DUers! I need help to defend Hillary against Filegate charges

[CTyankee]

Yep, that old chestnut again. My RW sister in law says she couldn't support Hillary, "regardless of party affiliation" (LOL)because of the missing files that mysteriously reappeared.

I responded saying that no evidence had been brought forward to prove anything about the missing files and that she should do her own research before believing assertions not proved. I went on to say that none of that stuff about the Clintons -- Whitewater, travelgate, filegate, Vince Foster -- was proved, none of it.

BUT it would be nice to have some kind cite that really proves my point about FIlegate. I expect these attacks on Hillary to come more frequently. The RW has their talking points out there.

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Ask her for the story

I bet she doesn't know a thing about it beyond the RW talking point.

Let her hang herself on her own ignorance of the situation. You won't even have to rebut or ridicule.

--p!

[Why Syzygy]

2. as well they should be .. eom

[Wetzelbill]

3. the prosecutors already had most of the information

in those files. Starr and his staff were always leaking information that would make the Clintons look bad. What she found she gave up to Starr right away and what was in them didn't tell the prosecution anything they didn't already know. It wasn't like it was some big "gotcha" bit of information that was being concealed. It was virtually nothing. Not to mention that they didn't "mysteriously" disappear in the first place. The Clintons had probably a few decades worth of files moved from Arkansas to DC and you can't find a needle in a haystack overnight. The Starr leaks made it seem as if they were concealing something, but they weren't and it was nothing important in the first place.

Ask her where her cherished Dubya's military records went if she is so concerned with integrity. :)

[Goldeneye]

4. Is that the thing about Hillary supposedly taking WH employee

files? If so, Al Franken and Joe Conason did a good job smacking around Ed Klein about mentioning that in his book on Hillary. Here's a link to the whole interview, although I don't know that this source will help you convince a winger.

http://mediamatters.org/static/audio/airamerica_klein_20050624.mp3

The file part is about 2/5 of the way through the interview.

[ClassWarrior]

5. Why would you need to do THAT??

Tell your s.i.l. to prove HER allegations. Then get on with your life.

NGU.

[wtbymark]

6. I wouldn't support Hillary regardless of her party either (nt)

say no to corperatists

[Goldeneye]

7. She was a good first lady.

And we should correct people who are distorting history.

[jonnyblitz]

8. and neither would I. she is Leiberman in drag...

she makes me sick as does her Bush supporting husband. :puke:

[jobycom]

10. Good. Vote for the Republican instead. He'll be much better.

[truebrit71]

17. Yep, at least you'll know ahead of time that he'll vote for the republican

...ideas, instead of afterwards like Hilly.....

[jobycom]

20. Super. So you feel 100% Republican is better than 30% Republican?

[truebrit71]

24. I want Democrats that vote WITH the Democratic party 100% of the time...

...not 70% of the time...

A lot of the pork barrel shit I don't give a tinker's damn about and a Democratic line-vote there is no use, but the important stuff like authorizing illegal wars, the re-invention of Debtor's prisons via the bankruptcy gift-bill, re-authorizing the "patriot" act etc etc I DO care about, and if you're a Democrat and you voted for any of that stuff along with the republicans you need to get out of my party and go find another job.

[jobycom]

26. So you're going to vote for a Republican who votes with the Republicans

100% of the time because you can't get a Democrat who votes with the Democrats (whatever the heck that means) 100% of the time? Like, if you were starving to death and found 70% of a loaf of bread you'd throw it out because it wasn't a whole loaf?

No one gets what they want 100% of the time. As for Hillary or any other Dem who voted for IWR (which is not the same as voting for the invasion, because Bush had already said he was going to invade without it), that's very different from starting the invasion, from rigging the evidence to justify the invasion, and for keeping the occupation going with no plans to leave.

This "perfection" strategy is what gave us Bush in the first place. Yeah, he was much better than the fake liberal Gore, wasn't he?

[truebrit71]

28. You're missing the point...

I don't care if a Dem votes like a Dem on bullshit issues, but votes with the repukes on every big issue...It doesn't make a bit of difference what they vote on a save the blue-bottled butterfly' bill, if they get down and lick their rethuglican masters everytime something like patriot, or war votes come up and they fall all over themselves to vote with the gop....

[MrBenchley]

12. "say no to corperatists"

Don't be a "moran".....

[jobycom]

9. She was cleared by an intensive criminal investigation run by a

Republican partisan who had unlimited power to prosecute or indict her for obstruction if he believed for a moment that she was guilty of anything. She wasn't the president, she had no form of immunity.

Just more right-wing noise.

[MrBenchley]

11. Ask her to tell you what was in the files...

I mean surely if it was that big a deal, those files must have contained some bombshell-type revelation, right?

She won't be able to do so, and this is why:

They were duplicate copies of files that had already been subpoenaed and provided to Ken Starr's witch hunt. Hillary's copies showed nothing at all different from what the law firm's copies showed: that there was no wrongdoing whatsoever.

[gratuitous]

13. Like shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it?

But if the original poster's sister-in-law is soooo concerned about missing files, she might get all het up about the files that are missing right now from the Reagan library on John Roberts. Files that went missing right after they were checked out by White House lawyers.

Or does the sister-in-law think that we should hand someone a lifetime appointment without looking at his full record?

[MrBenchley]

15. No chance the sister-in-law cares about those missing files....

Or the missing files from Chimpy's military "record"...which also went missing after a visit from his lawyers...

[CTyankee]

18. That's great. Do you have a cite for that so I can email her?

I did tell her to seek out empirical evidence before she made her assertions, so I want to do the same. I'll shame her if nothing else.

[MrBenchley]

21. The Starr Report itself is a start....

And here's the final word...note that while this account tries to make much of the "mystery"...(only if you think it's a surprise that someobdy moving to Washington to become First Lady can't immediately put her finger on ancient duplicates of billing records for a period nearly 20 years earlier.) there turns out to be no "there" there...

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/20/whitewater/

"Safire, for seven years, has written that the Clintons took "graft, plain and simple" in the Whitewater case, and that they "ripped off of the taxpayers." Yet, according to the illustrious firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, Conason goes on to say, "there were no improper advances by Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan to the Whitewater group, and all of the company's outstanding loans were repaid. The Clintons lost money on their Whitewater investment and were never shown to have done anything illegal or improper. The project's failure didn't cost taxpayers a single penny."

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20000314Safire.html

And here's a debunking of the latest "bash Hillary" book:
"P. 40
The Missing Rose Law Firm files: While a lawyer back in Arkansas, Hillary did legal work for a savings and loan institution that backed the Clintons' investment in a land deal that came to be known as Whitewater. She later denied representing the S&L, and the billing records of her legal work mysteriously disappeared. They surfaced conveniently in the White House in 1995 -- two days beyond the statute of limitations.
here are several problems here:

1) Hillary didn't deny representing the S&L; she said she did little work for it.

2) Klein neglects to note the inconvenient fact that the billing records, when found, confirmed Clinton's account -- they showed she billed only 60 hours of work for the S&L over two years.

3) Even the Office of the Independent Counsel reluctantly concluded "the evidence, including evidence reflected in the billing records of the Rose Law Firm, was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that her statements to the Resolution Trust Corporation regarding these matters were knowingly false."

4) Klein's dark comment about the expired statute of limitations neglects one minor detail: He fails to mention the supposed crime for which the statute of limitations had expired."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200506230001

http://dir.salon.com/news/col/cona/2000/03/14/ray/index.html?pn=2

[MrBenchley]

23. I've always been amazed at right wing Clinton-bashers

since so many of them seem not to have notice that the "scandals" turned out to be floating tits-down at the top of the tank when they hit the spotlight...

What I do enjoy is asking them questions like "What did the missing records SHOW when they turned up?" or "What did Bill Clinton say under oath that was a lie?" (even the House managers couldn't come up with an answer to that one)...

And it's wonderful to see them try to explain why a humjob is the crime of the century but starting a war based entirely on lies is not. Or why the Clintons losing $200,000 on a private land investment was worth investigating but Halliburton and Cheney ripping off the government isn't.

[grumpy old fart]

14. All the powers of the Reich Wing, 8 years, Control of Congress=1 BJ.......

All the money, time, special prosecutors, control of all the Government's powers (except the WH, of course) and all they ever came up with on anything was a consensual BJ. Oh, excuse me, as they like to point out, it was a LIE about a BJ. (like that makes a difference). You should welcome any questions about the Clinton years.

[underpants]

16. Right-witch hunts usually don't settle for technicalities

That is the main way to brush off the $80 Million nonesense that Starr was-after all that they got THAT??? that's it?

[Jacobin]

19. Tell'em to stop bashing Hillary. She's a good republican

She's gonna send 80,000 more troops to IraqNam.

Why don't they like her now?

[Clark2008]

22. Hillary has waaaaayyyyy too much baggage

whether the talking points are true or not.

I hope Dems are smart enough not to put her out there as the nominee or we've lost.

Plus, I'm getting a bit tired of the dynasties.

[truebrit71]

25. Agreed.

The issue would be all about her and her past, however over-stated by the MSM whores...

She would be a lightning rod and would guarantee another 4 years of rethuglican rule in the WH....

[jackster]

27. Check this out....

I found this link in another thread today and the piece is a GREAT explanation why people grasp at straws and continue to mouth talking points even if debunked.

This is a must read for all

http://www.taxwisdom.org/republican_nemesis.htm