Chapter Six:Introduction To The Internet

"And as the world shrank, the Clintons came into full view"

When I first came to work for Richard at South Texas Computer Solutions, he asked me to familiarize myself with the Internet so that I could tutor others. It was definitely an "Alice Through the Looking Glass" experience going to an electronic world of places and peoples brought from the far reaches of the planet into my PC for the purpose of my viewing. It was an incredible feeling of power and then humility as the idea set in of how small and ever-growing smaller our world has become.

I love collecting information. It's the historian in me, but the Internet is an overload of possibilities. I quickly learned that surfing could be a time thief and I would have to allocate a determined amount of time that I could reasonably use to daily visit this exciting and wonderful new found electronic land. Maybe the Internet facilitated my learning because it combined my love for reading while it tapped into the fact that I am of the Television Generation. I was drawn to it and easily set it in place as a daily habit.

I have always found the study of Politics and Politicians intriguing, but since my college days, it had been in the furthest back burners. I decided that I would set aside one hour per day to check up on the Beltway crowd in Washington, DC. Ironically, I had managed to live among them and had not had time for such a review and now that I was separated from DC by a thousand miles, I could visit daily and make more of a scrutinazation than if I was there.

As a part of what would become an intensive study course of National Politics, Soccer Mom-style, my late nights were devoted to reading books about current politics. I'd wake up at 6:00 am to watch C-SPAN's Washington Journal as I dressed for the day to help me put faces to the Beltway gang. It also allowed me to hear them expound on their idea instead of relying on nightly news sound bites and to set a course for what I would look for in the newspapers in the days to come. Then, I'd spent one hour sometime during the day on the Internet.

I settled into a routine of reading the front pages and political sections of the Washington Times and the Washington Post. It was always interesting to see how different stories played on each paper and how the political affiliation of each affected the telling of the story.

I opted to read the Washington Times first at www.washtimes.com and then the Washington Post at www.washingtonpost.com. I read the front page of each paper first and then proceeded to certain spots within each of their Political and Editorial sections.

My favorite spots on the Washington Times were Inside Politics, Inside the Beltway , Bill Garner's Political Cartoon and Wes Pruden Editorials. Both Inside Politics and Inside the Beltway sections allowed me an informal look at the Beltway gang. They report about what happens among the DC crowd between the well rehersed sound bites. Political Cartoonist have the great commission within our society to levy the hardest blows in commentary sugar-coated with humor. Mr. Garner's work is always aggressive and hilarious.

Mr. Pruden's opinions are as poigniant as they are humorous. His method of conveying his thoughts was so effective to this reader that I would later find myself mulling over his editorial , laughing at his word choices and then reanalyzing what his main point had been.

While the Washington Times may print three to four articles on their Front Page, the Washington Post Front Page is a task to get through with innumerable articles and links past the Front Page. I limited my reading to the articles that dealt with politics and even that was difficult to accomplish as they always had such a variety and diversity.

The only other spot I have time to frequent within the Washington Post was the Editorial Section where I read George Will, a man who has continued to use parts of the English language that the rest of our culture has packed away, much to our loss or 'detriment ', as he might say. It is this eloquent manner in which he packages his messages that caused me sit a little straighter and listen a little closer to what he was saying because he offered the viewpoint of a statesman whose intents are honorable and should be heeded.

This "study course" would serve as an invaluable foundation for the events that occured later within the administration.

After the 1992 election, my nephew, Sam, was hospitalized and a group of family and friends were sitting in the Intensive Care lobby area. As the discussion moved towards the election, everyone expressed shock and disdain for who our new president would be. I did not think his election was of much consequence. I thought Bill Clinton would hold the office for a term, find himself completely unqualified to lead the nation because he had no real credentials that indicated otherwise, and that would be that. I remarked to a friend of ours, Ross Dudney, a professor of Political Science at Texas A&M-Kingsville, that the only way this mediocre man would ever make any susbstancial mark on history would be if he got himself assassinated or impeached.

I had been surprised by Bill Clinton's win. I would have preferred Bush, but Perot had spoiled the election by dividing the Bush camp. I had paid enough attention to Clinton to know not to take him seriously. But there he was- President of the United States.

In a way, his being there attested to the fact that the American Dream was alive and well. You didn't have to be rich and well connected to achieve this country's highest office. He was a Soccer Mom's reaffirmation that any of our kids could grow up to be President if they wanted to and were willing to work hard enough for it.

I remember watching Virginia Clinton glow as her son was introduced as the President of the United States. She was an average American mother who's son had been elected to this planet's highest and most prestigious office. She was a little flamboyant, but I could relate and share in her joy and I was proud of her boy too.

The Clintons were promoted as America's "wonder" family, the kind that this country would need more of as we entered into the struggles and challenges of the next milleneum. Bill, who had been turned from a sow's ear to a Rhodes Scholar, served as a model example of American perserverence. Hillary the New-Age American woman, evolved though strict adherence to feminism, was said to be the "smatest woman" in America, self-confident and able to master whatever was put before her. And then there was Chelea, the proclaimed "happy" product of her parents enightened life choices.

He had pledged to establish a Cabinet that would reflect America's cultural diversity and set in place what would be the "most ethical Administration" in the country's history. He was full of ideas about matters that would improve the American standard of living and positively affect our lives and the country we would leave as our children's legacy. He zealously spouted on and on about those ideas at the drop of a dime as if he was totally confident that he could materialize these ideas because he whole-heartedly believed in his words. These were goals he had been working towards, on our behalf, throughout his entire adult life.

What was there not to like? He projected himself as being a Soccer Mom Auxilliary Member. He would be part of our team in bettering the country for our children.

That was the picture I had of those who resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue until I learned to Surf the Net and daily read what the Beltway crowd thought of this Administration. There were allegations of misdeeds from the past and the present being reported by those allied on both sides of the political spectrum. At that point, these reports were not playing a part of our local news and the national television broadcasters had taken a "wait and see" attitude.

I was alarmed about what was being said about the Clintons. If even half of the allegations posed against them was true, the country would eventually have to face serious consequences for allowing such activities to be conducted from the office of our presidency. In the first few years of the administration a series of Clinton Gates flew open: White Water Gate, Travel Gate, Foster Gate, Foster's Files Gate, FBI Files Gate, Who Hired Craig Livingstone Gate, etc.

I decided to read up on what was being written about the Clinton's terms as Governor of Arkansas to see if a pattern of such activities was present throughout those days. I ran an Internet search on the topic of "books about Bill Clinton" and was surprised by how many books were already out on this man who had until recently been relatively unknown.

I took the list to our Public Library and we didn't have any of the books on it. Thanks to the Inter-Library Loan Program, which allows libraries like our own, which are fiscally limited in what they can purchase, have access to whatever books are in print for a fee of fifty cents to the patron to offset postage. I ordered the books I needed and had them in hand in a couple of days.

I recognized Elizabeth Drew as being an accomplished and credible historian, so I read her book first, "On The Edge". She was meticulous in the retelling of thier story. It took me a couple of weeks, reading nights only, to wade through the details of the Clinton's lives in Arkansas and of their ascend into national politics.

I was continually struck by the amount of detail Elizabeth Drew had cataloged. I wondered how it was that she had been priveleged with such information. As I completed the book, I surmised that the Clintons had not made many friends throughout their careers. They had not taken the time to cultivate loyalties as they walked through a precarious den of characters and situations. I noted that this could well be their undoing and I hoped that they were taking better care of those with whom they were surrounded in the White House than they had in the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock.

From the picture Elizabeth Drew so carefully painted of the Clintons, I took away that illegal activities had occurred with regards to the McDougals dealings with the Savings and Loan and the many defaulted loans they had saddled the taxpayers with. If the activities the Clintons had engaged in regarding the development of White Water were not illegal, they should have been. They took sweetheart loans from the McDougal's SNL and they used Arkansas taxpayer monies to pave roads and develop their private investment. They took money from an impoverished State for their own gain. And, thier landscape was littered with allegations of infidelity.

The next book I read was Roger Morris's, "Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America". Mr. Morris has a wonderful story-telling style of writing that I found easy to get engrossed in. I had trouble night after night in budgeting my reading time and not staying up too late with "Partners in Power." He also had a lot of detail and had several different stories that Drew had not catalogued. He begins his book in a rather Biblical manner, laying out Bill and Hillary's family lineage.

The information Morris collected was raw and folksy. It read at times like an airing of dirty laundry which again speaks of the lack of loyalty with which the Clintons are regarded among their Arkansas friends and neighbors. I could envision Mr. Morris going door-to-door and into some backwoods speaking to folks who all sat him down and told him a tale or two about the family of the man who may now have been the President of the United, but they all knew him "when". Arkansians didn't hold back much and they didn't seem to be too proud of their native son.

The next book I picked off of my reading list was James B. Stewart's, "Blood Sport: The President and His Adversaries". I was particularly struck by the late Foster's declaration that that he viewed Washington politics as being a "blood sport" and that, in one way or another the game eventually lead him to shed his own blood.

"First in His Class", by David Maraniss

Bob Woodward's, "The Agenda".

(I'll comment on these fine books after I re-read them.

Off hand I do recall being disappointed in Bob Woodward's book because it lacked the zeal with which he pursued Nixon- and on more minor allegations that those levied against the Clintons. His account was that of a very mentally unstable President and yet Woodward did not do much to sound an alarm about his findings, as he had with Nixon and Watergate. His actions or lack thereof seem inequitable.)

I read Gary Aldrich's, "Unlimited Access" over a single day; one rare, home-alone Saturday when we everyone had a scheduled activity but me. Aldrich's accounts were shocking, especially on the shoulders of all the other information I had ingested that suggested that Aldrich's stories about the Clintons and their administartion's behavior could be true.

I would have thought it impossible for any one administration, much less any one couple, to alter so grievously the sanctity, security and decorum that our country's history assigns to the White House, the cradle of our democracy.

The Clinton Administration napalmed Aldrich in quick order, assassinating his credibility with the help of the main stream media in a clear and defining moment during the Sunday morning News shows that exposed the media's Liberal bias and propensity to want to rescue and prop up the man chosen to carry their agenda.

Most memorable was the very young George Stephanlopolus appearing suddenly on the ABC Sunday morning show, as if by planned ambush, to not only counter Aldrich's claims but to question and sully the integrity of the man's service to his country as an agent. It was as if George was saying to us all, "it doesn't matter IF any of what he says happened. The point is he should be loyal enough not to say any of it" Stephanopolus released his own "tell all" in an attempt to absolve himself of the guilt of the questionable activities he had participated in with the Clinton Administration. Aldrich penned his accounts out of loyalty to the country he pledged to protect while Stephanopolus penned his to take care of his personal phyche.

They buried Aldrich's account in a grave now full to capacity with accounts of other improprieties. With the help of the media, the Clinton Administartion was masterful at diverting the public's attention from the pile that was mounting and forming an undeniable stench of scandal. Offensive as it was, the public consumed the Spin and happily ignored the impending crisis.

@Jenni Vinson April 21, 1999