Clinton's confrontation with Shalala
Bill Clinton roughed up another woman last
week, but the hype surrounding the release of
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's
long-awaited report on impeachable offenses
obscured the incident.
This time, the woman was one of Hillary's
best friends -- and a Cabinet member to boot.
According to reports from inside Clinton's
first Cabinet meeting in nearly eight months
(that's right, eight months -- it's worth
repeating for those of you who still believe
Clinton has actually been "doing the work of
the country") the president dressed down,
rebuked and lowered the boom on Donna
Shalala, his secretary of Health and Human
Services. For what? For actually having the
audacity to question him about his lying,
perjuring, adulterous and juvenile behavior --
that's what.
After listening patiently to his latest sniveling,
insincere apology, Shalala asked Clinton if he
considered his policies and programs more
important than whether he provided moral
leadership and an example of honesty and
integrity.
"I can't believe that is what you're telling us,
that is what you believe, that you don't have
an obligation to provide moral leadership,"
she said, according to one participant in the
meeting. "She said something like, 'I don't care
about the lying, but I'm appalled at the
behavior.'"
That's when Clinton did what he does best --
he belittled the diminutive woman.
"He whacked her," said the source. "He let her
have it."
He sputtered that if her logic had prevailed in
1960, Richard M. Nixon would have been
elected instead of John F. Kennedy. That shut
up Shalala and every other Cabinet member
in the room.
I think this incident warrants a little more
scrutiny, analysis and contemplation. What
does it mean? What does it say about Clinton,
his inner circle and his chief defenders?
First of all, let's remember who Shalala is.
She's a true believer -- a total leftist ideologue,
like her friend Hillary. Clinton, for all of his
faults -- which are legion -- is not. In fact, he
does not really believe in much of anything
other than his own ambition and, well,
"needs."
Having once been a dupe of the left myself, I
understand where Shalala was coming from.
I've witnessed many such encounters among
the politically correct crowd going back to the
'60s. She was confronting Clinton and
explaining that he was, through his personal
and sexual recklessness, jeopardizing "the
cause." The cause, to the Shalala-Hillary axis,
is far more important than the man.
Shalala, keep in mind, is no pious prude.
She's a feminist. She believes little kids
should be given condoms in school and
instructed in the fine art of sexual intercourse.
She defends teaching that homosexuality is
normal and acceptable as an alternative
lifestyle. Like Hillary, she thinks it takes a
village to raise kids, not families.
But she also understands the sexual
revolution she has advocated throughout her
adult life is not complete. There are a lot of
rubes out there in America who still believe in
those antiquated, archaic notions of fidelity
and marriage. They need to be led down the
road to hell slowly, carefully, the Shalalas of
the world believe. Like most feminists, she's
also repulsed by images of powerful men
using their position to seek out sexual
gratification from employees. When
Republicans do it, they call it "sexual
harassment."
This is where Shalala was coming from -- not
to mention, perhaps, the sisterly kinship she
shares with Hillary, who must be more than a
little humiliated by Bill's compulsive, serial
adultery.
But what about Clinton's response? This has
to be, at face value, one of the oddest non
sequiturs of his presidency. What does it
mean? Clinton isn't involved in an election.
Why the comparison with Kennedy in 1960?
Though Clinton is no committed leftist, he's a
master at manipulating the left -- speaking the
language of the left, appeasing the left as a
way to achieve his own personal goals of
empowerment. He understands that true
believers like Shalala and Hillary see life as a
constant struggle toward the goal of global
socialism. To such ardent social engineers, the
cause is waged every day -- not just on
election days.
What Clinton was saying, then, is: "If I go, the
evil right-wingers win. The progressive cause
loses."
He played the Nixon card. For left-wingers
who lived through the Nixon years, his ghost
still represents a frightful apparition. They'll
never stop knocking Nixon, or Reagan. And,
of course, by comparing himself with
Kennedy, another sexually reckless president,
Clinton put everything in perspective for his
inner circle.
It's us vs. them, he explained. Time to pull
together for the cause. That's how Clinton beat
up Shalala. And it's an insight into how he
plans to rally the troops for his own personal
Armageddon. |
