Colby Itkowitz and Nia
By Colby Itkowitz and Nia-Malika Henderson
Bill Clinton assured a dinner crowd that he honestly did not know what his wife would decide about her political future.
And that was in a speech he made 15 years ago.
With intense speculation surrounding Hillary Rodham Clinton’s plans for 2016, documents released on Friday by the William J Clinton Presidential Library are a reminder that among political observers, a sense of deja vu is common.
Drafts of the then-president’s 1999 address to the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner in Washington included several jokes about whether the first lady would run for the US Senate in New York. Clinton omitted some of the lines proposed by his speechwriters, including one that he hoped Hillary would make up her mind soon because the prospect of her running was a distraction.
But this stayed almost verbatim: “And of course, I am expecting a question regarding the future political career of the first lady. I honestly don’t know what she will decide, but I can tell you this: Yesterday at breakfast, she was complaining that it’s impossible to get a decent bagel here in Washington. By the way, what’s a ‘shmeer?’ “
The early drafts of that speech were included in the third installment of about 3,000 pages of Clinton administration records that have been made public. With all the Clinton presidential buzz, the internal memos offer new insights into how she was perceived and handled during her years in the White House.
In 1998, at the peak of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the first lady’s deputy press secretary, Julie Mason, fretted over how to shield Clinton from questions about Lewinsky during a Voice of America interview.
“Can press in the US call in to the VOA show during the interview to ask questions?” Mason wrote to Mary Ellen Glynn of the US Information Agency. “If not, why by having press sitting in the studio next door (they won’t have contact with her, right?) will HRC be more apt to get questions on Monica, etc.?”
Glynn suggested inviting just a few reporters to the studio to cover the interview, but warned that Hillary could still get questions from “callers around the world on the Monica story.”
Among other highlights from the newly released documents:
n New York University professor Susan Andersen urged President Clinton, in his farewell address to the country, to acknowledge the 2000 presidential election recount and the emotional toll it took on the nation. But Clinton opted for straightforward language supporting incoming president George W Bush.
n When David Axelrod, who would one day become President Barack Obama’s top campaign strategist, was a consultant in Chicago, he sent a detailed memo to Clinton’s team after Robert Dole’s speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 1996. He advised Clinton to stay positive in his own acceptance speech.
Acknowledging that the team likely had “more cooks hovering around the broth than you need,” Axelrod suggested that the president “magnanimously stipulate his admiration for Dole’s years of service” to counter the Republicans’ negative campaign against Clinton.
WP-BLOOMBERG
By Colby Itkowitz and Nia-Malika Henderson
Bill Clinton assured a dinner crowd that he honestly did not know what his wife would decide about her political future.
And that was in a speech he made 15 years ago.
With intense speculation surrounding Hillary Rodham Clinton’s plans for 2016, documents released on Friday by the William J Clinton Presidential Library are a reminder that among political observers, a sense of deja vu is common.
Drafts of the then-president’s 1999 address to the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner in Washington included several jokes about whether the first lady would run for the US Senate in New York. Clinton omitted some of the lines proposed by his speechwriters, including one that he hoped Hillary would make up her mind soon because the prospect of her running was a distraction.
But this stayed almost verbatim: “And of course, I am expecting a question regarding the future political career of the first lady. I honestly don’t know what she will decide, but I can tell you this: Yesterday at breakfast, she was complaining that it’s impossible to get a decent bagel here in Washington. By the way, what’s a ‘shmeer?’ “
The early drafts of that speech were included in the third installment of about 3,000 pages of Clinton administration records that have been made public. With all the Clinton presidential buzz, the internal memos offer new insights into how she was perceived and handled during her years in the White House.
In 1998, at the peak of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the first lady’s deputy press secretary, Julie Mason, fretted over how to shield Clinton from questions about Lewinsky during a Voice of America interview.
“Can press in the US call in to the VOA show during the interview to ask questions?” Mason wrote to Mary Ellen Glynn of the US Information Agency. “If not, why by having press sitting in the studio next door (they won’t have contact with her, right?) will HRC be more apt to get questions on Monica, etc.?”
Glynn suggested inviting just a few reporters to the studio to cover the interview, but warned that Hillary could still get questions from “callers around the world on the Monica story.”
Among other highlights from the newly released documents:
n New York University professor Susan Andersen urged President Clinton, in his farewell address to the country, to acknowledge the 2000 presidential election recount and the emotional toll it took on the nation. But Clinton opted for straightforward language supporting incoming president George W Bush.
n When David Axelrod, who would one day become President Barack Obama’s top campaign strategist, was a consultant in Chicago, he sent a detailed memo to Clinton’s team after Robert Dole’s speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 1996. He advised Clinton to stay positive in his own acceptance speech.
Acknowledging that the team likely had “more cooks hovering around the broth than you need,” Axelrod suggested that the president “magnanimously stipulate his admiration for Dole’s years of service” to counter the Republicans’ negative campaign against Clinton.
WP-BLOOMBERG
