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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 26, 2007 / 8 Iyar, 5767

Hillary's experience is at surviving

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Polls suggest that the leading attribute attracting voters to Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential candidacy is her "experience," a virtue that contrasts, presumably, with the lack of it in Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), her chief rival for the Democratic nomination. But a close examination of her record as first lady and as New York senator suggests that her experience is largely in the avoidance of death by scandal. Were it to be captured in a television series, it would certainly not rise to the level of "Commander in Chief," and probably not even to that of "West Wing." It would find its televised metaphor in the reality series "Survivor."


Consider what her experience has been. She burst forth on the national stage with two tasks in her husband's administration: the selection of the nation's first female attorney general and the design and adoption of a comprehensive program of healthcare reform. Her efforts to designate an attorney general hamstrung the new administration for months as two successive nominees had to withdraw their names from consideration. Finally, at the eleventh hour, she urged her husband to appoint Florida's Janet Reno, a selection Bill Clinton would come to describe as "my worst mistake." In the bargain, she suggested the appointment of Lani Guanier as head of the civil rights division, a job she was shortly forced to relinquish when her radical views became known — another embarrassment for the new administration. Her other selections for the Justice Department, the White House staff and the Treasury were her three law partners: Web Hubbell, Vince Foster and William Kennedy, appointments that culminated in one imprisonment, one suicide and one forced resignation.


Her other assignment, healthcare reform, was a debacle.


Beyond these initial tasks, her main focus in the administration was scandal defense, from Gennifer Flowers and Whitewater to the FBI file affair, the travel office firings, her commodities-market winnings, the missing Rose Law Firm billing records and the Paula Jones scandal.


And her advice in handling these matters was uniformly bad. It was Hillary who counseled Bill not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit even when the plaintiffs called for neither an apology nor payment, and she who stonewalled the release of Whitewater documents even when it led to the appointment of a special prosecutor. When the prosecutor whose appointment she had effected heard about the depositions in the Paula Jones case she had refused to settle, the Monica Lewinsky scandal eventuated.


er experience continued when her race for the Senate and its aftermath became, in turn, mired in scandal. The pardon of the FALN terrorists to get Latino support in New York, that of the New Square Hassidim to get Hillary Jewish support, and the clemency shown toward Hillary's brothers' clients to get them financial support caused her ratings to plunge to their lowest level in March of 2001 as she took her Senate seat. The theft of White House gifts, almost $200,000 of which had to be returned, did nothing to endear her to the electorate.


Since then, Hillary has done nothing of note in the Senate except to vote for the Iraq War, a position she has since disavowed, and to win the applause of her colleagues for not being partisan and obstinate. Her main efforts have been directed at raising massive sums of money for herself and her colleagues and making a lot from writing and selling her memoirs. Her efforts on behalf of New York after Sept. 11, 2001, have been exposed as largely derivative of those of her colleague, the more effective Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).


She has passed no important legislation, except for bills congratulating Alexander Hamilton, Shirley Chisolm, Harriet Tubman, the American Republic, and the Syracuse lacrosse teams on their respective accomplishments.


Is this the experience upon which her candidacy is based? Did I leave anything out?

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Because He Could". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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