I think the Washington Establishment has disliked the Clintons for quite a while now, but pulled their punches as long as Bill was in office.
Here's another less than complimentary article, news this time rather than editorial, from today's A section:
>>For the Clintons' Last Act, Reviews Don't Look Good
By John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 27, 2001 ; Page A01
It may have been the most elaborately planned exit from the White House ever -- two full months of executive orders, exit
interviews, farewell speeches and valedictory celebrations for President Bill Clinton.
One week after the former president and Hillary Rodham Clinton left the White House, there is widespread acknowledgment
even among close Clinton aides over how that planning ended: in a public relations debacle. A shower of legal, financial and
political issues cumulatively created a controversy-pocked transition.
The Clintons are beginning the next chapter of their lives much as they began the White House chapter. Hillary Clinton, fresh off
an impressive victory in her bid for the U.S. Senate, is facing shouted questions about family finances, including whether it was
proper to take nearly $200,000 in gifts as they left the White House. The former president -- whose last weeks in office were
more active than any predecessor, including a flurry of environmental orders -- is reported by confidants to be stewing in his
new home in New York over the uproar caused by last-minute pardons and other final-days controversies.
Several Clinton friends and advisers yesterday blamed news media coverage for exaggerating or distorting some of the
controversies, including reports alleging last-minute vandalism at the White House. But virtually all these people said Clinton's
last days fell short of high hopes. And several aides acknowledged a curious puzzle: How could a politician who regularly relied
on superior public relations skills to trump Republicans stumble as he left the stage?
The answer, according to a variety of advisers who have worked with both Clintons, is a combination of bad luck and bad
judgments. Several issues -- such as Clinton's agreement with independent counsel Robert W. Ray to admit making false
statements under oath in exchange for avoiding prosecution -- were complicated enough that it was inevitable they would not
be resolved until the last minute, clouding the president's departure.
But, on the gifts and pardons, there were some apparent misjudgments about consequences of the sort that former officials say
both Clintons are prone to make on legal and financial questions, when they routinely shut out political advisers and keep their
own counsel.
Former White House chief of staff John D. Podesta, sources said, spent his final hours learning of controversial new pardons
that Clinton was considering even as he was pleading against other pardons that would have been even more controversial.
The clumsy exit has raised concerns among their supporters about how the former president or Hillary Clinton will manage their
new roles. Both of them promise to be looming figures on the national stage, but will be operating without the extensive
apparatus of political aides and handlers that were at their call in the White House.
"They are two of the dominant figures of our time; they both have tremendous futures," said one confidant. "But this is a
challenge that both have had and will have in the future, and that is to keep a few people around who can bring out their best
and limit the downside."
Yesterday, however, recriminations over the exits were echoing through Clinton circles. "Brutal," is how one former top Clinton
aide described the past week. "I'm livid," over the lost opportunity, bemoaned another.
At least one of the multiple controversies swirling around the transition abated yesterday, as White House press secretary Ari
Fleischer backed off his assertion that Bush aides were conducting a formal "cataloguing" of alleged vandalism by Clinton aides.
Instead, he said, one aide was merely keeping a mental list, and Clinton's new chief of staff said she received assurances from a
senior Bush official that damage to property was isolated.
But the other controversies, in particular the handling of the pardons and the gifts, were sowing discord among different factions
of Clinton loyalists. Some former West Wing aides were angry at former White House counsel Jack Quinn, who they believed
intervened with Clinton to help secure a pardon for a client, fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich, without sufficiently warning
his former boss about the likely political consequences. Quinn has said he followed appropriate procedures for seeking a
pardon.
And some former aides who are loyal to the former president said they are upset with the former first lady, believing the
decision to accept such a large number of lavish gifts -- apparently to help furnish two new homes -- bore Hillary Clinton's
imprint, as did some of the pardons that went to politically well-connected New Yorkers. "Our side always had to push back
against her side," said one former West Wing aide. "All this happened so late that our side was not there to push back." Hillary
Clinton has said she was not involved in the pardons.
In fact, in an echo of earlier episodes involving Whitewater and impeachment, political advisers often labored merely to find out
what was going on -- much less to weigh in with advice on a decision. Fearing an uproar, Podesta lobbied hard to overcome
Clinton's inclination to pardon former Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker, who was convicted in an offshoot of the Whitewater
investigation, and financier Michael Milken, according to sources. While battling on this front, these sources said, Podesta was
caught flat-footed by the news that Clinton had decided to pardon his brother, Roger Clinton, who was convicted of drug
offenses in the 1980s.
"No one with political instincts was being heard from," said one former senior White House official.
Similar comments were heard last month from Hillary Clinton's circle. After running a disciplined and effective Senate campaign,
overcoming a host of skeptics within her own party, she effectively tuned out outside advice cautioning her about decisions to
accept an $8 million book advance and to purchase a second expensive home on the edge of Georgetown. "She made very
clear," one confidant said, "she was doing this the way she wanted to do it."
For all the planning that went into preparing for and staging Clinton's final days in office, some former aides say they were upset
that so little preparation had been made for his first days out of it. The former president as yet has no press secretary, and there
has been no organized effort to respond to the questions about various controversies. And, unlike when he was president,
Clinton cannot chase bad news away with a policy speech or executive order.
"The Clintons are finding out first-hand what it's like not to have a press operation," said one adviser.
Days after controversies erupted, former aides drafted to help make the Clintons' case say there are effective rejoinders to
some of the criticism they have received.
The $190,000 in gifts they accepted includes some gifts received in earlier years, but which the Clintons only decided recently
to take with them out of the White House; the cumulative gifts they accepted are roughly on a scale with what previous
presidents have taken, and not nearly so grandiose as Ronald Reagan's decision to let friends purchase a $2 million home for
him until he raised money to buy it back.
The Rich pardon, these aides note, does not protect him against civil penalties for his alleged misdeeds in the 1970s. And
Clinton's Inauguration Day rallies, criticized as an attempt to hog the spotlight, had precedents in previous presidencies. "We
don't control what the news media cover," said an aide.
One aide said that the controversies cumulatively represented "the last gasp of the Clinton haters."<<
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