Conversation | 03/31/2008 11:30 am

'We Just Don't Elect Presidents We Don't Like'

With Lesley Stahl, Liz Smith and Mary Wells

EDITOR’S NOTE: Also featuring special guest, Joni Evans, CEO of wowOwow.

JONI: Well, let’s talk about the campaign. Lesley, what are you thinking about it today?

LESLEY: Well, what’s on my mind today is why Hillary Clinton has taken such a hit for her — let’s call it — “creative fabrication” of what happened to her at that airport in Bosnia. And why John McCain, who made a gaffe the week before about whether Iran was controlling Al Qaeda didn’t. Anybody who’s been looking at the Middle East knows there’s no connection – the Iranians are Shiites; Al Qaeda is Sunni. It’s unfathomable that he didn’t know that. So why does she get tarred and feathered and he gets off easy and goes away? What is the dynamic there? Is it Hillary, or is it something else? And let me throw out a proposition and then we can argue about it if you want: Hillary has a credibility problem. People have said for a long time that she makes things up. It’s one of her largest problems, and it sticks to her. She’s got a sticky problem with telling the truth. And so this fed into it and she cannot escape from it now. It’s crazy to think she did it totally deliberately because her … she’d been warned it wasn’t true. There was something psychological to it in a way, in my mind. And I wonder if it almost isn’t a metaphor for the way she perceives her current situation. Maybe for her what’s going on in the campaign is constant incoming fire and she kind of mixed these up. John McCain, on the other hand, has no problem with foreign policy issues. People think he’s an expert on it so if he makes a little mistake, he’s forgiven. It’s not a problem. It doesn’t resonate and he can move on. It’s just to me a fascinating situation when you look at the two gaffes side by side. Anybody have any thoughts?

MARY: One of the thoughts I had about it, when you were talking, is it seems to me that one of the problems with this particular lie issue for Hillary is that it went on for days. And it just isn’t possible that the people advising her, or that the people around her, wouldn’t have said to her, “This is not a fact and you’re going to get caught up with this. Let’s figure out a solution to this,” much earlier. It just went on too long with her kind of insisting on keeping the lie going. I mean, if they had faced up to it much faster I think it would have been …

LESLEY: But why do you think she did it? It almost makes no sense.

JONI: I wonder if it’s a lie as much as a gaffe. I think there’s a big difference to a lie like, “I did not have sex with that woman.” Maybe it’s just her memory. Maybe she actually believes what she said.

LIZ: I think she just enhanced an experience that she didn’t remember too clearly. And in the same way that people writing memoirs make themselves the heroines and heroes of it. I do think it would have been pretty stupid for her to have done it deliberately. You can’t get away with anything anymore.

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In my opinion, any woman who is a successful candidate for the presidency would need a set to run the gauntlet during her campaign. I think that Hillary may be making a few good ol’ boys up on the Hill a little nervous. She’s a successful woman as well as a powerful one who can give as well as she gets. I would love to see SOMEBODY clean that morass of back-slapping do-nothings in congress out! That’s going to be a tough one for Hillary as she isn’t well liked there. We need to take out government back from the lobbyists and anyone else who stands in the way of progress and positive change.

By Hedda Lettuce on 03/31/2008 7:47 pm

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Katherine—There is no question of the payback for Hillary Clinton’s work as a young lawyer on the Nixon prosecution team. As John Dean, Nixon’s White House Council has said, Nixon’s bagmen and thugs, Halderman, Ehrlichman, Lee Atwater, Chuck Colson, Donald Segretti, et al were criminal and sinister, but by comparison Karl Rove—and Cheney—make them look like neophytes. John Dean’s book, Worse than Watergate came out in 2004 and he was calling for their impeachment then. 2004 things were still looking relatively tame compared to today. Cheney was in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush #41 Admins and he believes not just in an imperial presidency but in GOP total control of WDC. Tom Delay expressed their tactics when he wrote than they need to be like Stalin and not debate democrats, but ‘wipe them off the face of the earth.’ Their famous booklet was printed and mailed (with Heritage Foundation $$) to every GOP center of influence in the country….Rove and his compadres like Grover Norquist are very vengeful and still hate Hillary for helping to take their idol down. Norquist isn’t known to the public as much, but he long ago organized Wed meetings that took place among 350 GOP organizations around the country, and produced talking points (as Rove did in the WH) for Fox commentators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist Hillary said that the demos lack and need a corollary organization. Norquist was also at one time inciting dust-ups in developing/third world nations, helping to toss out democratically elected leaders and replace them with US (GOP admin) puppets. In his WDC office he had a photo of himself in Afghanistan holding a AK47. I think that 2008 will be even nastier than 2000-2004 because there is more at stake. And while some here have said Gore gave it up etc— Bush spent $13+M on the recount, Gore $3M and while Enron and Halliburton planes (against Fed law) flew paid GOP staffers to Florida to stage a ‘riot’ to disrupt the recount. They want John GW McClone to continue the program. Whatever it takes is what’s going to happen. The world would have never endured the hell of the past 7 years if Bill Clinton would have prosecuted #41 for Iran-Contra etc..All the current stuff is just a furtherance of that. And who won the first Gulf War? Halliburton and Enron. I’m no crusader…just have my eyes open and amazing how naked it all is. But then when Jackie was 31 and arrived in the WH she said to Huge Sidley looking out over WDC, “Everyday they go out and do battle for all of this.” Eleven words that sum it all up in her understated way, “battle’ being the most understated word of all. We’re talking “nukuleer” politics as GW would say.

By Buh-Bye Hillary Hillary Buh-Bye on 03/31/2008 11:09 pm

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I wonder how many of us get swept up by the concept of putting a WOMAN in the White House rather than simply the best candidate, I know it’s tempting for me at times. I agree that Hillary blew it with the stupid Bosnia story and God only knows why she felt compelled to have to beef up any “military experience”, really bad judgement on her part but I guess sort of inconsequential in the larger context. What’s unexplainable and unforgiveable in my opinion is to have had the bad judgement to vote for a blatantly illegal and unnecessary war, why aren’t we questioning that? Let’s not get wrapped up in whetheror not having ovaries is reason enough to be elected president (granted, anybody can make a better one than the one we’ve had to bear for 7 years), I think she needs to be held accountable for what was either being incredibly misinformed or even worse, calculating enough to vote for the war in order to have the correct posture as a potential presidential candidate.

By Dora M on 03/31/2008 8:06 pm

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Dora, Re “Either being incredibly misinformed or even worse, calculating enough to vote for the war in order to have the correct posture as a potential presidential candidate.” And neither is OK with me. The lies were evident to most of planet Earth….they should have been to her too, and according to John Kerry there was plenty of behind the scenes heated debate…our ‘leaders’ (Except for a few like Barbara Lee) voted in support so they wouldn’t appear weak. There was an EXCELLENT speech by Senator Byrd Mid Feb 2003—they all heard it. I email the link to the SF Chronicle Editor and they put it on the Op Ed page. March 17th I went to lunch w my son on his B-day at Francis Ford Coppola’s restaurant……I can remember how happy we were because of the massive worldwide protests in Feb 2003—it would be averted. When I turned on my laptop on March 18th and saw Bush Inc had attacked I knew everything that Senator Byrd had predicted would come true. And it has. There is no way I am voting for a woman who wrote It Takes a Village and voted for this organized mass murder. Even the Pope. The heads of every religions—including Bush and Cheney’s churches. All the Nobel laureates, etc etc. We all knew then. And so did she. Here’s Senator Byrd’s excellent floor speech. http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0212-07.htm

By Buh-Bye Hillary Hillary Buh-Bye on 03/31/2008 11:29 pm

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Of course we don’t—the Supreme Court does. As long as it’s not McCain—I’d sacrifice a year’s drinking of Sangiovese for that bastard not to be elected.

By Frank Peterson on 03/31/2008 10:24 pm

Frank, Well I share your thoughts. And BTW just so you don’t need to go completely w/o. The SF Chronicle wine critics put together a list of 20 good cheap wines and termed Charles Shaw (AKA Two-Buck Chuck) Shiraz as good as any $100 bottle. I wrote a piece on Fred Franzia (Two Buck’s Dad and the biggest owner of vineyards in California) and then met his publicist (also Robert Mondavi’s publicist) while sitting in the UCSF ER with my shattered foot….very interesting man. Here’s the piece….just in case you don’t know about Two-Buck….it’s only distributed through Trader Joe’s and only $2 in California. http://ezinearticles.com/?Two-Buck-Chuck—-The-Fastest-Selling-Wine-in-H…

By Buh-Bye Hillary Hillary Buh-Bye on 03/31/2008 11:43 pm

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Hillary blew it when she didn’t separate herself politically from Bill Clinton when she chose to make New York State her home-base to pivot to a Presidential run. Her dependency upon him at pivotal junctures, rather than stand/defend or lose on her own — has cost her and all professional women during this Campaign, for years to come. Asking not to be selected because she is a woman and then defaulting to that rationale, is more of the same. Hillary Clinton should have and could have run ALONE, knowing intimately the faustian bargain running fused with Bill is. She has made her choices and there are consequences. I, for one, do not want a 3rd and 4th term of Bill Clinton triangulating and losing the Congress…again. There is too much to do and THAT and only THAT should be the basis of our collective decision. The Clinton drama(s) are a cost we can ill afford at this moment in time. A woman will rise who will not be fused with her husband as a GUARANTEE of success. She will take the risks, pay her own dues and not ask the Nation to buy into a dysfunctional “two-fer” overly complex, no accountability for-profit for the spouse SETUP. Hillary Clinton’s refusal to disclose possible conflicts-of-interests in the form of tax returns since leaving The White House defacto bankrupt and provide a list of donors to The Clinton Library/Foundation to the tune of more than $500million in 7 years — is an unacceptable standard for those who seek the Presidency as a fused candidate for what amounts to an (illegal) 3rd and 4th term. As a middle aged woman I had hoped to pull the lever for a woman’s Presidential candidacy in my lifetime. I am unwilling to do so for just ANY woman, any more than I would just ANY man. It is time for a new beginning. Our children intuitively know this. The boomers at their age made amazing changes to the American zeitgeist against the wishes of our parents. We knew then, what they know now. Let’s trust them and TURN THE PAGE.

By Renata on 03/31/2008 10:47 pm

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What was it Grandma said?…..Oh yes, a lady never discusses politics or religion. This ain’t my grandma’s election. Wish she was here to to talk it over with. This, a woman who marched for women’s rights.

By iris odonata on 03/31/2008 11:38 pm

Iris, My grandmother came from a political family. She was a lady, but did she ever talk politics. She’d be talking up a streak right now…

By Buh-Bye Hillary Hillary Buh-Bye on 03/31/2008 11:53 pm

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Suzanne: What do you think she’d be saying? Me Irish grandmother was never one without an opinion AND, politics got served along with the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie (miss that, too).

By iris odonata on 04/01/2008 12:34 am

Check out Chris Hitchens on Slate re Hillary and Bosnia.

By Jeannie Williams on 04/01/2008 8:10 am

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McCain will be undone by Iraq. He is on record insisting the surge is working, but the country will implode with internecine strife in the months leading up to the election.

By Addie Pray on 04/01/2008 9:30 am

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I agree that the presidency seems to be a popularity contest where the most charismatic, television adaptable will win. This then is the crux of my comment: how does it feel to be running for president, relative to any of the candidates, when no one likes any of them? The people I talk to about this election are either not going to vote (…”for the first time since I was overseas in the army when I voted with an absentee ballot..”) or are writing in Colin Powell’s name; …..”a man too good to be president”. How sad, that the two people in our current times that would have gotten my vote: Colin Powell today, and Mario Cuomo when he abruptly dropped out of the race, are too good to be president. Something inherently wrong here.

By Andy C on 04/01/2008 9:58 am

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have they forgotten so quickly the image of colin powell holding up that little vile of powder at the UN?

By Buh- Bye on 04/16/2008 2:06 pm

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thank you for intelligent conversation, even if i am only a vicarious participant. i hope Hillary reads your comments. Mary Wells, always smart. And, I hope Hillary pays attention. “cockroach” of politics??? perfect discription. unfortunately.

By sl lambert on 04/01/2008 1:55 pm