Subject: Correct The Record Wednesday July 9, 2014 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2014 08:27:55 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

**

*Correct The Record Wednesday July 9, 2014 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Clinton Says She Asked to Be
Removed From Rape Case”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/07/08/clinton-says-she-asked-to-be-removed-from-rape-case/>*

“The pro-Clinton group American Bridge 21st Century sent out a ‘Correct the
Record’ item saying that the controversy amounted to an effort by
conservative critics to ‘rehash old news.’”

*Washington Post column: Ruth Marcus: “Hillary Clinton’s lawyerly past”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-hillary-clintons-lawyerly-past/2014/07/08/9a7fd5ee-06c1-11e4-a0dd-f2b22a257353_story.html>*

“The real scandal in this case would have been if she had let her feminist
ideology trump her ethical responsibility — to zealously represent even the
most loathsome client.”

*Huffington Post blog: Peter D. Rosenstein: “The Media Obsession With
Hillary and Bill Clinton Continues”
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-d-rosenstein/the-media-obsession-with_b_5564233.html?utm_hp_ref=politics>*

“After 45 years in the public eye Hillary can still be the candidate of the
future, which would finally include more women in power.”

*Media Matters for America: “How Morning Joe Is Helping To Turn Clinton's
Legal Work Into A Political Liability”
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/08/how-morning-joe-is-helping-to-turn-clintons-leg/200033>*

“Joe Scarborough and Ezra Klein are helping to normalize
guilt-by-association smears targeting defense attorneys based on their
clients, arguing that Hillary Clinton's work defending an alleged child
rapist in 1975 is becoming a political liability.”

*Washington Free Beacon: “Is MSNBC Turning on Hillary?” [VIDEO]
<http://freebeacon.com/politics/is-msnbc-turning-on-hillary/>*

“MSNBC’s Hardball was home of a contentious debate Tuesday night between
left-wing Salon‘s Joan Walsh and MSNBC analyst Michelle Bernard over the
‘Hillary Tapes’ uncovered by Washington Free Beacon reporter Alana Goodman.”

*Boston Globe: Letter to the Editor: President of Simmons College Helen
Drinan: “Simmons tuition didn’t pay Clinton fee”
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters/2014/07/08/simmons-tuition-didn-pay-clinton-fee/oGntSrNlQO5ysuGFRmKwWJ/story.html>*

“The Simmons Leadership Conference, not Simmons College, sponsored
Clinton’s appearance. All proceeds from the conference go to fund graduate
scholarships at the college. This year’s proceeds, which represent the
surplus after all costs are covered, were the highest in conference
history. Clinton’s appearance was instrumental to that end.”

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Hillary Clinton: Some Families
‘Just Have a Commitment’ to Politics”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/07/08/hillary-clinton-some-families-just-have-a-commitment-to-politics/>*

“Mrs. Clinton, in a new interview with Der Spiegel of Germany, didn’t
apologize for the preponderance of Bushes and Clintons on the national
political scene.”

*CNN: “Clinton weighs in on American political dynasties”
<http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/08/clinton-weighs-in-on-american-political-dynasties/>*

“The Clintons and the Bushes aren't the only families with an extended
presence in American presidential politics. That's a piece of history
Hillary Clinton was sure to note in an interview published Tuesday in
Germany's Der Spiegel when asked if America will turn into a monarchy if
she or Jeb Bush were to win the presidency in 2016 (should either decide to
run).”

*National Journal: “What Hillary Clinton Gets Wrong About Political
Dynasties”
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/what-hillary-clinton-gets-wrong-about-political-dynasties-20140708>*

“Hillary Clinton is an ambivalent member of a political dynasty—at least
when she's talking to reporters.”

*New York Times: “It Takes a Village (and a Composer and a Writer)”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/theater/hillary-and-bill-clinton-inspire-musical-theater.html>*

“Now she [Sec. Clinton] can add another line to her résumé: musical theater
muse.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Hillary Clinton is rich. She is not Mitt
Romney rich.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/08/hillary-clinton-is-rich-she-is-not-mitt-romney-rich/>*

“But it's also worth noting that, while Romney has spent his life as a part
of the upper economic echelon of Americans, the Clintons are relative
newcomers to extreme wealth. And their extreme wealth isn't quite as
extreme as Romney's.”

*Politico Magazine column: Sec. John Kerry: “Why Is the Senate Hobbling
American Diplomacy?”
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/07/why-is-the-senate-hobbling-american-diplomacy-108683.html#.U70lFfldV8E>*

“Last year, high-level State Department advocacy was responsible for more
than $5.5 billion worth of contracts awarded to U.S. companies by foreign
governments. These contracts translated directly into thousands of jobs for
Americans here at home.”

*Articles:*

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Clinton Says She Asked to Be
Removed From Rape Case”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/07/08/clinton-says-she-asked-to-be-removed-from-rape-case/>*

By Janet Hook

July 8, 2014, 2:42 p.m. EDT

A decades old legal case is continuing to haunt Hillary Clinton, who said
in a new interview on the subject that she had asked to be removed from a
1975 case defending a man accused of child rape.

In a July 4 interview with Mumsnet, a British online network, Mrs. Clinton
said the case came up while she was teaching at the University of Arkansas
and doing legal aid work, and a local judge appointed her to represent a
man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl.

“I asked to be relieved of that responsibility, but I was not,” said Mrs.
Clinton, who was 27 at the time. “And I had a professional duty to
represent my client to the best of my ability, which I did.”

Some Republicans have seized on the case, and Mrs. Clinton’s defense
tactics, to discredit Mrs. Clinton’s claim to be a lifelong defender of
women’s rights. The old case came back into focus last month after the
Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, disclosed audio clips of
Mrs. Clinton saying in an interview that she took the case after a
prosecutor asked her to as “a favor.” She indicated that she believed the
man was guilty because she laughed when she told the interviewer, laughing,
that it “forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs” when her client passed a
polygraph test.

Citing that clip, Joe Scarborough, the Republican host of MSNBC’s “Morning
Joe,” during Tuesday’s broadcast said Mrs. Clinton’s latest statement that
she was forced to represent the defendant contradicted her earlier
characterization that she was doing it as a favor to a legal colleague.

“Hillary Clinton chose to do this,’’ Mr. Scarborough said. “This completely
changes the conversation.”

The pro-Clinton group American Bridge 21st Century sent out a “Correct the
Record” item saying that the controversy amounted to an effort by
conservative critics to “rehash old news.”

“The right wing is speculating that Clinton chose to take the case, even
though that myth has been widely debunked,” the group said in a memo, who
cited interviews with the prosecutor who corroborated Mrs. Clinton’s
account of the case in her 2003 book, “Living History.”

*Washington Post column: Ruth Marcus: “Hillary Clinton’s lawyerly past”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-hillary-clintons-lawyerly-past/2014/07/08/9a7fd5ee-06c1-11e4-a0dd-f2b22a257353_story.html>*

By Ruth Marcus

July 8, 2014, 8:11 p.m. EDT

It should not be necessary to write this column.

Lawyers represent clients. Criminal defense lawyers represent clients
accused of crimes — sometimes horrible, evil clients accused of heinous
crimes. It is the ethical and professional responsibility of these lawyers
to defend those clients as vigorously as possible.

Sometimes such representation results in less than perfectly just results.
As Justice Benjamin Cardozo famously put it, the criminal goes free because
the constable has blundered. That is the way — the only way — an adversary
system of criminal justice can function.

End of story, or it would be, except that the decades-old criminal case at
issue here involves Hillary Clinton.

To back up, Clinton — then Hillary Rodham — was a 27-year-old law professor
in 1975 running a newly formed legal aid clinic at the University of
Arkansas in Fayetteville.

As reported by Glenn Thrush in Newsday in 2008, “hard-drinking factory
worker” Thomas Alfred Taylor had been accused of raping a 12-year-old girl,
the daughter of a family he was living with. Taylor had asked the judge to
fire his court-appointed male lawyer and have a female attorney represent
him instead. There were only a half-dozen women practicing law in the
county at the time, and the judge picked Clinton.

When the prosecutor, Mahlon Gibson, called to tell her the news, “Hillary
told me she didn’t want to take that case, she made that very clear,”
Gibson told Newsday. Clinton herself described the incident in her
autobiography, “Living History”: “I really didn’t feel comfortable taking
on such a client, but Mahlon gently reminded me that I couldn’t very well
refuse the judge’s request.”

So Clinton went to work. She mounted an attack on the physical evidence
against Taylor, enlisting a noted forensics expert to cast doubt on the
validity of the physical evidence against her client.

And, as is distasteful but common in rape cases, Clinton prepared to attack
the victim’s credibility. Requesting that the victim undergo a psychiatric
examination, Clinton wrote in an affidavit, “I have been informed that the
complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men
and to engage in fantasizing. I have also been informed that she has in the
past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her
body.”

Was there a basis for this claim? The victim says not; the state’s
investigator doesn’t recall such evidence; the records were lost in a
flood. In any event, the forensic attack carried the day; the prosecutor
reduced the charges from first-degree rape to unlawful fondling of a minor.
Taylor received four years’ probation and a year in jail.

This story was revived recently after the Washington Free Beacon unearthed
audiotapes of interviews conducted by reporter Roy Reed and deposited at
the University of Arkansas. “I had him take a polygraph, which he passed —
which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs,” Clinton recalled and
chuckled.

“What was sad about it was that the prosecutor had evidence, among which
was his underwear . . . which was bloody,” she recalled. The crime lab
“neatly cut out the part that they were going to test,” came back with
results and promptly sent back the underpants with a hole — having thrown
away the crucial piece. So Clinton presented the prosecutor with her
expert’s credentials and announced, “This guy’s ready to come from New York
to prevent this miscarriage of justice.” Again, chuckling.

To the Free Beacon, this story “calls into question Clinton’s narrative of
her early years as a devoted women and children’s advocate in Arkansas.” In
its view, Clinton “struck a casual and complacent attitude toward her
client and the trial for rape of a minor.”

Let’s stipulate: Clinton’s laughter can sometimes be off-putting; she tends
to use it as a way to deflect unwelcome questions. Not in this case.
Certainly, Clinton could express more empathy for the girl. But her
laughter, as I hear it, is at the vagaries of the system and bureaucratic
ineptitude, not the victim.

In short: Feel free to dislike Clinton. Feel free to believe she’d be a
terrible president. Don’t blame her for doing her job. The real scandal in
this case would have been if she had let her feminist ideology trump her
ethical responsibility — to zealously represent even the most loathsome
client.

*Huffington Post blog: Peter D. Rosenstein: “The Media Obsession With
Hillary and Bill Clinton Continues”
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-d-rosenstein/the-media-obsession-with_b_5564233.html?utm_hp_ref=politics>*

By Peter D. Rosenstein, political consultant

July 7, 2014, 12:59 p.m. EDT

Two, three or more major stories about Hillary and Bill Clinton are in the
papers and on TV daily. The Hillary stories range from glowing to
glowering. The NY Times has had a reporter assigned to the Hillary beat for
more than a year. In a recent Washington Post column Fareed Zakaria writes
about Hillary's hardest choice, "Clinton's great challenge will be to
decide whether she represents change or continuity." In a NY Times story
she is compared to John McCain and the reporter does a "Chicken little the
sky is falling" piece on her poll numbers. The Washington Post running out
of new things to say about Hillary has taken to writing stories about
Bill's quest to be First Gentleman. The Nation says the media are suffering
from Hillary Fatigue, yet they are still writing about her and dreaming up
new things to say.

The interesting thing isn't the stories but the fact that media outlets are
so obsessed with the Clintons clearly believing the public is too.
Reporters writing pure speculation and general nonsense get it on the front
page. Maybe the public is obsessed with them but it must be hoped if
Hillary runs the stories will migrate to a discussion of issues and less of
the "How much Hillary is paid for a speech" or whether "Bill is involved in
strategy."

The poll number stories aren't new. From the day she became first lady of
Arkansas to being appointed secretary of state, her poll numbers have swung
wildly. When she is out of day-to- day politics her numbers are up and when
the opposition is skewering her the numbers go down. So what? Zakaria is
totally wrong about what her hardest choice will be. Hillary doesn't have
to make a conscious decision about representing change or continuity.
Rather she can talk about her vision for a better America and what she sees
is going right with what she believes she can change for the future.

In her book Hard Choices, Clinton laid out foreign policy areas in which
she is in lock-step with the president and some such as her recommendation
to arm the Syrian opposition Obama chose not to follow. There is every
reason to believe that Clinton will be nuanced in a campaign. It isn't
simply a case of "with-em-or-agin-em," which is what reporters would like
to see. Voters are smarter than that.

Hillary and Bill Clinton have been in the public eye since Hillary Rodham
was the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley College in 1969 and
when Bill ran for Congress in Arkansas in 1974. There isn't much new the
press can find that we already don't know. Their marriage, with its ups and
downs, has lasted longer than all those of their critics.

Hillary has always fought for universal health care and will benefit
because many of the issues surrounding the Affordable Care Act will have
been settled by the time she may announce. Then the recent Supreme Court
decision on the Hobby Lobby case to which Hillary voiced strong
disagreement allows her to point out the continuing war on women by five
old Catholic men and the Republican Party candidates who support them.

Hillary will point out that a Democratic president, Barack Obama, saved the
nation pulling it out of a deep recession. But she has shown an
understanding that there is a long way to go before everyone is
participating in the recovery. Bill will remind people of the state of the
nation when he was president. We weren't at war and there were budget
surpluses. But Hillary can share her vision for change and she has
acknowledged and shown an understanding that we are living in a different
world than existed 20 years ago.

Stories like the one in the Washington Post about Bill having made over
$100 million since leaving office has people like me thinking "that ain't
bad for a good ole southern boy from Hope, Arkansas." For years no one has
paid that much attention to the huge sums of money made by all the
ex-presidents and other politicians or celebrities who make millions from
their speeches. But Hillary suddenly out-performs and gets paid more than
all of them and it's now a major story. Wow, a woman with views worth more
and commanding more money than men.

Voters often elect wealthy people. John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt
with inherited wealth; and Ronald Reagan and both Bushes, who were
millionaires when elected. Mitt Romney didn't lose because he was rich but
rather because people felt he couldn't connect with those who weren't.
Hillary Clinton doesn't have that problem. People know where she stands on
issues and they know where she comes from and that neither she nor Bill was
born with a silver spoon in their mouth. People have always respected her
incredible work ethic from her earliest days at the Children's Defense Fund
and her work for universal health care; equal pay for equal work for women;
a great education for all children; and a world that will be more at peace
tomorrow than it is today.

After 45 years in the public eye Hillary can still be the candidate of the
future, which would finally include more women in power. She will break
that final glass ceiling if she runs. Hillary is a grandmother building a
better world for her grandchild, something no longer the sole province of
grandfathers.

What Republicans fear is that voters will recognize how a brilliant and
feeling woman in the White House will make a difference for them, their
children, and their families. Hillary understands how that resonates here
and around the world.

Winning the White House for a Democrat will be made easier when more women
vote. Hillary can make that happen and her skirt-tail effect would impact
elections up and down the spectrum. Some question whether she can create
the excitement that will cause that to happen. The media's obsession with
her and Bill show she can. When the campaign actually begins, we can only
hope the media will focus on the issues that matter to people because that
is what is important to the future of America.

*Media Matters for America: “How Morning Joe Is Helping To Turn Clinton's
Legal Work Into A Political Liability”
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/08/how-morning-joe-is-helping-to-turn-clintons-leg/200033>*

By Jeremy Holden

July 8, 2014, 7:28 p.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] Vox's Ezra Klein Joins Scarborough In Mainstreaming
"Disturbing" Guilt-By-Association Smear

Joe Scarborough and Ezra Klein are helping to normalize
guilt-by-association smears targeting defense attorneys based on their
clients, arguing that Hillary Clinton's work defending an alleged child
rapist in 1975 is becoming a political liability.

The American Bar Association has condemned this type of attack as
"disturbing."

Clinton's work on the case, known publicly and reported on for years,
re-emerged after the Washington Free Beacon violated library policy and
published an interview Clinton gave in the mid-1980s discussing her legal
representation of the alleged rapist.

Clinton defended her work on the case in an interview with Mumsnet that was
published July 4, explaining once again that she was assigned to the case,
that she asked to be relieved from the assignment, and that she "had a
professional duty to represent my client to the best of my ability."

Reporting on the warmed-over scrutiny of the case on Tuesday, Vox claimed
that "a criminal defense case from Hillary Clinton's past as a lawyer is
becoming a political liability." The headline ominously stated: "Hillary
Clinton's legal career is coming back to haunt her."

Klein, the co-founder of Vox, appeared on Morning Joe to expand on the idea
that Clinton's legal work was a political liability. "I think it's hard for
folks to understand why you would go to the mat for a client who had done
something terrible who you knew is guilty," Klein said. "And what she's
saying there is that that was her obligation as a lawyer and that the
prosecution had done a horrible job."

[VIDEO]

While Scarborough at one point agreed that attorneys "usually take that
court appointment and do their best to defend their client," he
subsequently tried to parse the distinction between a public defender and
Clinton's role as a court-appointed attorney from a legal aid clinic:

SCARBOROUGH: [I]sn't there a distinction, though, between when you are
hired by a public defender's office, and the purpose of the public
defender's office is actually to give people the representation that they
are guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America? And
then you have Hillary Clinton's case, where she was running a legal clinic.
She may have been court-appointed, but obviously she had a lot more
discretion on whether she was going to take a child rapist or not on as a
client than if you are a public defender, where you are working as a public
defender, you have no choice.

Legal and child welfare experts told Newsday that Clinton's work in the
case was appropriate in 2008, the last time her work in the case came under
media scrutiny. Clinton wrote about the case in her 2003 autobiography,
Living History. Jonathan Adler, a libertarian law professor, has urged
Clinton's critics not to attack her representation in this case,
specifically warning that it could be chilling to send a message to young
attorneys that representing unpopular clients could become a "political
liability."

Adler is not alone. Republicans Ken Starr, Lindsey Graham, and Michael
Mukasey have all cautioned against using an attorney's clients as a cudgel.

Scarborough's and Klein's analysis of why this case is a liability for
Clinton focused in part on their interpretation of Clinton's tone in the
30-year-old interview, which Scarborough claimed amounted to "boasting"
about her successful defense of the alleged rapist. "She sounded boastful
on the tape that she was able to get this 41-year-old guy who raped a young
girl, a minor girl, and get him off and was laughing about the evidence,
laughing about the lie detector test, laughing about a lot of it. It does
sound -- it's disturbing to say the least, isn't it?"

Scarborough did not reconcile his claim that Clinton was being "boastful"
with the fact that she called the case "sad" while explaining how the
prosecution had destroyed evidence, forming the basis of an eventual plea
bargain.

CLINTON: But you know what was sad about it was that the prosecutors had
evidence, among which was his underwear. ... His underwear, which was
bloody. Sent it down to the crime lab [unintelligible]. The crime lab took
the pair of underpants, neatly cut out the part that they were going to
test, tested it, came back with the result of what kind of blood it was,
what was mixed in with it, then sent the pants back with a hole in it as
evidence. So I got an order to see the evidence, and the prosecutor didn't
want me to see the evidence. I had to go to Maupin Cummings and convince
Maupin that yes indeed I had a right to see the evidence before it was
presented. So they presented the underpants with a hole in it. I said,
"What kind of evidence is that?" You know, a pair of underpants with a hole
in it. Course the crime lab had thrown away the piece that they'd cut out.
It was really odd. I mean, I plea-bargained it down because it turned out
they didn't have any evidence.

Morning Joe did air parts of the interview where Clinton discussed what she
thought was sad about the case.

CNN legal analyst Paul Callan has rejected claims that Clinton can be heard
laughing about the result of the case and instead argued that Clinton is
clearly laughing generally about the legal process. "It's a lawyer telling
a lawyer tale," Callahan said.

The criticism of Clinton is part of an alarming trend of using a lawyer's
clients as a disqualification for public service. In March, the Senate
blocked Debo Adegbile's nomination to the Department of Justice's Civil
Rights Division amid scrutiny of his work at the NAACP on behalf of an
accused cop killer. And the American Bar Association condemned the
Republican Governors' Association earlier this year for running ads
attacking a South Carolina gubernatorial candidate for his work as a
criminal defense attorney.

In a letter to RGA Chairman Chris Christie, ABA President James Silkenat
warned: "The Republican Governor's Association ad sends a disturbing
message to lawyers -- that their clients' past actions or beliefs will
stain their own careers, especially if they want to serve their country in
public office."

*Washington Free Beacon: “Is MSNBC Turning on Hillary?” [VIDEO]
<http://freebeacon.com/politics/is-msnbc-turning-on-hillary/>*

By Washington Free Beacon Staff

July 8, 2014, 8:07 p.m. EDT

MSNBC’s Hardball was home of a contentious debate Tuesday night between
left-wing Salon‘s Joan Walsh and MSNBC analyst Michelle Bernard over the
“Hillary Tapes” uncovered by Washington Free Beacon reporter Alana Goodman.

Goodman unearthed tapes from the 1980s of Hillary Clinton discussing an
accused child rapist she defended when she was 27 years old, part of which
included her laughing about facets of the case that ultimately resulted in
her client, who she thought was guilty, serving less than one year in
prison.

Host Chris Matthews laid out the facts behind the case to introduce the
segment, adding he’s not particularly fond of “clever” defense lawyers.

“I have listened to the whole tape,” Matthews said. “She does laugh
throughout it. I don’t know how to talk about it.”

“It’s not a fun tape to listen to,” Walsh said. “I’m not going to try and
sugarcoat it.”

However, when Bernard laid out the New York Times’ reporting that Clinton
had been appointed to the case, rather than that Clinton actually took it
because the prosecutor called and asked her to take it on, Walsh grew
indignant and accused Bernard of “filibustering.”

“This is very serious,” Bernard said. “Hillary Clinton took the case. This
is a woman who undoubtedly has always been an advocate for women, children
and families but she took the case. She knew what the allegations were. She
indicated in the tape that she believed that her client, more likely than
not, was guilty of the crime that he was accused of. People are going to
say, inevitably, ‘Who is the real Hillary Clinton?’”

An upset Walsh accused Bernard of presenting a “twisted” view of the facts,
but even Matthews was puzzled at that accusation, asking, “What was
twisted?”

“The facts are the facts,” Bernard replied.

At one point, Matthews just looked down and sighed while the two argued
over Clinton.

*Boston Globe: Letter to the Editor: President of Simmons College Helen
Drinan: “Simmons tuition didn’t pay Clinton fee”
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters/2014/07/08/simmons-tuition-didn-pay-clinton-fee/oGntSrNlQO5ysuGFRmKwWJ/story.html>*

By Helen Drinan, president of Simmons College

July 9, 2014

In his column last Friday, Kevin Cullen called out Simmons College for
paying Hillary Clinton an undisclosed speaking fee. He suggests that a
parent paying tuition to send a student to Simmons College would want to
know the amount of that fee. Cullen, however, is misinformed.

The Simmons Leadership Conference, not Simmons College, sponsored Clinton’s
appearance. All proceeds from the conference go to fund graduate
scholarships at the college. This year’s proceeds, which represent the
surplus after all costs are covered, were the highest in conference
history. Clinton’s appearance was instrumental to that end.

Helen Drinan

Boston

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Hillary Clinton: Some Families
‘Just Have a Commitment’ to Politics”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/07/08/hillary-clinton-some-families-just-have-a-commitment-to-politics/>*

By Peter Nicholas

July 8, 2014, 7:03 p.m. EDT

Is the U.S. presidency a dynasty controlled by a few privileged families?

Should Hillary Clinton win the White House in 2016 and serve two full
terms, that would mean either a Bush or Clinton will have held the
presidency for 28 of the prior 36 years (interrupted by Barack Obama’s
eight-year stint).

Even the Bush family matriarch, Barbara Bush, questioned last year whether
the country is well served by more of the same.

“We’ve had enough Bushes,” she said, in reply to a question about the
presidential prospects of her son Jeb, the former Republican governor of
Florida.

Mrs. Clinton, in a new interview with Der Spiegel of Germany, didn’t
apologize for the preponderance of Bushes and Clintons on the national
political scene.

She said that “certain families just have a sense of commitment or even a
predisposition to want to be in politics.”

Two that come to mind? The Roosevelts and the Adamses, Mrs. Clinton said.
John Adams was the nation’s second president; his eldest son, John Quincy
Adams, was the nation’s sixth. Theodore Roosevelt served from 1901-1909;
his distant cousin Franklin Roosevelt served from 1933 until his death in
1945.

Still, Mrs. Clinton said that her last name proved to be no help when she
ran for president in 2008 and lost to someone with no political pedigree:
Mr. Obama.

The U.S., she said, “is not a monarchy in which I wake up in the morning
and abdicate in favor of my son.”

But what about her daughter? Chelsea Clinton has become an increasingly
prominent figure in national public life and now plays a leadership role in
the family’s charitable foundation. Would Mrs. Clinton like to see Chelsea
find her own place in politics–the family business?

“It is really up to her, and I’ll support her in whatever she chooses,”
Mrs. Clinton told Der Spiegel.

*CNN: “Clinton weighs in on American political dynasties”
<http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/08/clinton-weighs-in-on-american-political-dynasties/>*

By Dana Davidsen

July 8, 2014, 4:01 p.m. EDT

The Clintons and the Bushes aren't the only families with an extended
presence in American presidential politics.

That's a piece of history Hillary Clinton was sure to note in an interview
published Tuesday in Germany's Der Spiegel when asked if America will turn
into a monarchy if she or Jeb Bush were to win the presidency in 2016
(should either decide to run).

"We had two Roosevelts. We had two Adams," Clinton said, adding "It may be
that certain families just have a sense of commitment or even a
predisposition to want to be in politics."

"I ran for president, as you remember. I lost to somebody named Barack
Obama, so I don't think there is any guarantee in American politics. My
last name did not help me in the end," she said. "Our system is open to
everyone. It is not a monarchy in which I wake up in the morning and
abdicate in favor of my son."

If Bush ran and won in 2016, he would be the third Bush in the White House
over the past three decades. And if Clinton ran and won the next election,
she would be the second President Clinton in the White House in the past
two decades, after her husband.

As Clinton weighs whether to launch a campaign for the White House in 2016,
her name recognition - as former first lady, as well as secretary of state
and senator - has been a double-edged sword.

Her global popularity helped during her time as America's top diplomat and
will undoubtedly spur book sales as she continues the European leg of her
book tour for "Hard Choices." But being such a longtime figure in U.S.
politics might also prove to be a negative if she runs for president as
Americans' trust in Washington falters.

Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, is also considering a run for the
White House. Should he run, he has the support of his family - including
his father, Bush 41, and his brother, Bush 43 - but his mother, Barbara
Bush, has expressed reservations about having another Bush in the White
House.

She said in an interview earlier this year "I think this is a great
American country, and if we can't find more than two or three families to
run for high office, that's silly."

Bush has joked about his mother's comments, but also discussed how his
family name may hurt him as much as help him if he decides to run for the
White House in 2016.

And a majority of Americans agree with Mrs. Bush. Sixty-nine percent of
people questioned in a NBC News/WSJ poll conducted in April said there
should be more diversity in families in the White House.

*National Journal: “What Hillary Clinton Gets Wrong About Political
Dynasties”
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/what-hillary-clinton-gets-wrong-about-political-dynasties-20140708>*

By Emma Roller

July 8, 2014

Hillary Clinton is an ambivalent member of a political dynasty—at least
when she's talking to reporters.

In an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel, Clinton insisted for
the umpteenth time that she hasn't made up her mind about running for
president. But more interesting was this question posed to Clinton, which
framed her potential run as evidence of the quasi-aristocratic nature of
the presidency [emphasis mine]:

SPIEGEL: For the past 25 years, there were two families that were very
prominent in politics, your family and the Bush family. First George Bush
was president for four years, then your husband led the country for eight
years, and then George W. Bush was president for eight years. If either you
or Jeb Bush were to win the election in 2016, once again a member of these
two families would become president. Will the American democracy turn into
a monarchy?

Clinton: We had two Roosevelts. We had two Adams. It may be that certain
families just have a sense of commitment or even a predisposition to want
to be in politics. I ran for president, as you remember. I lost to somebody
named Barack Obama, so I don't think there is any guarantee in American
politics. My last name did not help me in the end. Our system is open to
everyone. It is not a monarchy in which I wake up in the morning and
abdicate in favor of my son.

Clinton's right—we do not live in a monarchy. But it might seem like it,
surveying the field of popular Democrats who want to run in 2016 whose
initials are not HRC (cue crickets).

Which raises the question: Do dynastic families have more of a genetic
commitment to public service, as Clinton suggests, or is it just the family
business? Blake Carrington would never claim to "just have a sense of
commitment or even a predisposition to being an oil tycoon."

Still, one recent study found that inherited political power is more about
nurture than nature.

Researchers at Brown University found that political power in Congress is
self-perpetuating, and that the longer a politician holds office, the more
likely he or she is to see relatives become politicians. They found that,
from 1789 to 1996, 8.7 percent of members had relatives who previously
served in Congress.

The authors of the study concede that "unobserved family characteristics"
could contribute to politicians' dynastic powers. They also found that
children of politicians aren't necessarily more likely to become miniature
versions of their parents—nor does having political parents give them a
predisposition for public service. But if these political offspring do
decide to go into politics, they'll have a leg up on the competition:

“We find that dynastic politicians are less likely to start their career in
the House, suggesting they have the ability or means to enter directly
through the Senate, a much smaller and more prestigious body. This
difference cannot be attributed to a later entry into Congress: dynastic
legislators enter Congress at about 44 years of age, just like non-dynastic
legislators. Dynastic legislators are not more likely to come from a state
different than the one they represent and are significantly less likely to
have previous public experience, although they are more likely to have a
college degree.”

Americans generally have a love-hate relationship with political
dynasties—we say we don't want the same families to continue holding
office, but as soon as names are named, we flock to their corner. In a
recent survey on dynasties, a majority of respondents said they hope the
Bushes and the Clintons of the world don't dominate the 2016 presidential
race. Ironically, most respondents also reported favorable views of the
Clinton and Bush families.

Liking a political family is, of course, different from voting one's
members into office cycle after cycle. But data presents a startling
disconnect between how voters want democracy to work in theory and in
practice.

Whether or not having a household name helps your election chances,
belonging to a political dynasty certainly conveys some privileges that
no-name candidates don't have. Practically, it's easier to raise money and
organize supporters as a candidate when you are (or your family is) a known
commodity, potentially with a ready-made support network already at your
service. And psychologically, the power of incumbency cannot be
underestimated, as political reputations trickle down from patriarch or
matriarch to family members.

Of course, this effect could also backfire for politicians whose names bear
negative associations. Jeb Bush publicly acknowledged earlier this year
that his name was "an issue." Then again, it appears that time can heal
many wounds—George W. Bush is more popular today than he was during his
last three years in office.

Are political dynasties different from other types of dynasties? In U.S.
culture, the first family takes on de facto royalty status in a way that
other family empires rarely do—unless your last name happens to be
Kardashian. But unlike in a monarchy, what America's royalty does with the
power conferred upon them is completely up to them.

*New York Times: “It Takes a Village (and a Composer and a Writer)”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/theater/hillary-and-bill-clinton-inspire-musical-theater.html>*

By Amy Chozick

July 8, 2014

As Hillary Rodham Clinton contemplates another run for the presidency in
2016, she has written a book (“Hard Choices”), delivered upbeat paid
speeches to trade groups (“Leadership is a team sport”) and pitched in at
her family’s foundation. Now she can add another line to her résumé:
musical theater muse.

Like Eva Perón in “Evita” and Imelda Marcos in “Here Lies Love” (not to
mention the Founding Fathers who crowd “1776”), Mrs. Clinton is a
larger-than-life political leader whose career cries out for music. Or so
believe the creators of “A Woman on Top” and “Clinton: The Musical,” two
shows currently testing the waters in New York.

Depending on whom you ask, Mrs. Clinton is either one of the world’s most
admired women or a political animal who attracts scandal. The more positive
view mostly wins out in these stage depictions.

“A Woman on Top,” which will hold a reading for potential investors on
Wednesday, is the inspirational tale of a female political candidate’s
battles against sexism, set to song. Virginia Stanton is a New York senator
who, in her noble quest for the presidency, inspires millions of women but
ends up suffering a precipitous loss to a charismatic male opponent. (Shock
spoiler alert: Her husband, a charming Southern governor, can’t control his
impulses.)

“Clinton: The Musical,” a satire about scandals of the 1990s, will make its
United States premiere on July 18 as part of the New York Musical Theater
Festival. Written by Paul and Michael Hodge, Australian brothers, it
portrays two sides of President Bill Clinton: the jovial id who cannot
control himself and the pensive policy wonk who cannot stop talking about
the intricacies of health care reform. Mrs. Clinton is the
struggling-to-be-stabilizing force, grappling with the Lewinsky scandal
while slyly eyeing her own Senate run.

Paul Hodge said his inspiration was Mr. Clinton’s 2004 autobiography, “My
Life,” in which the former president explored his “outside life” and his
“internal life.” Dick Morris, the former Clinton aide-turned-enemy, called
these parallel lives “Saturday Night Bill” and “Sunday Morning President
Clinton.”

Different actors play each side of the former president. “He’s so complex
that it seemed like an appropriate device,” Mr. Hodge said.

There’s only one Hillary. In the song “No!,” she and both versions of her
husband struggle to write a 1998 State of the Union address that will not
remind people of the Lewinsky affair. Lines like “We can stand erect ...”
and “No longer on our knees ...” are promptly rejected.

The Clintons have already left a big mark on pop culture, from the 1998
movie “Primary Colors,” based on the roman à clef by Joe Klein, to “The
Special Relationship,” a 2010 HBO movie about Mr. Clinton and Tony Blair.
The USA Network’s political drama “Political Animals,” with Sigourney
Weaver as a fictional version of Mrs. Clinton, lasted a single season.

Other projects haven’t gotten off the ground. Last fall, NBC abandoned
plans to develop a mini-series about Mrs. Clinton, starring Diane Lane.
Around the same time, CNN scrapped a documentary from Charles H. Ferguson,
who won an Oscar for the 2010 documentary “Inside Job.”

Mrs. Clinton’s supporters and critics had expressed concerns that the
projects would either denigrate her in order to create TV drama or cast her
in an unfairly positive light ahead of the 2016 election. (Both networks
said the outside pressure had no impact on their decisions to cancel the
projects.)

The creators of the musical “A Woman on Top,” Rhonda Kess and Dale Kiken,
are unabashed Clinton supporters. They began writing the show in the years
after Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 defeat by Barack Obama, when talk of sexism
permeated cable news.

“If there’s a way for this piece to stimulate conversation while being
extremely entertaining, then we’ll have set out with what we wanted to do,”
said Ms. Kess, a classical composer who wrote the music that accompanies
Mr. Kiken’s dialogue. (They previously collaborated on “Lost and Found: The
Trial of St. Bernadette,” which had its premiere in Los Angeles last year.)

As Virginia Stanton seeks the country’s highest office, she says things
like “Liberty, freedom and equality still ring true in the ears of
America,” while her ex-husband and opponent, Gov. George Reitman of Texas,
tries to squash her ambitions. “Naw, honey, why would you want to get all
that muck over your nice skirt,” he says.

“Clinton: The Musical,” which was nominated for best new musical at the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2012, takes a less earnest approach. Paul
Hodge said he had the idea for the show after he went with his father to a
production of “Keating!,” a musical about Paul Keating, the former prime
minister of Australia. At the end of the performance, his father remarked
that he didn’t think politicians were necessarily the best musical subjects.

“He said, ‘The only politician who would make a good musical would be Bill
Clinton,’ ” Mr. Hodge recalled. “And I said, ‘Of course!’ ” For the Hodges’
show, Mrs. Clinton’s character always had political ambitions, but the
musical has evolved as it became clearer that she could run for president
again in 2016. And the history of the Lewinsky scandal, which inevitably
plays a big part in the musical, had to be rethought after Ms. Lewinsky
re-emerged with an essay in the June issue of Vanity Fair. “That reminded
everyone, us included, that she is a real human being and not just a joke
that has been going on for all these years,” said Adam Arian, the show’s
director.

The creators of both shows hope to attract attention and backing to reach
large audiences. For the “Clinton: The Musical” team, in particular, the
New York Musical Theater Festival is a chance to gauge the local appetite
for all things Clinton after its debut in Edinburgh. “Paul wanted to know
what the American audience thought about material developed by an
Australian in the United Kingdom,” said Dan Markley, the executive director
of the festival.

Will the much debated phenomenon of Clinton fatigue extend to the stage?

In “Clinton: The Musical,” Duke Lafoon portrays Billy Clinton, the
fun-loving side to the serious W. J. Clinton (Karl Kenzler). Mr. Lafoon had
previously played Mr. Clinton in “Monica! The Musical,” a 2005 Off Broadway
show that featured Mrs. Clinton as a scheming strategist.

He said he’ll hang up his Bill Clinton act after this one.

“They’re so heavily in the news right now, with Hillary’s book and
potential run for the White House, so we’ll ride that wave,” Mr. Lafoon
said. “At the same time, I understand what people say. Do we need these
jokes again?”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Hillary Clinton is rich. She is not Mitt
Romney rich.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/08/hillary-clinton-is-rich-she-is-not-mitt-romney-rich/>*

By Aaron Blake

July 8, 2014, 8:30 a.m. EDT

Hillary Clinton's wealth is still all the rage -- first because of some
"inartful" comments she made about it and more recently because of scrutiny
of her massive speaking fees.

But just how rich is Clinton? Well, as the chart below shows, she would
likely be wealthier than any other major 2016 presidential candidate or
recent president who has filed an official federal financial report.

But she's not really in the same ballpark as two other recent candidates:
Massachusetts' own Mitt Romney and current Secretary of State John Kerry --
or at least she wasn't as of 2012.

Here's how that looks, according to the most recent federal filings:

[INTERACTIVE NET WORTH CHART, 2012]

And here's the full interactive graphic.

You'll note that Clinton's maximum estimated net worth ($25 million) was
about 1/10th that of Romney, with whom Kerry is in the same ballpark. It's
important to note that the Clintons likely upped their net worth
significantly after Hillary Clinton left as secretary of state -- some have
estimated it at $55 million or higher -- but that's a lot of ground to make
up.

Does it matter that Clinton's wealth is not quite on-par with the Romneys
and the Kerrys of the political world? Maybe not. Clearly, they are all far
wealthier than the vast, vast majority of Americans, and it's becoming
clearer and clearer that, just like Romney, Clinton will have to deal with
questions about whether she's out of touch with average Americans (and
$225,000 speaking gigs won't do anything to quell that).

But it's also worth noting that, while Romney has spent his life as a part
of the upper economic echelon of Americans, the Clintons are relative
newcomers to extreme wealth. And their extreme wealth isn't quite as
extreme as Romney's.

*Politico Magazine column: Sec. John Kerry: “Why Is the Senate Hobbling
American Diplomacy?”
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/07/why-is-the-senate-hobbling-american-diplomacy-108683.html#.U70lFfldV8E>*

By Sec. John Kerry

July 8, 2014

Boko Haram’s horrifying abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria
ignited universal calls for help to “bring back our girls.” President
Barack Obama responded with urgency, but lost in the story is that one tool
the United States would like to have at our disposal is hampered by the
absence of U.S. ambassadors in neighboring Cameroon and Niger.

Both embassies have been without ambassadors for more than eight months.
That means we lost eight months when we would have had full-strength,
highest-level capacity to build greater regional cooperation and trust to
combat the rising threat from this brutal extremist group. Eight months
when U.S. advice and training could have helped equip these critical
countries to better help themselves. Eight months when we could have
provided better assistance to respond to a moral outrage.

This is not an isolated example. The United States continues to operate
without a complete diplomatic toolbox to exert our leadership and advance
our security and economic interests across the globe, because a broken
Senate confirmation process has left us without permanent ambassadors in 40
countries.

The nominees for these jobs, including Niger and Cameroon, are victims of a
confirmation backlog that grows with each passing day. It leaves too many
of our best and brightest — particularly career Foreign Service officers —
languishing on the sidelines instead of being on the ground fighting to
protect and promote our interests.

Who are these diplomats? Fifty-three State Department nominees are pending
before the Senate. Thirty-seven of them have been approved by the Foreign
Relations Committee and could be confirmed immediately with a simple vote.
The majority of the nominees, 35 in all, are apolitical career diplomats,
and none of them are controversial.

There is a solution staring us in the face — and that answer is the
powerful example of how military nominees are traditionally treated by the
Senate. The administration’s military nominees are confirmed quickly and en
bloc, which is the proper way to handle them. For America to play a strong
role in the world, we need equal treatment for diplomats. The Senate should
carve out State’s career nominees and expedite their confirmation just as
it does for military promotions.

Make no mistake: Vacancies in so many world capitals send a dangerous
message to allies and adversaries alike about America’s engagement. This
perception makes it much more difficult to do the nonpartisan work at the
heart of U.S. foreign policy — defending the security of our nation,
promoting our values and helping our businesses compete to create American
jobs back home.

The length and number of these vacancies compromise U.S. national security.
In the Middle East alone, the tragic conflict in Syria and rising extremism
threaten a region where we have extensive economic and security interests.
The Senate, to its credit, confirmed ambassadors to Egypt and Iraq last
month, but more remains to be done. The Senate must quickly approve
ambassadors to Algeria, Kuwait and Qatar, just three of the countries where
we have pressing security interests.

Vacancies also exist in strategic European countries like Hungary, Turkey,
the Czech Republic, Moldova and Albania. Without the authority of an
ambassador, we cannot engage fully with officials at the highest levels in
places where shared democratic values are under threat. In yet another
example, we need an ambassador in Honduras to help find ways to prevent the
crush of unaccompanied minors along our southwestern border.

Ambassadors also are the front line of our global push on behalf of U.S.
businesses large and small. Last year, high-level State Department advocacy
was responsible for more than $5.5 billion worth of contracts awarded to
U.S. companies by foreign governments. These contracts translated directly
into thousands of jobs for Americans here at home.

America’s leading companies recognize that our ambassadors are vital to
their success overseas. Already this year, U.S. businesses have sought
embassy assistance in pursuing $119 billion worth of contracts in countries
where a nominee is pending. These opportunities will go to our global
competitors if we don’t have ambassadors to lead our advocacy. We simply
cannot lead if we are not represented.

In my travels as secretary of state, I have seen as never before the thirst
for American leadership in the world. And in my nearly 30 years in the
Senate, I saw firsthand the determination of most senators to make their
institution work effectively. I believe that both of these are powerful
reasons for the Senate to act now to both provide greater American
leadership around the globe and to demonstrate that our democracy can work
here at home.

 *Calendar:*

*Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official
schedule.*

·  August 9 – Water Mill, NY: Sec. Clinton fundraises for the Clinton
Foundation at the home of George and Joan Hornig (WSJ
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/06/17/for-50000-best-dinner-seats-with-the-clintons-in-the-hamptons/>
)

·  August 28 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes Nexenta’s OpenSDx
Summit (BusinessWire
<http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140702005709/en/Secretary-State-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-Deliver-Keynote#.U7QoafldV8E>
)

·  September 4 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton speaks at the National Clean
Energy Summit (Solar Novis Today
<http://www.solarnovus.com/hillary-rodham-clinto-to-deliver-keynote-at-national-clean-energy-summit-7-0_N7646.html>
)

·  October 2 – Miami Beach, FL: Sec. Clinton keynotes the CREW Network
Convention & Marketplace (CREW Network
<http://events.crewnetwork.org/2014convention/>)

·  October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton keynotes the UNLV Foundation
Annual Dinner (UNLV
<http://www.unlv.edu/event/unlv-foundation-annual-dinner?delta=0>)