
[My dream would be a point by point fisking of the wikipedia article on Global Warming, but to do that sounds nauseating]
2) Anybody have suggestions for email, including stuff one pays for if it bypasses all of the junk. our internet/email provider has changed hands a few times, and it is no longer bearable.

Thanks in advance, all
BTW, I’m back in NW Ohio for a few days in case anyone wants to meet up at the Indiana pizzeria later in the week
MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84) — 5/5/2015 @ 6:51 am
Clinton’s right. There’s not one other former president, wife/senator/secretary of state and child whose charitable efforts are being this scrutinized. He’s likely also right that his wife never took any action because of the generous donations of others that she didn’t already plan on taking. What he probably wanted to say was once the gum-flapping stops no one in DC is likely to do anything about it because they all aspire to do something like it themselves. If it seems like they’ve made a mockery of the law it’s because they have. Catch ’em if you can, but the best way forward is to restore the rules that existed 30 yrs or so ago before politicians and their families could profit from public service. The tax-advantaged Clinton favor factory is just the most egregious example of the sleazy system politicians have created for themselves at our expense. The question for democrats is what are you gonna do about it?
crazy (cde091) — 5/5/2015 @ 6:56 am
Doc #31, here are a couple of examples.

http://polarbearscience.com/2015/04/24/melt-season-update-bering-sea-ice-abundant-davis-strait-ice-2nd-highest-since-1971/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/02/25-years-of-monitoring-global-temperatures-from-satellites-and-an-interview-with-christy-and-spencer-of-uah/

If you poke around the Polar Bear Science and WUWT blogs you’ll find what you’re looking for. I can’t link to everything. There’s just so much.
Steve57 (818fa4) — 5/5/2015 @ 7:53 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/26/richard-tols-excellent-summary-of-the-flaws-in-cook-et-al-2013-the-infamous-97-consensus-paper/
Steve57 (818fa4) — 5/5/2015 @ 7:54 am
And this fellow has a good series of links.

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 5/5/2015 @ 8:10 am
Thank yous very much, those are just the kinds of things I wanted!!
MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84) — 5/5/2015 @ 8:21 am
http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2015/04/7_questions_with_john_christy.html

…The date was March 29, 1990. That was the day – though unbeknownst to either Christy or Spencer – they publicly became climate change skeptics.

The scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville are known throughout the environmental community as being skeptical that climate change (or global warming) will have a catastrophic effect on the earth. The crux of the matter is that their research, using satellite data to measure temperatures in the atmosphere, disagrees with climate models they say that overstates the earth’s warming…

The two official data sets that directly measure the temperature of the atmosphere, Remote Sensing Services (RSS) and University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) do not show the increase in temperature that the official surface temperature data sets show. All of which are (NOAA, HADCRUT, GISS) are based on the GHCN data. These are “adjusted.” Without adjustment they don’t show the increase, either.

…Christy: NASA, NOAA, EPA, DOE, those are agencies. Agency leaders are appointed by the government, by the current administration. They do not represent objective independent scientific organizations. They can’t. They are appointed by the head. They try. People who come out with different views in their organizations are found to be squashed. There is an agenda in those agencies, so it does not surprise me when they go full bore on something like climate change. They are marching to the drum of the administration. It’s always been that way. But this administration has been extremely opaque. When you try to go provide information to EPA like these pictures, they will just dismiss it. They will come up with their findings and will not provide you with background for information so that you will know they made a scientific finding.

There are skeptics in NASA and NOAA, a good number. But they are quiet. They know in this administration, they don’t speak out.

Spencer: I know that they’re not unbiased. Most of them probably really do believe we’re destroying the earth. When I talk to scientists who should be objective over a beer at the end of the day, I will argue with them and their final position will always be, ‘Yeah, but we need to get away from fossil fuels anyway.’ Where did that come from? Are you an expert in alternative energy sources and what they cost? How many poor people are you going to hurt? How many more people are you going to make poor through energy poverty because they are paying five to 10 times as much for their energy?

These guys in government are not unbiased and they have pressures from above. Those organizations, NASA and NOAA, they are part of the executive branch. So the White House has some influence over what direction they go. The heads are political appointees so you have political influence from the top down on scientists. And that’s a problem…
Steve57 (818fa4) — 5/5/2015 @ 8:30 am
http://polarbearscience.com/2015/04/12/challenging-polar-bear-fearmongering-about-arctic-sea-ice-extent-for-march-2015/

http://polarbearscience.com/2015/04/03/superb-sea-ice-conditions-for-polar-bears-worldwide-during-their-critical-feeding-period/

http://polarbearscience.com/2015/02/19/twenty-good-reasons-not-to-worry-about-polar-bears/

The Polar Bear is supposed to be the icon of global warming. And the Polar Bear is doing better than ever. Or at least the last hundred years.

I think if you can demonstrate that, you’ll go a long way to making the skeptic case.

Which, by the way, isn’t that climate change doesn’t happen. I am not a “climate denier,” whatever that is. I don’t deny climate. Nor do I insist human activity has no effect on the climate.
Steve57 (818fa4) — 5/5/2015 @ 8:36 am
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2013/09/beating_the_ipcc_with_their_own_numbers.html
Steve57 (818fa4) — 5/5/2015 @ 8:37 am
If Catastrophic Man-Caused Global Warming was occurring, we’d be building more of these.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg552/docs/20130718%20Major%20Icebreaker%20Chart.pdf

Which, by the way, if you print out in color makes a lovely wall hanging. But I digress.

If the list of horribles that supposedly come with climate change, or hotcoldwetdry, actually were going to happen, we’d need icebreakers. Don’t see any in the shipyards.

But, boy, do they want the tax money!

One of the things to watch for (if you lead a boring life as I do) is when at the end of Summer the arctic sea ice stops receding and starts expanding again. I believe that last year (the hottest year EVAH according to politically adjusted surface weather data) the sea ice stopped receding and started expanding again earlier than it has since the 1970s.
Steve57 (818fa4) — 5/5/2015 @ 8:54 am
Doc, don’t overlook Judith Curry’s website: http://judithcurry.com
JVW (8278a3) — 5/5/2015 @ 9:51 am
True. Do not overlook Judith Curry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGbtU_zDnbM

Prof. Judith Curry’s testimony at EPW

The vid is only about 6 and a half minutes. But her full testimony is available on the right.
Steve57 (818fa4) — 5/5/2015 @ 9:59 am

5/4/2015

Bill Clinton: Smooth Operator

42 Responses to “Bill Clinton: Smooth Operator”

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