Hillary Clinton after winning the Nevada Democratic caucus vote in 2008. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
I’m sorry, gentle reader. You’ve spent the week listening to terrible news on everything from flu to foreign affairs, and now we’ve got a story about how Hillary Clinton tolerated sexual harassment in her presidential campaign.
There are several ways to handle this, and one is definitely to consider moving to another country. Another is to say that you’re not going to listen to any of this as long as the country is run by a man whose track record on sexual issues is Cro-Magnon. Or to ask what would have happened to Hillary if she had been recorded bragging about how fame gives her the right to grab men by their private parts.
But let’s be tough-minded and think this new controversy through: According to a Times report by Maggie Haberman and Amy Chozick, during the 2008 presidential campaign, a senior Clinton aide named Burns Strider was accused of sexually harassing a woman who had the bad luck to be working in his office. Clinton’s campaign manager recommended he be fired. Instead, the candidate opted for sending him to counseling and docking him several weeks’ pay. The law firm that worked for the campaign said it had set up a process for handling sexual harassment complaints and this was “appropriate action.”
One of the deep, deep ironies of this story is Strider’s job, which was “faith adviser.” Among his duties was sending Clinton scriptural passages every morning.
Things I take into consideration here: As Gail points out it was a first offense, and he likely would have remained in the Democratic Party system anyway. It was ten years ago when the landscape was very different. Hillary's 2008 campaign differed from her 2016 campaign. The earlier campaign was not focused as heavily on women's issues as the later one. In fact, advisors steered her away from the "woman candidate" role then.
Finally, and this is key to my take, no one, least of all Hillary Clinton, has ever said Hillary Clinton was perfect. It was an imperfect decision. She is human and makes mistakes.
A story appeared today about something that happened in 2008. I was dismayed when it occurred, but was heartened the young woman came forward, was heard, and had her concerns taken seriously and addressed.
When the temperatures are just right overnight, you can wake up one
morning after a dense dew or rain and see a plethora of mushrooms, some
quite healthy and large, where the day before there were none. If the
first two weeks of 2014 are any indication, we are likely to see a
literary metaphor of this phenomenon around Hillary Clinton.
Last week in Politico,
Maggie Haberman laced together a series of her 2013 articles and
fashioned them into a heavily-laden "shadow campaign" which, of course,
does not exist in actuality. When that canvas broke open, a mass of
articles erupted based on her article or on portions of it just like
mushrooms after an April shower.
This week, Politico unleashed what is fast becoming a torrent with an article by Amie
Parnes and Jonathan Allen (in advance of their book, of course) about
what they have dubbed a "hit list" despite the only quote from an
unnamed Clinton insider calling it a a reward list (put together by staffers not by Hillary) . The title alone
betrays an attitude toward Hillary, and the mushrooms are sprouting.
What
the meme will be next week or the week after is anyone's guess save
those who are planning it right now, but it appears that for the better
part of 2014 there will be rains and ensuing mushrooms that feed on
the moisture because there are some who cannot be satisfied with
watching Hillary doing her splendid work in the here and now and seek
somehow to part the cloak of invisibility she has drawn around her plans
for the future.
I
intentionally have not linked to these articles. If you want to see
them, you will have to do your own search. Until Hillary is ready to
make a statement about 2016, I continue to do what Hillary told us to
years ago: watch and wait. If she wants mists and clouds around her
agenda, I will not be seeding them for rain.
Bill de Blasio's big fundraiser with Hillary Clinton
is Oct. 21 at The Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, and according to the
invitation email, it's them versus the right-wing bad guys.
"Our Republican Tea Party opponents are willing to spend whatever it
takes to disrupt this campaign and distort Bill's vision for bold
progressive change. And this reception with Hillary Clinton will be one
of the final opportunities we have to raise the funds we need to make it
over the finish line on November 5th," de Blasio Finance Director Ross
Offinger says in the email.
"Every dollar of your ticket price goes towards making sure this
campaign for progressive change has what it takes to send Bill to City
Hall, and change this city so that it works for every New Yorker."
De Blasio worked at HUD during the Clinton Adminstration and went on
to run the former First Lady's successful 2000 run for the U.S. Senate
before becoming a city councilman and then public advocate over the course of his political career.
SNIP
Here's the full text of the invite:
Please Join
Hillary Rodham Clinton
at an event in support of
Bill de Blasio
Democratic Candidate for Mayor of NYC
Monday, October 21, 2013
6:30pm - 8:30pm
The Roosevelt Hotel
45 East 45 St
New York, NY
Contribution Levels
Co-Chair: Raise $25,000
Co-Chairs are invited to a private VIP reception with Hillary Clinton and Bill de Blasio with photographs
Co-Host: Raise $10,000
Co-Hosts are invited to a photo line with Hillary Clinton and Bill de Blasio
Hillary
Clinton will be the featured speaker at the tenth anniversary event
later this month for the Center for American Progress, the influential
Washington-based progressive think tank and activist group, POLITICO has
learned.
Clinton’s remarks at the Oct. 24 event come as she
continues to debate whether to launch a second presidential campaign –
and put her before a critical policy group that is key for candidates
looking to address progressive Democrats.
The
president of CAP, which in its earliest incarnation was focused heavily
on ending the Iraq war, is Neera Tanden, a longtime adviser to Clinton,
who worked on her 2000 U.S. Senate race in New York and later on her
2008 presidential campaign. Tanden and CAP founder John Podesta, Bill
Clinton’s former chief of staff, are also expected to speak.
Even while vacationing, Hillary Clinton manages to grab headlines. Maggie Haberman at Politicoreports the latest addition to Hillary' s growing agenda of personal appearances. The group's website currently has no announcement of this engagement.
Hillary Clinton is set to be the featured attraction at the
private equity firm The Carlyle Group’s investor conference next month —
the latest in a string of paid speeches the former secretary of state
is making in the window she has to decide on a 2016 campaign.
Two sources familiar with the event confirmed Clinton’s attendance at the Sept. 9 event in Washington.
The moderator is the group’s founder, David Rubenstein, a Democrat.
Six months after resigning as secretary of state, a post that precluded her from participating in political campaigns
and commenting directly on domestic issues with partisan implications,
Hillary Clinton is set to re-enter the world of politics per Politico via Maggie Haberman.
Those itching for her to make a declaration one way or another will
have to wait, however. She is only dipping her toes in by backing a
long time pal. Hillary will be easing into her political reset by
hosting a fund raiser for Clinton buddy Terry McAuliffe at her
Washington DC home. McAuliffe is running for governor in Virginia.
Hillary Clinton will host a fundraiser for Virginia gubernatorial
candidate Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton family friend, at her
home in Washington next month, POLITICO has learned.
The Sept. 30
event marks the former secretary of state’s first political event since
leaving Foggy Bottom earlier this year, sources said.
August is the month that finds Hillary Clinton in the Hamptons
at least for part of the month. Bill Clinton has routinely rented a
mansion in East Hampton for a few weeks of the past several summers and
has celebrated his birthday there. Last year, Hillary had an
especially abbreviated 10-day stay sandwiched between an extended farewell tour of Africa and a trip to the Pacific starting with the tiny Cook Islands.
According to Maggie Haberman at Politico,
there is an invitation circulating indicating that once again the
Clintons are planning some R & R in the Hamptons this summer.
Bill
and Hillary Clinton will co-host a high-dollar event next month in a
tony Long Island enclave to benefit their family foundation, according
to an invitation that started circulating last week.
The event is
being billed as a “very special dinner with President Bill Clinton and
Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton” on Aug. 23 in Bridgehampton, at $5,000
a head.
Co-chairing the event costs $25,000 and chairing it
carries a $50,000 price tag.“All proceeds will support the life-changing
work of the newly renamed Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton
Foundation - improving global health, strengthening economies, promoting
health and wellness, and protecting the environment by fostering
innovative partnerships among businesses, governments, NGOs, and private
citizens,” the invitation reads.
Hillary Clinton is filling out the policy side of her post-State
Department life, adding a longtime Obama-world veteran to her newly
created office at the Clinton Foundation.
Madhuri Kommareddi, the
new director of program development for the Office of Hillary Rodham
Clinton, worked as a policy aide on President Barack Obama’s 2008
campaign, as well as on his transition team, according to an email sent
out by the Clinton Foundation internally.
She was also a director for international economic
affairs at the White House Security Council, and was an associate staff
secretary in the White House.
Hillary Clinton is staffing up at her family’s foundation,
bringing on a longtime associate as the executive director of her office
there, according to an e-mail sent around this week.
Maura Pally,
who worked in cultural affairs at the State Department while Clinton
was there, later went on to work at Bloomberg Philanthropies.
“Maura will supervise Secretary Clinton’s
Foundation-related activities, exploring new opportunities and ways to
leverage existing Foundation efforts. She is excited to be joining the
Foundation family,” said Clinton Foundation CEO Bruce Lindsey in an
email to staff that was sent around Tuesday.
And the Hillary fever continues! This time from Irish Central. They love our girl as much as we do! The secret locked Twitter account! DA-DA-DA-DAAAAA! Must
mean she is running! (Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her
opening an office at the family foundation. Naaah!) I cannot help but
think that the “Irish Central Staff Writers” are female and were also Nancy Drew fans (as were so many of us).
Locked Twitter account @HillaryClinton also stirs speculation
By
IrishCentral Staff Writers
Further fueling candidacy rumors, a Twitter account named ‘Hillary
Clinton’ has been located, though it has been locked thus preventing any
information to be publicized yet.
Oh the difference between then and now! When Hillary Clinton was
secretary of State press releases with scheduled events regularly
appeared in my inbox. Now, all is speculation. Here are some
possibilities in the near and far future.
Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush at Politico
went out on a long limb today with a prediction of personnel who might
be part of a campaign for Hillary Clinton 2016. Most of the names were
predictable, and without mentioning anyone in particular, I would
suggest an infusion of manners to a few of them before they begin
sending emails in her name. We may be Democrats and relatively informal
people, but this New Dem tendency of addressing people with "hey" in
the subject line is offensive and unbecoming anyone associated with
Hillary.
Forecasting the nature of a possible campaign of a so far
undeclared candidate, they asserted, based on unnamed sources that
Hillary will activate a Twitter account soon.
By MAGGIE HABERMAN and GLENN THRUSH |
One
indication Clinton’s team might lean toward the latter in 2016: She is
likely to soon start posting to the soon-to-be-activated @hillaryclinton
on Twitter, signaling her first personal foray into the medium outside
her official State Department account, according to a person familiar
with the situation.
One
small correction I would make to that passage: That would not be her
first personal foray into the Twittersphere. Veterans of
HillaryClinton.com will remember her Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter
accounts from 2008. The Twitterfeed ended rather abruptly right before
South Dakota, if I remember correctly. Her website was where I learned abut Twitter, and I joined to be able
to follow her. At first, I actually thought it was something she had
invented because it sounds like the kind of word she would use - like
"Townterview," for example. I even posted a comment or sent an email,
I cannot remember which, asking if she had made that up.
We hope her social nets are more
regularly moderated than in 2008 when it seemed to so many of us that
the only person whose blog comments were approved were those of my dear
friend Normita Fenn. We laugh about it now but felt ignored in 2008.
It was frustrating.
In the nearer, and probably more predictable future, we see New York Magazine suggesting that our girl might attend the CDFA awards
next Monday where she possibly present an award to her friend and
frequent designer, Oscar de la Renta. We love seeing her in evening
wear and hope this is true.
Meanwhile, the presenter of Oscar de la Renta's Founder's Award is still a mystery, but WWD reports that Hillary Rodham Clinton just might be
on deck. Clinton is an old friend of the de la Renta's and has worn his
designs on several major occasions, most notably to her daughter
Chelsea's wedding as well as her husband's second Inaugural Ball in
1997. This wouldn't be her first time attending the CFDA Awards on the
designer's behalf; in 2002, she went as his date in this gloriously
poufy-sleeved ensemble. Here's hoping next Monday brings a repeat of
this moment:
I
would also like to thank Mme. Secretary again for her kindness and
patience taking time yesterday to meet me. She is most gracious and
generous. I was so enthralled that I completely forgot to ask her how I
can get her press releases.
Politico's Maggie Haberman is reporting that both Hillary and New
Jersey Governor Chris Christie will be appearing at the Clinton Global Initiative America event to be held in Chicago in June.
Hillary
Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will be the featured
attractions at next month’s Clinton Global Initiative in Chicago,
according to a release going out from the group Thursday.
The
focus of the gathering, which will take place June 13-14, is on speeding
up the United States’ economic recovery and the nation’s long-term
outlook.
Well, no sooner do I post something from the Clinton Foundation website (see prior post) than I discover the foundation has been renamed! I did not see the change reflected on the websiteat all, but this from Maggie Haberman at Politico just came up on Twitter.
Introducing the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
The
Clinton Foundation, set up after the 42nd president left the White
House, was renamed a few weeks ago to include all three Clintons in the
name, sources familiar with the move said.
An email sent around from the Foundation yesterday was addressed from the “Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.”
The
move was made shortly after Hillary Clinton left the State Department,
and was long planned to reflect the work the three have had with the
foundation since its inception, sources familiar with the planning said.
This validates the story of almost exactly a year ago, around mid-April,
that Huma was setting up an office for Hillary at the foundation. Congratulations are in order for all three!
