http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19092206/page/4/MR. RUSSERT: Let’s go right to it. One of the important parts of this book is this notion of a grand design by Bill and Hillary Clinton to each serve two terms in the White House. This is the way you write about it: “By the summer of 1993, the ways of Washington had not dissuaded Bill or Hillary. According to one of their closest friends, Taylor Branch, they still planned two terms in the White House for Bill, and, later, two for Hillary.” You know what’s happened now, this is The Washington Post reporting on this: “The authors report that the Clintons updated their plan after the 1992 election, determining that Hillary would run when Bill left office. They cite two people,” former Times reporter “Ann Crittenden and John Henry, who said Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and close Clinton friend, told them” “the Clintons ‘still planned two terms in the White House for Bill and, later, two for Hillary.’ Contacted last night, Branch said that ‘the story is preposterous.’” “‘I never heard either Clinton talk about a “plan” for them’” both to “‘become president.’” What do you say?
MR. JEFF GERTH: Well, Tim, I interviewed Ann Crittenden and John Henry, and they both separately recalled a barbecue dinner in Aspen, Colorado, in 1993 at a rodeo with Taylor Branch, and they were remembering him saying that he’d just come from the White House—he’s a historian, and he’d begun talking with President Clinton, and he told them about—that Bill Clinton was going to serve eight years and then, at some point, Hillary was going to do eight years in the White House. I later contacted Taylor Branch, asked him if he remembered the dinner in Aspen. He said he didn’t, but he said he wouldn’t deny it. Then he later, when the book came out, said it was preposterous.
I think I would add, Taylor is a respected historian, but he himself has admitted that when it comes to Bill Clinton he can’t be objective. So there are two people—you know, Ann Crittenden’s an award-winning journalist—two people who say yea, and Taylor Branch says nay. I mean, I think more interestingly and more surprisingly, the ambition of the Clintons going back to when they were in their 20s, and the 20 year project that Leon Panetta remembers Bill Clinton describing to him.
snip
MR. VAN NATTA JR.: Well, Senator, Senator Clinton didn’t speak with us for this book, Tim, and...
MR. RUSSERT: Did you ask her?
MR. VAN NATTA JR.: We did. We went to her at the very beginning. In fact, I reached out to Howard Wolfson, her communications person, and when we told him about this book, he sighed audibly and it was as if somebody had punched him in the stomach, and he let us know that she had heartburn, basically, about this book, and so did Lorraine Voles. And it went beyond just Senator Clinton not cooperating with us. She put out the word not only to her aides and friends not to cooperate, and we were lucky that some did, but she also had—some of her people on her staff urged some senators not to talk to us, including Harry Reid. So I’m not at all surprised by Philippe’s statement.
text added by me
Gee Tim, had this been a politician you might have pointed out why Hillary might have not wanted to cooperate. Could it be that Gerth had a well known history of lying about both Bill and Hillary. Whitewater was ginned up by him and turned out to be nothing but lies told by right wing kooks.MR. RUSSERT: Jeff Gerth, also supporters of Hillary Clinton say your wife is a foreign policy adviser for Chris Dodd, and that’s a conflict of interest, because he’s running against Senator Clinton, and you shouldn’t be authoring a book against one of Senator Dodd’s opponents.
MR. GERTH: Well, we disclose in the book who my wife is and who she works for, and, you know, she works for Coke and I work for Pepsi, and we’ve kept our lives separate for 25 years.
end of quote
Let's be blunt here. Gerth is a lying liar. Russert did nothing, nothing to point that out. No mention of any of Gerth's history with Weng Lo Lee either. Gerth is a total disaster as a reporter who clearly hates all things Clinton. Make no mistake about it, no matter who our nominee is the lying liars of the press will make up lies about him or her. This won't stop with Clinton and we all know better.
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