Disaster For Hillary--Dead Friend Diane Blair's Papers Go Public
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 AP
BY: Alana Goodman February 9, 2014
freebeacon.com
The papers of Diane Blair, a political science professor Hillary Clinton described as her “closest friend” before Blair’s death in 2000, record years of candid conversations with the Clintons on issues ranging from single-payer health care to Monica Lewinsky.
The archive includes correspondence, diaries, interviews, strategy memos, and contemporaneous accounts of conversations with the Clintons ranging from the mid-1970s to the turn of the millennium.
Diane Blair’s husband, Jim Blair, a former chief counsel at Tyson Foods Inc. who was at the center of “Cattlegate,” a 1994 controversy involving the unusually large returns Hillary Clinton made while trading cattle futures contracts in the 1970s, donated his wife’s papers to the University of Arkansas Special Collections library in Fayetteville after her death.
The full contents of the archive, which before 2010 was closed to the public, have not previously been reported on and shed new light on Clinton’s three decades in public life. The records paint a complex portrait of Hillary Clinton, revealing her to be a cutthroat strategist who relished revenge against her adversaries and complained in private that nobody in the White House was “tough and mean enough.”
THE SEX FILES On July 28, 1997, President Clinton was facing yet another wave of allegations from yet another woman. Kathleen Willey had accused Clinton of sexually assaulting her, and Blair faxed a Drudge Report item about her claims to one of the president’s aides.
Blair’s handwritten note attached to the story: “Do we take Matt Drudge seriously?”
Six months later, Drudge would break the story of an affair between Clinton and 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky, setting in motion the events that would lead to the president’s impeachment.
When Clinton finally admitted to the relationship after repeated denials, Hillary Clinton defended her husband in a phone call with Blair. She said her husband had made a mistake by fooling around with the “narcissistic loony toon” Lewinsky, but was driven to it in part by his political adversaries, the loneliness of the presidency, and her own failures as a wife.
She told Blair that the affair did not include sex “within any real meaning” of the term and noted President Clinton “tried to manage” Monica after they broke up but things spiraled “beyond control.”
Blair described the contents of the Sept. 9, 1998, phone call in a journal entry.
“But, she does say this to put his actions in context. Ever since he took office they’ve been going thru personal tragedy ([the death of] Vince [Foster], her dad, his mom) and immediately all the ugly forces started making up hateful things about them, pounding on them.”
In her conversations with Blair, the first lady gave her husband credit for trying to end the affair with Lewinsky, and said he did not take advantage of his White House intern.
“It was a lapse, but she says to his credit he tried to break it off, tried to pull away, tried to manage someone who was clearly a ‘narcissistic loony toon’; but it was beyond control,” wrote Blair.
“HRC insists, no matter what people say, it was gross inappropriate behavior but it was consensual (was not a power relationship) and was not sex within any real meaning (standup, liedown, oral, etc.) of the term.”
ALL THOSE WHINEY WOMEN
Privately, the Clinton White House was acutely sensitive to public perceptions of President Clinton’s treatment of women.
The Clinton camp found itself dealing with Bill Clinton’s infidelity early on. In a confidential Feb. 16, 1992, memo entitled “Possible Investigation Needs,” Clinton campaign staff proposed ways to suppress and discredit stories about the then-Arkansas governor’s affairs.
Campaign operatives Loretta Lynch and Nancy McFadden wrote the memo, addressed to campaign manager David Wilhelm.
The first item on the itinerary discussed “GF,” a reference to Gennifer Flowers, the actress and adult model who had recently disclosed her 12-year affair with Bill Clinton.
“Exposing GF: completely as a fraud, liar and possible criminal to stop this story and related stories, prevent future non-related stories and expose press inaction and manipulation,” said the memo.
In 1998 Bill Clinton admitted he had had a sexual relationship with Flowers.
Another item, headlined “Women,” referred to Elizabeth Ward and Lencola Sullivan, also rumored to have had relationships with Bill.
“Elizabeth Ward … determine attitude & check out background; Any Reep connections? When does Playboy come out?”
YOU ARE ENTERING A WORLD OF PAIN
Days after President Clinton’s impeachment in 1998, the first lady called Blair in good spirits, telling her friend that, “Most people in this town have no pain threshold.”
“[Hillary] sounded very up, almost jolly,” wrote Blair. “Told me how she and Bill and Chelsea had been to church, to a Chinese restaurant, to a Shakespeare play, greeted everywhere with wild applause and cheers—this, she said is what drives their adversaries totally nuts, that they don’t bend, do not appear to be suffering.”
Hillary Clinton’s “adversaries” included the media, Republicans, and top members of President Clinton’s staff, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis of the contents of the Blair archive.
“HC says press has big egos and no brains,” wrote Blair on May 19, 1993, during the White House travel office controversy. “That [the White House is] just going to have to work them better; that her staff has figured it out and would be glad to teach [Bill’s] staff.”
The First Lady often confided in Blair about her “hellacious” first year in the White House, and her many clashes with staffers, administration figures, and her husband. By the spring of 1994, Hillary was “furious” at Bill for “ruining himself and the Presidency.”
“She keeps trying to shape things up, knows what’s wrong, but [Bill] can’t fire people, exert discipline, punish leakers,” Blair wrote on May 17, 1994. “Never had strategy for Whitewater, troopers, Paula [Jones]. … Inability to organize, make tough choices, drives her nuts.”
Blair, a frequent guest at the White House, recounted two nights in mid-March 1993 when President Clinton spoke on the “theme of being spied on, taped, watched, imprisoned.”
“[Bill] told me last 2, 3 months hideously stressful, and has really never had a break since campaign,” Blair wrote. “Said when he named [Warren] Christopher to [State Department], screwed up the transition.”
The insularity of the Clinton White House was not lost on administration officials.
“Chat w. [Attorney General] Janet Reno,” Blair wrote on April 24, 1993. “She concerned that [Hillary Clinton is] resenting her ‘celebrity’ status.”
“Janet wants to connect w. HC; not communicate thru Carol Rasco,” Blair added. “Finds HC a ‘mask.’”
SINGLE-PAYER NECESSARY
On Feb. 23, 1993, Blair joined the Clintons for a family dinner at the White House. The subject of health care reform came up.
“At dinner, [Hillary] to [Bill] at length on the complexities of health care—thinks managed competition a crock; single-payer necessary; maybe add to Medicare,” Blair wrote.
The account is at odds with public statements by the former First Lady that she never supported the single-payer option.
In an interview with the New York Times as she ran for president in 2008, Hillary Clinton said she had never seriously considered adopting a single-payer system, in which the government, using funds appropriated from taxpayers, pays for all health care expenses.
“You know, I have thought about this, as you might guess, for 15 years and I never seriously considered a single payer system,” said Clinton in the interview.
At the time of Blair’s account, the First Lady recently had been appointed to the president’s health care task force and had started her push for an insurance reform that hinged on the “managed competition” model.
However, at the February 1993 dinner, the First Lady already seemed to regret her decision to take on health care reform.
“[Bill’s] tenderly hugging and thanking [Hillary] for sucking up to all thos ego’s nd taking all this shit [sic],” wrote Blair. “She’s signaling him what a mess health care is, bu also, sweetly, ‘Don’t worry’ [sic].”
By the spring, the First Lady seemed deeply anxious about the effort.
“[Hillary] adamant; [Bill] must devise new outside strategy; we’re getting killed. Congress a bunch of whiners; no courage. Her health care plan will save billions in long run but will cost big $ up front. [Members of Congress] don’t work; only 3 days a week; only care for re-election,” wrote Blair. “[Bill] clearly not very happy w. his own crew and advisors. [Hillary] urging hard ball.”
As the First Lady prepared to testify before Congress in September 1993, Blair wrote that “she’s begun to see that they don’t really care about the issues but want to feel they’re part of the process. So she’s slobbering over their ‘craft’ as she testifies.”
Hillary Clinton’s testimony is seen in retrospect as the high point of her failed health care campaign.
“The week may have been the pinnacle of her career as First Lady,” wrote Carl Bernstein in his 2008 book Woman in Charge. “Hillary was making history, and there were comparisons on the floor of Congress to Martha Washington, Eleanor Roosevelt, and in one particularly tortured leap of logic, Abraham Lincoln.”
SUPREME THWART
Hillary Clinton’s influence on White House decisions went beyond policy, according to the Blair papers.
A three-page memo written by Blair on May 11, 1994, shows the First Lady privately urging President Clinton to reject his preferred 1994 candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court because of political considerations.
While Bill Clinton favored the late Arkansas Judge Richard Arnold, he and his wife had concerns about the judge’s health.
Hillary Clinton also argued that rejecting Arnold would send a “message” to the judge’s ally, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette publisher Walter Hussman, Jr., whose paper often printed unflattering stories about the Clintons.
“Goddamn Hussman needs to know that it’s his own goddamn fault; that he can’t destroy everybody from Ark. and everything about the state and not pay the price for his precious Richard [Arnold],” Hillary said, according to Blair’s account.
“He needs to get the message big-time, that Richard might have a chance [to be appointed to the Supreme Court] next round if Hussman and his minions will lay off all this outrageous lies and innuendo.”
The details in Blair’s memo challenge the contemporary understanding of Hillary Clinton’s role in the debate over the 1994 appointment. The First Lady has been credited as one of the few members of the president’s inner circle who lobbied in favor of Arnold’s nomination.
However, that seems not to be the case.
President Clinton has said he did not appoint Arnold for health reasons. The judge had been diagnosed with advanced lymphoma, and according to the Blair memo his doctors could not guarantee he would live more than five years.
He died in 2004.
The health concerns were related to President Clinton’s fear that Arnold could be his last Supreme Court appointment.
“At this point BC not sure he can get re-elected; they’re killing him in the South, rise of fundamentalism, the Nazi’s. Some of that he did to himself—gay rights in the military. Others just hate the one who’s in,” Blair wrote in an account of one of her conversations with the president.
According to the memo, Bill Clinton dispatched Blair to discuss the issue with Hillary, but the First Lady stood her ground.
“If HRC carried the day, and it sounds as if she is, [the nominee] will be [Bruce] Babbitt,” wrote Blair. “She’s not wild about him. Wishes there were a 3rd choice.”
President Clinton ended up appointing Stephen Breyer, who became an associate justice of the Supreme Court in August 1994.
THE FUTURE IS NOW
As Hillary Clinton prepares for a possible 2016 presidential run, the Clinton team has a great incentive to focus on the future.
However, recent weeks have made it clear this will not be easy.
Sen. Rand Paul’s remark about Bill Clinton’s “predatory behavior” on a recent Sunday talk show generated a days-long media firestorm and reignited the decades-old Lewinsky controversy.
While Hillary Clinton has gone from the White House to the Senate to the State Department, experts say she will likely be forced to readdress some of the controversies that defined her husband’s presidency if she decides on a 2016 bid.
Neither a Clinton spokesman nor a spokesman for the Clinton Foundation returned a request for comment from the Free Beacon on the materials contained in the Blair archive.
As the 2016 contest draws near, however, the contents of this little-known archive of one of the closest friends of the most famous woman in the world are sure to receive fresh scrutiny.
While thousands of Diane Blair’s papers are available to the public at the University of Arkansas Library, an undisclosed number of documents remain kept in a restricted section of the archive. The Free Beacon was unable to gain access to those documents.
“With this collection, [Diane Blair’s] contributions will grow and live on, enlarging our understanding of history, politics and culture,” Hillary Clinton said in a video address at the opening of Blair’s archive in 2010.
“I hope also that some young scholar will come along and write the story of Diane,” she added. “We miss her still but this, along with so many of her contributions to us, lives on.”
READ THE HILLARY PAPERS HERE The Clinton Files by WashingtonFreeBeacon
The Hillary Papers
Archive of 'closest friend' paints portrait of ruthless First Lady
 
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