As Hillary Clinton arrives in Mexico to admit that America's "insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” the cocaine-consuming capital of Hollywood announces a new HBO movie about Monica Lewinsky and you-know-who.
The film, we're told, is "actually about the frustrated efforts of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to form a working relationship with President Clinton, who seemed increasingly distracted by the fallout from the scandal." The title (wink, wink) is "The Special Relationship" with Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore as the former First Couple. Monica herself will appear only in old clips.
The news comes as the Supreme Court considers a case about "Hillary: The Movie," a so-called documentary starring Ann Coulter and Newt Gingrich that was made with corporate money last year to derail Mrs. Clinton's candidacy and may have run afoul of federal election laws.
All this cinematic activity is going on as the polls show the Secretary of State with a sky-high approval rating in presenting a new foreign-policy face to the world. At least the perpetrators of the Frost/Nixon fiction waited until the Unindicted Coconspirator was long gone before cashing in.
If HBO cares about one customer vote, turn off the project's greenlight and put the money into a sequel of "Traffic," which would be much more dramatic and timely and a lot less tacky.
Showing posts with label Monica Lewinsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monica Lewinsky. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
An Affair to Remember
John McCain is cheating on voters with George Bush, but he's not good at it, getting caught in a quickie at the Phoenix airport before going off for their fund-raising tryst at a Scottsdale hideaway.
Barack Obama, the public moralist, ratted out the couple during an appearance in Las Vegas: “John McCain is having a different kind of meeting...behind closed doors in Arizona. No cameras, no reporters. And we all know why."
History shows it's hard for candidates to run away from their past. In 2000, to take voters' minds off Monica Lewinsky, Al Gore ran a Clinton-free campaign and may have lost the election as a result.
McCain's problem is even stickier. He has to hide his love child with Bush, the war in Iraq, while persuading voters about his superior political morality and the advantage of his experience over Obama's naivete.
There has never been any love lost between McCain and Bush since their disastrous encounters in the 2000 primaries but, like many couples with a history, they find it hard to stay away from each other.
In common with employees of the Washington Madam, McCain can tell himself he's only doing it for the money, but we know how that turned out.
Bush has been a stealth president for some time, so it may be possible to keep their connection furtive for now. But the real test will come in September: Will they be seen together at the Republic convention?
Barack Obama, the public moralist, ratted out the couple during an appearance in Las Vegas: “John McCain is having a different kind of meeting...behind closed doors in Arizona. No cameras, no reporters. And we all know why."
History shows it's hard for candidates to run away from their past. In 2000, to take voters' minds off Monica Lewinsky, Al Gore ran a Clinton-free campaign and may have lost the election as a result.
McCain's problem is even stickier. He has to hide his love child with Bush, the war in Iraq, while persuading voters about his superior political morality and the advantage of his experience over Obama's naivete.
There has never been any love lost between McCain and Bush since their disastrous encounters in the 2000 primaries but, like many couples with a history, they find it hard to stay away from each other.
In common with employees of the Washington Madam, McCain can tell himself he's only doing it for the money, but we know how that turned out.
Bush has been a stealth president for some time, so it may be possible to keep their connection furtive for now. But the real test will come in September: Will they be seen together at the Republic convention?
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Great Moments in American Journalism
Reserve a Pulitzer Prize now for another reporting coup by Associated Press. After scouring thousands of pages of newly released White House records, an investigative journalist today reveals the shocking news that "Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the White House on at least seven days when her husband had sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky."
If this doesn't damage the former First Lady's claim that she was involved in the crucial affairs of the Clinton Administration, what will?
If this doesn't damage the former First Lady's claim that she was involved in the crucial affairs of the Clinton Administration, what will?
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The Two Bill Clintons
Soon after he moved into the White House, Bill Clinton was tagged by Maureen Dowd as the first president who was still social-climbing.
After more than two decades of Republican rule, interrupted only by an ineffectual Jimmy Carter, Democrats were exhilarated in 1993 at the prospect of restoring the momentum toward a Great Society that had come to a dead stop after LBJ was undone by Vietnam. Even the early fiasco over health care reform was a sign that the new man cared.
But there was always another Bill Clinton, a Gennifer Flowers-chasing, low-rent undercurrent to his character that emerged to give Newt Gingrich and his merry men an opening for impeachment that hobbled the last years of the second Clinton term.
Then, for almost seven years of his post-presidency, we saw only the good Bill Clinton again, going all over the world to raise awareness and money to help the wretched of the world.
Now, in his wife's campaign for the nomination, here comes the other guy, trash-talking about Barack Obama and squabbling with reporters like a precinct pol rather than a former President of the United States.
Armchair psychology suggests he may be trying to over-compensate Hillary Clinton for the Lewinsky humiliation, but his behavior is not helping her campaign, only highlighting the difference between what he is doing and the dignified reticence of George H. W. Bush during his son's run in 2000.
What's even worse is that all this may giving voters pause at the prospect of having the two Bill Clintons back in the White House.
After more than two decades of Republican rule, interrupted only by an ineffectual Jimmy Carter, Democrats were exhilarated in 1993 at the prospect of restoring the momentum toward a Great Society that had come to a dead stop after LBJ was undone by Vietnam. Even the early fiasco over health care reform was a sign that the new man cared.
But there was always another Bill Clinton, a Gennifer Flowers-chasing, low-rent undercurrent to his character that emerged to give Newt Gingrich and his merry men an opening for impeachment that hobbled the last years of the second Clinton term.
Then, for almost seven years of his post-presidency, we saw only the good Bill Clinton again, going all over the world to raise awareness and money to help the wretched of the world.
Now, in his wife's campaign for the nomination, here comes the other guy, trash-talking about Barack Obama and squabbling with reporters like a precinct pol rather than a former President of the United States.
Armchair psychology suggests he may be trying to over-compensate Hillary Clinton for the Lewinsky humiliation, but his behavior is not helping her campaign, only highlighting the difference between what he is doing and the dignified reticence of George H. W. Bush during his son's run in 2000.
What's even worse is that all this may giving voters pause at the prospect of having the two Bill Clintons back in the White House.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
If Bill Had Been Faithful to Hillary...
How different would the American political landscape look today?
The question is raised anew by the sight of the former President taking over the spotlight to try to save his wife's candidacy with trademark meaning-of-is-is talk about Obama's inexperience and his own opposition to the war in Iraq from the get-go.
"Maybe," Maureen Dowd suggests, "the Boy Who Can’t Help Himself is simply engaging in his usual patterns of humiliating Hillary and lighting an exploding cigar when things are going well."
The conjugal question comes up, too, in the new issue of Newsweek. Sally Bedell Smith, author of a book about the Clinton marriage, writes about the health-car debacle in 1993: "When Bill tried to make the plan more flexible, he had to defer to her, in part because of their implicit marital bargain, in which Bill ceded her power as a trade-off for his history of infidelity."
It's impossible to talk about Bill Clinton's character without running into a polarizing political buzz saw--vast right-wing conspiracy vs. moral depravity in the Oval Office--but the connection between the impeachment, the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s and Al Gore's narrow defeat in 2000 are too important to be swept into the dust bin of history, particularly with the prospect of both Clintons returning to the White House.
Today's New York Times notes that "during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled."
A year ago, the former President reacted with fury to a TV mini-series portraying him as so distracted then that he failed to focus on the emerging threat of Osama bin Laden. Yet, the program's advisor was 9/11 Commission chairman Tom Kean, and there is evidence that Clinton might have done more about bin Laden if not for fear of public reaction that attacking him might be seen as a "wag the dog" diversion from the impeachment.
Replaying Bill Clinton's record as a serially straying husband would be mean-spirited and pointless now if his wife were not now claiming spousal experience as justification and preparation for her own presidency.
But, in that light, it's not only proper but necessary to ask, how different might our lives be today if Bill Clinton had managed to be a faithful husband during those White House years? And what kind of distraction could he be if voters sent the Clintons back there for another four years?
The question is raised anew by the sight of the former President taking over the spotlight to try to save his wife's candidacy with trademark meaning-of-is-is talk about Obama's inexperience and his own opposition to the war in Iraq from the get-go.
"Maybe," Maureen Dowd suggests, "the Boy Who Can’t Help Himself is simply engaging in his usual patterns of humiliating Hillary and lighting an exploding cigar when things are going well."
The conjugal question comes up, too, in the new issue of Newsweek. Sally Bedell Smith, author of a book about the Clinton marriage, writes about the health-car debacle in 1993: "When Bill tried to make the plan more flexible, he had to defer to her, in part because of their implicit marital bargain, in which Bill ceded her power as a trade-off for his history of infidelity."
It's impossible to talk about Bill Clinton's character without running into a polarizing political buzz saw--vast right-wing conspiracy vs. moral depravity in the Oval Office--but the connection between the impeachment, the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s and Al Gore's narrow defeat in 2000 are too important to be swept into the dust bin of history, particularly with the prospect of both Clintons returning to the White House.
Today's New York Times notes that "during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled."
A year ago, the former President reacted with fury to a TV mini-series portraying him as so distracted then that he failed to focus on the emerging threat of Osama bin Laden. Yet, the program's advisor was 9/11 Commission chairman Tom Kean, and there is evidence that Clinton might have done more about bin Laden if not for fear of public reaction that attacking him might be seen as a "wag the dog" diversion from the impeachment.
Replaying Bill Clinton's record as a serially straying husband would be mean-spirited and pointless now if his wife were not now claiming spousal experience as justification and preparation for her own presidency.
But, in that light, it's not only proper but necessary to ask, how different might our lives be today if Bill Clinton had managed to be a faithful husband during those White House years? And what kind of distraction could he be if voters sent the Clintons back there for another four years?
Monday, December 17, 2007
Hillary Tops Rudy on Domestic Issues
My alma mater, the Daily News, is still doing its job, keeping blue-collar New Yorkers informed about the important issues of the day.
Today we have the results of their "national poll of female voters" showing them to be more forgiving of Bill Clinton's peccadilloes than Rudy Giuliani's.
Forty percent said Judith Giuliani's affair with the then-married Mayor made her less suitable to be First Lady, while only 34 percent were not willing to forgive Hillary's husband for whatever it was that he did with Monica Lewinsky.
When asked about who they would prefer to watch their kids, 36 percent of women would choose to have Bill and Hillary Clinton baby-sit, while 21 percent would pick Rudy and Judith Giuliani. One of five wouldn't trust either couple, a blow to any hope of balancing the budget with baby-sitting gigs.
"A straying husband is bad," the News concludes. "But a home wrecker is worse."
When I was a copy boy there, they didn't go in for so much sociology.
Today we have the results of their "national poll of female voters" showing them to be more forgiving of Bill Clinton's peccadilloes than Rudy Giuliani's.
Forty percent said Judith Giuliani's affair with the then-married Mayor made her less suitable to be First Lady, while only 34 percent were not willing to forgive Hillary's husband for whatever it was that he did with Monica Lewinsky.
When asked about who they would prefer to watch their kids, 36 percent of women would choose to have Bill and Hillary Clinton baby-sit, while 21 percent would pick Rudy and Judith Giuliani. One of five wouldn't trust either couple, a blow to any hope of balancing the budget with baby-sitting gigs.
"A straying husband is bad," the News concludes. "But a home wrecker is worse."
When I was a copy boy there, they didn't go in for so much sociology.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Candidate Zingers We Won't Hear
No need to watch the Democratic debate from Las Vegas tonight--all the best lines are already available from observers who don't have to exercise the caution that candidates do.
A professor of political science, if you can believe it, offers a below-the-belt zinger against Hillary. Says Ross K. Baker of Rutgers: “One absolutely devastating accusation...is that she is gullible--she bought into two false story lines, one from her husband about Monica Lewinsky and one from President Bush about Iraq.” Ugh.
In her New York Times column, Gail Collins has a lighter touch in scripting John Edwards' answer on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants: "The fact that I once voted yes should not be interpreted as anything but a no. And do not call this waffling. There is only one waffler in this pack, and I don’t even like the way she dresses."
Edwards, says Collins, was "cheerfulness incarnate four years ago...Then he morphed into a sorrowful populist who thought we should vote for him because he cared the most about the poor. Now he’s running around like a rabid gerbil, telling people he should be president because he’s the angriest. Soon, he’s going to run out of adjectives to embody."
Obama, Collins says, is having trouble coming off as a "mean unifier...the new post-millennial candidate who hates petty partisanship. (So ’90s!) That makes it a little tough to go out on debate day and try to kneecap his opponent."
By comparison, the candidates themselves are going to sound boring but at least the writers strike will spare them from having to go up against the punch lines of Jon Stewart, David Letterman and Bill Maher this week.
A professor of political science, if you can believe it, offers a below-the-belt zinger against Hillary. Says Ross K. Baker of Rutgers: “One absolutely devastating accusation...is that she is gullible--she bought into two false story lines, one from her husband about Monica Lewinsky and one from President Bush about Iraq.” Ugh.
In her New York Times column, Gail Collins has a lighter touch in scripting John Edwards' answer on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants: "The fact that I once voted yes should not be interpreted as anything but a no. And do not call this waffling. There is only one waffler in this pack, and I don’t even like the way she dresses."
Edwards, says Collins, was "cheerfulness incarnate four years ago...Then he morphed into a sorrowful populist who thought we should vote for him because he cared the most about the poor. Now he’s running around like a rabid gerbil, telling people he should be president because he’s the angriest. Soon, he’s going to run out of adjectives to embody."
Obama, Collins says, is having trouble coming off as a "mean unifier...the new post-millennial candidate who hates petty partisanship. (So ’90s!) That makes it a little tough to go out on debate day and try to kneecap his opponent."
By comparison, the candidates themselves are going to sound boring but at least the writers strike will spare them from having to go up against the punch lines of Jon Stewart, David Letterman and Bill Maher this week.
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