"Bill and Hillary Clinton; What if Hillary Becomes
President in 2016?" By Franklin and Betty J. Parker,
bfparker@frontiernet.net, Dialogue Given at Uplands Village, Pleasant Hill, TN,
Monday, June 17, 2013. Revised June 25, 2013.
FRANK: Hold onto your seat folks; it's going to be a bumpy,
sexy story about Bill and Hillary Clinton. We chose to review William H. Chafe,
Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal, published in 2012, because the
Clintons are, in our time, what FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt were in the
1930s-40s: a powerful, controversial, talented political team.
BETTY: Conservative Republicans have disliked the Clintons'
efforts to uplift low income "have-nots" at the expense of middle-
and upper-class "haves." Hostile critics see the Clintons as
manipulative politicians--Bill as sexually immoral, Hillary as an unscrupulous
shrew.
FRANK: Recall that in late 1998-early 1999 the
Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Clinton
on charges of perjury; that is, lying about having sex with Monica Lewinsky,
and obstruction of justice by withholding evidence.
BETTY: The U.S. Senate rejected the House impeachment vote.
Charges were dropped. Hillary won sympathy and respect by backing and saving
Bill from impeachment shame.
FRANK: Note that Bill, born 1946, and Hillary, 1947, were
the first post-WW II baby boomer political team to reach political heights
through Bill's elections, at a young age, as: Arkansas Attorney General
(1976-78), 2 years; Arkansas Governor (1978-80; 1982-92), 12 years; U.S.
President (1993-2001), 8 years.
BETTY: Add Hillary's 8 years as New York's U. S. Senator
(2001-09); and 4 years as U.S. Secretary of State (2009-13); 34 years of
combined public service. Hillary's many friends are now urging her to run in
2016 to become the first woman U.S. president.
FRANK: Bill's early motives and ambitions were shaped by his
unusual mother, Virginia Dell Cassidy (1923-94), and her unusual parents.
BETTY: Born in small town Hope, Arkansas, Virginia Cassidy
had four husbands.1
FRANK: Fun-loving Virginia, later a nurse anesthetist, and
her mother, Edith Grisham Cassidy (1901-68), a strict self-taught nurse, both
raised little Bill.
BETTY: Virginia's father, Bill's grandpa James Eldridge
Cassidy (1898-1957), had a grocery store in a poor African-American
neighborhood. His fair treatment and generous credit for African Americans
endeared him to all.
FRANK: Flirtatious Virginia Cassidy first trained as a nurse
in a Shreveport, LA, hospital. There she met and married an equally flirtatious
William Jefferson Blythe, Jr. (1918-46).2
BETTY: The Blythes moved to Chicago for better jobs.
Virginia, pregnant, went home to Hope, Ark., to have her baby. Her husband Bill
Blythe, driving from Chicago to be with her, died in a car crash 3 months before
Virginia gave birth to William Jefferson Blythe, III (Aug. 19, 1946), called
"Billy," who never knew his biological father.3
FRANK: Billy was age 2 when his widowed mother Virginia,
needing to earn more money, moved to New Orleans to train as a nurse anesthetist.
Billy, living with his grandparents, loved playing in grandpa's store with
African Americans. The family's lack of prejudice was rare.
BETTY: In New Orleans, the attractive widow Virginia Cassidy
Blythe met Roger Clinton (1908-67), a car dealer, married him in 1950 when
Billy was age 4, against her parents' warning that Roger Clinton was twice
divorced, a gambler, and abusive when drunk.
FRANK: The Clintons moved to the thriving resort city of Hot
Springs, Ark. During Roger Clinton's drunken sprees he did abuse Virginia.
Virginia gave birth to Roger's son, Roger Clinton, Jr. (July 25, 1956), that's
Billy's half brother, when Billy was age 10. In his early teens, Billy, big and
burly, physically confronted his stepfather and stopped Roger from abusing his
mother. Bill urged his mother Virginia to divorce Roger Clinton. She did so,
but feeling sorry, remarried him to give him a home. Bill, still in high
school, now the family protector, with his mother's approval, through the
family lawyer, legally changed his name to William Jefferson Clinton.
BETTY: Intelligent, affable, and ambitious, Bill Clinton as
a Hot Springs high school junior was one of only two Arkansas students chosen
to go to the annual summer American Legion-sponsored Boys Nations in
Washington, D.C. In July 1963, in the White House Rose Garden, after Pres. John
F. Kennedy's welcoming speech, a pushy 6' 3" 17-year-old Bill Clinton was,
as he had planned, photographed shaking Pres. Kennedy's hand.
FRANK: Bill Clinton's early ambition for high public service
was thus shaped by: 1: his flashy adoring mother telling him often: you are
important and will be the president of the United States.
BETTY: 2: Secrets to be kept included his drunken abusive
stepfather and his own uncertainty about his actual father. To overcome secret
shame and redeem family honor, Bill Clinton determined he must rise high, become
important.
FRANK: 3: His Grandpa James Eldridge Cassidy's generous
uplifting of have-not African Americans, plus Bill's outreach to his
drink-dependent stepfather inspired Bill to want to uplift the needy.
BETTY: 4: Bill's drive for public service, heightened by
JFK's handshake, was confirmed when Bill read, then memorized Martin Luther
King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech (Aug. 28, 1963).
FRANK: 5: the family's move to Hot Springs, Ark., got Bill
into better schools which led him on to Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown
University, then a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and Yale Law School. In thriving
Hot Springs Bill gained worldly sophistication and a sense of mission to
someday lift Arkansas up high from near bottom in education and income.
BETTY: Thus motivated, blessed with a brilliant mind, charm,
and drive--Bill excelled in his studies, in extracurricular activities, in
election to high student offices, and in winning many honors.
FRANK: On his high school counselor's advice, with
scholarships and his mother's support, Bill attended highly regarded Georgetown
University School of Foreign Service, Washington, D.C. (1964-68).
BETTY: There Bill was president of his freshman and
sophomore classes. He carried away with him Georgetown history Prof. Carroll Quigley's
(1910-77) teaching that the future will be better only if the present
generation sacrifices to make it happen.4
FRANK: Bill worked during summer 1967 for Arkansas's U.S.
Senator J. William Fulbright's (1905-95) Foreign Relations Committee. Bill
shared Fulbright's conviction that the Vietnam War (1955-75) was immoral.
BETTY: Encouraged by Sen. Fulbright, himself a former Rhodes
Scholar (1926-28), Bill, on graduation, was chosen to be a Rhodes Scholar at
Oxford University, England.
FRANK: While in England Bill was subject to the Vietnam War
draft. He actively protested the war, agonized over his friends killed in Vietnam,
and maneuvered himself out of the draft.
BETTY: Called a draft dodger during his 1992 Presidential
campaign, Bill was less than honest about how he had evaded the draft.5
FRANK: After Oxford, Bill enrolled at Yale University Law
School (1970-73, Juris Doctor), where he met Hillary Diane Rodham.
BETTY: Hillary Rodham grew up in Chicago's lily white,
upwardly mobile suburb of Park Ridge. Her father Hugh Rodham (1911–93), textile
wholesaler, staunch Republican, had been a tough WW II Navy drill master. His
barked commands had to be obeyed; his opinion never challenged.
FRANK: When Hillary's mother, Dorothy Howell Rodham
(1919-2011) contradicted her husband, gruff, authoritarian Hugh Rodham's
sarcastic put downs were variations of: "How would you know!" If
ashamed in company she decided to leave the room, he would say: "Don't let
the closing door knob hit you in the fanny."
BETTY: Hillary and her two younger brothers loved both
parents. They knew their mother had been an abandoned child of divorced parents,
became a housekeeper and nanny for a family who raised her, taught her to read,
encouraged her to become a Chicago secretary where she met and married Hugh
Rodham.
FRANK: Mother Dorothy Rodham, a devout Methodist, taught
Hillary and her two younger brothers to love and help one another and others.
Mother Rodham (died 2011) lived to see Hillary become U.S. First Lady, U.S.
Senator from New York, the near winner in the 2008 presidential campaign, and
U.S. Secretary of State.6
BETTY: Hillary's key shaping forces were: 1: From her
drill-master father came her iron will, boldness, strength of convictions,
determination to stay-the-course-no-matter-what. Her obstinacy later caused
trouble as Bill's unofficial co-president.
FRANK: 2: From Hillary's mother came her Methodist faith,
the sanctity of marriage, the sacredness of family bonds, no divorce whatever
the provocation.
BETTY: 3: From her Methodist youth minister, Donald G. Jones
(1922-2009), came the urgency of social justice. When Hillary was age 14 in the
9th grade, Don Jones took Hillary and her Methodist youth group to see
Chicago's ghetto poor and mingle with deprived inner city youth. In April 1962
he took them to hear Martin Luther King, Jr., preach and to shake his hand.
Hillary sought spiritual counseling and advice from her Methodist mentor Dr.
Don Jones (later a Drew University social ethics professor) until his 2009
death.7
FRANK: 4: At exclusive Wellesley College for women (1965-69)
Hillary became less Republican, more Democratic, and a campus leader. She wrote
her senior thesis on Chicago's labor union radical Saul Alinsky's (1909-72),
insistence that true reform requires community action. Hillary agreed, but
added that community reforms had to be done within the system and backed with
federal funds.
BETTY: Hillary, as student body president at graduation made
national news and Life magazine as Wellesley's first student Co-Commencement
speaker, 1969. She challenged the main speaker, distinguished black Republican
U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Edward Brooke (1919-), who criticized student
activists' use of violence. Hillary, at the lectern, leaving her script, boldly
faced and told Senator Brooke: We protesting students are righting the wrongs
leaders like you let happen and have done nothing to solve.
FRANK: At Yale University Law School (1971? J.D.) Hillary
and Bill first met in the law school library. Sparks flew. Love flowed. A
political partnership was in the making.
BETTY: Each stopped dating others, sensing that joining
their abilities would strengthen their drive to right American wrongs and ease
the world's woes. They married (1975); both taught for a time at the University
of Arkansas Law School. Their only child, daughter Chelsea Victoria, was born
February 27, 1980.
FRANK: While at Yale Law School Bill was active in
Connecticut politics. Both Hillary and Bill campaigned in 1972 for Democratic
U.S. Senator George McGovern's (1922-2012) run against incumbent President
Richard M. Nixon (1913-94), who was reelected.
BETTY: In 1974 Hillary served in Washington, D.C. on the
U.S. Congressional legal team for the Watergate investigation of Republican
President Nixon.
FRANK: In 1977 Bill was elected Arkansas Attorney General.
Hillary became a member and soon partner of Arkansas's most prestigious Rose Law
Firm.
BETTY: In 1978, Bill at age 31 was elected Arkansas
Governor. His highway rebuilding project as a first step toward improving the
economy was fine but paying for it with higher auto license plate fees hurt
most workers and farmers. It was a mistake. Bill was defeated in 1980 for
re-election.
FRANK: Stunned, realizing his mistake, Bill campaigned again
in 1982 to regain the governorship. He apologized for his mistake, said he
would check with voters every step of the way as he raised Arkansas higher and
higher. Result: Arkansans re-elected him, 1982 to 1990. Recovering from
setbacks Bill Clinton lived up to his reputation as: "The Come-Back
Kid."
BETTY: Bill became an outstanding leader among U.S.
governors: president of the National Governors Association, chairman of a
mainly southern moderate Democratic group called the Democratic Leadership
Conference. He was a major speaker at national Democratic Conventions of 1980,
'84, and '88. With Hillary as his "Co-Everything" he entered the 1992
race for the U.S. presidency.
FRANK: Bill won the three contestant 1992 Presidential
election against Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush [the father] and
Independent billionaire Ross Perot. Bill and Hillary were now in the media
spotlight, probed by reporters and challenged to explain every past
questionable action, first Whitewater. What was Whitewater? (See end under:
Added Sources).
BETTY: Whitewater was a planned resort in beautiful western
Arkansas. Bill and Hillary were invited to invest in the venture by co-signing
a bank loan, urged by close friends James McDougal (1940-98) and wife Susan
(1955-). The get-rich scheme failed. McDougal was bailed out with a federal
loan. Whitewater was considered a swindle.
FRANK: Reporters unearthed Troopergate, some Arkansas State
Troopers whom Governor Clinton arranged to supply him with consenting sex
partners. Reporters questioned a secretary Paula Jones who claimed that Bill
initiated a long time sexual connection. She brought suit in court for
financial redress.
BETTY: Reporters also faulted Hillary Clinton, too, for
using her state government connection to receive lucrative legal fees at Rose
Law Firm.
FRANK: To satisfy public concern Bill asked his U.S.
Attorney General Janet Reno (1938) to name a special counsel (lawyer) to
investigate the basis of the incriminating charges. Janet Reno first named
fair-minded Republican Robert Fiske (1930-), soon replaced by antagonistic
Republican Kenneth W. Starr (1946-), who relentlessly sought to bring
impeachable charges against Pres. Clinton.
BETTY: Was there an extremist Republican plot to tarnish and
impeach Pres. Clinton? Was the plotters' intent to replace a weaker successor
Vice President Al Gore by a Republican president in the 2000 election?
FRANK: Yes, wrote David Brock in his 2002 book, Blinded by
the Right; The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. Brock admitted to being one of
several right wing investigative writers paid to print all the dirt possible
about the Clintons.
BETTY: Despite critical media and Republican congressional
impeachment pressure, Bill Clinton as U.S. President did the country's business
exceedingly well. He turned predecessor Pres. George H. W. Bush's large federal
budget deficit into a $200 billion budget surplus, oversaw creation of over 20 million
new jobs, improved Social Security and Medicare, and achieved a 10% increase in
youths entering college.8
FRANK: After the April 1995 Oklahoma City Federal Building
bombing (167 died), Pres. Clinton ministered to the bereaved and to a grieving
nation. His approval rating rose to 60%. President Clinton reshaped welfare
from a "handout" to a "hand up" with time limits on welfare
time and incentives to find work. 9
BETTY: In foreign affairs Pres. Clinton nearly created
Middle East Israeli-Palestinian peace. At Camp David he secured mutual
concessions from the moderate Israeli prime minister and Arafat, but Arafat
backed out, fearing assassination from his own extremists.
FRANK: Hillary Clinton made bad political mistakes in the
first two years of the Clinton presidency: 1-She insisted that her offices be
in the White House West Wing, the policymaking area, traditionally reserved for
the President, Vice President, and press. She threw out the press and evoked much
resentment. 2-She favored secrecy and failed to cooperate with the press. 3-She
micro-managed the Clinton health care package, would not compromise, and thus
unwittingly encouraged enemies of universal health insurance who killed the
bill in Congress. 4-She fired White House travel managers, replaced them with
incompetent political appointees, a mistake critics called
"Travelgate." 5-Refusing access to her Rose Law Firm records by
reporters from the Washington Post, New York Times, and by counsel Ken Starr
only created more suspicion of wrong doing.
BETTY: Hillary Clinton as U.S. First Lady quickly became
unpopular. Bill's advisory staff and hers were antagonistic toward each other.
The press and the Washington establishment despised her. Her mistakes strengthened
the Republicans who won majorities in both houses in the November 1994 midterm
election. A chastened Hillary moved out of the West Wing, stepped out of the
role of co-president, turned inward, sought spiritual renewal from
understanding friends, her pastor at her Washington, D.C. Methodist Church, and
her girlhood mentor Don Jones.
FRANK: From early Yale Law School years Hillary had worked
to improve the lives of women and children. She resumed that cause in her 1996
book, It Takes a Village, about family values in a just society. She backed,
with Bill's help, significant legislation to help children and families. She
traveled to foreign countries as a good will ambassador. In summer 1995 her
speech at the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women won world-wide praise.
Hillary felt restored, reinvigorated, seeing that her influence for good far
outweighed narrow minded hate groups who plagued her during her first two years
in Washington.
BETTY: In 1999, embarrassed by impeachment publicity, pained
over Monica Lewinsky (1973-) and other bitter disclosures, Hillary nonetheless
resolved to stand by Bill and save his presidency. This decision actually freed
her to become the person her own mother and others had taught her to be. Now
she could step out on her own, run for the U.S. Senate from N.Y. State. As a
Senator, instead of earlier arrogance, she listened to what her constituents
wanted. No longer judgmental, she reached across the aisle, befriending and
cooperating with both Republican and Democratic colleagues. She easily won a
second U.S. Senate term in 2006, was popular, successful.
FRANK: Hillary almost defeated Barack Obama as Democratic
nominee for President in 2008. She then put their campaign differences behind
her, so that when he asked her to become Secretary of State, she said yes,
visited and met leaders, created good will everywhere she went.
BETTY: Bill Clinton after leaving office, 2000, wrote his
memoir, My Life (2004), and Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World (2007).
He had built the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Park, 2004;
created the William J. Clinton Foundation to fund humanitarian causes; and took
on United Nations and U.S. special assignments to promote peace, disaster
relief, and justice.
FRANK: Bill Clinton, a skillful speaker, at the 2012 Democratic
National Convention, brilliantly nominated Barack Obama, practically assuring
Obama's later presidential win over Mitt Romney.
BETTY: How will future historians judge President Bill
Clinton? Was he in a class with Franklin Delano Roosevelt?
FRANK: Sadly, no, although some historians see him as the
greatest political talent since Lyndon Baines Johnson. Bill Clinton saw the
political troubles Hillary's obstinacy was bringing to them both but would not
confront her because he owed her a special debt.
BETTY: What did he owe her and why? Why didn't he confront
and correct her?
FRANK: She saved him from becoming a political goner over
the 1992 Gennifer Flowers (1950-) sexual harassment charge which exploded on
the media. Bill's standing in the polls fell very low. He was in despair. Then
Hillary appeared with him in an hour-long TV Sixty Minutes confessional
(January 26, 1992). She assured millions of viewers that their marriage was
rock solid. He owed her, would not confront her, and her obstinacy hurt them
both.10
BETTY: Universal health care was Bill's first goal as
president. Its passage would have assured Bill’s place among the greatest U.S.
presidents. Instead, because of Hillary’s mishandling universal health care
failed. Author Chafe believes that if he had confronted her and taken charge,
Bill with his political genius would have gained its passage, perhaps without
including all he wanted, but with the beginnings necessary to build a
substantial health care system.
FRANK: Betty, what are your final words?
BETTY: My final words: Author William Chafe described how
Bill and Hillary at Yale were, from the first, powerfully attracted to each
other. Hillary fell in love with Bill because of his brilliance, his sincere
wish to improve life in his home state of Arkansas, his already demonstrated
political talents. Bill primed his Yale housemates to help him make a good
impression on Hillary. Bill, a ladies' man with many girl friends, fell in love
with Hillary because she was different: intelligent, self-confident, determined
to make a difference in the world. He moved in to live with her and eventually
persuaded her to marry him. Today, in 2013, admiration for Hillary and Bill
Clinton far outweighs carping critics. Its wait and see if Hillary in the next
presidential election becomes our first woman President. Frank, your final
words.
FRANK: I have three final words: 1-Admiration: I admire the
Clintons' effort to improve the USA and the world. Shouldn't we all be doing
just that? 2-Hope: I hope--we all would hope--that a wiser, more experienced
possible President Hillary Clinton can find ways to bring together contending
-Americans, -nations, -forces, in cooperation, to uplift all, everywhere, no
exceptions. Pie in the sky? Doesn't hope spring eternal? 3-Cooperation is the
key problem-solving mechanism for a President Hillary Clinton or any leader to
achieve. Again, pie in the sky? Impossible? Remember this: when we humans came
down from the trees, out of the forest, the concept that made us master of the
Earth, builders of Nations, makers of Constitutions was cooperation in the hunt
for food, for welfare, a place for everyone, an ever better life for all, no
exceptions.
Thank you for being here, for listening, for reading this
paper.
Footnotes:
1Bill Clinton's mother's husbands: William Jefferson Blythe,
during 1943-46; Roger Clinton, Sr., 1950-67; Jeff Dwire (1969-74; and Richard
Kelley (1982-94). See: http://www.spokeo.com/Virginia+Clinton+Kelley+1
2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jefferson_Blythe,_Jr.
and
http://www.spokeo.com/William+Jefferson+Blythe+Jr+1
3For unusual speculation about Bill Clinton's ancestry, see:
http://tinyurl.com/m5cuhuc
4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley.
5Bill Clinton was called a draft dodger during his 1992
Presidential campaign by former University of Arkansas ROTC director: "I
was informed by the draft board that it was of interest to Senator Fulbright's
office that Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, should be admitted to the ROTC
program ... I believe that he purposely deceived me, using the possibility of
joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction
and get a new draft classification." The ROTC director was a WW II
decorated Army Col. Eugene Holmes (died 2005). see:
http://tinyurl.com/proh4fg
and:
http://tinyurl.com/pznnzz3
8Chafe, 245.
9Chafe, pp. 259-62.
10Chafe, p. 337.
Added Sources:
1--About Clintons, Bill and Hillary, for all related topics,
see:
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/
2--For Best Books On or By the Clintons, see:
http://tinyurl.com/n4ey72d
3--About Bill Clinton's, Impeachment, see:
http://tinyurl.com/lu2gq7q
4--About the Clintons' and Whitewater, see:
http://tinyurl.com/ocbph34
5--About the known women in Bill Clinton's life, see:
http://tinyurl.com/kcnwerx
Four Books Extensively Used:
BETTY: 1-William Chafe, author of Bill and Hillary: The
Politics of the Possible (2012), is Duke
University historian. His Clinton book is a highly readable, thorough, and
psychological interpretation based on the research of best earlier Clinton
books, heavy reliance on the psychology behind the Clintons' choices and
behavior.
FRANK: 2-Carl Bernstein, A Woman in Charge (2007), is excellent on Hillary Clinton by
Washington Post reporter and co-author with Bob Woodward of All the President's
Men, about Watergate.
3-David Brock, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an
Ex-Conservative (2002), details the
conservative extremists, money men, researchers, journals, publishers determined
to besmirch, oust, and supplant Pres. Bill Clinton with a conservative
Republican president.
4-David Maraniss, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill
Clinton (1995), excellently researched
early life of Bill Clinton through October 1991 when he announced his candidacy
for presidency of the United States. END.
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