Poor Patti Solis. I Guess No One Ever Told Her About the Hidden Grave Yard of Clinton Loyalists.

[David Zephyr]

Poor Patti Solis never saw it coming. But how convenient it now was that once the Latino-rich states of California, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona had come through for the Clintons, this proud and successful self-made Mexican-American woman was disposed of. Patti was no longer needed. Hasta la vista. But Patti is not alone and can now join the ranks of those who have been disposed of before her once their usefulness to the Clintons was done.

Anyone truly familiar with the Clintons rise to power and wealth knows all about the long list of individuals who hitched their hearts and even their lives to the couple only to later find themselves discarded and betrayed by them. Anyone who ever has read the thinly veiled "novel" by Joe Klein "Primary Colors" or has seen the film knows that the story ends with the suicide of a long-time, dedicated activist, who spent her career covering up scandals for and organizing campaigns for this couple, only to find herself disillusioned by them in the end.

But one need not look to a fictionalized account of the Clintons by someone who lived and worked at their side, but rather look at the real flesh and blood list of those who found themselves discarded by the Clintons when their services were no longer needed, when they'd worn out their welcome, or when they themselves found themselves in even the most minor of trouble. Fickle is the word that comes to mind when it comes to the Clintons.

Ask Mike Espy who was thrown to the wolves for merely accepting some Super Bowl tickets. Bill Clinton had no problem having the Executive Branch and the Democratic Party spend two years defending his sexual indiscretions and lies to the American people, but standing up for Mike because of his Super Bowl tickets? That was just too much to ask. So long, Mike.

Ask Dr. Joycelyn Elders who also found herself looking in vain for support from the Clintons when the right wing went after her twisting her words into something they weren't. The Clintons didn't even lift a finger to save her. Bye, bye, Joycelyn.

Ask David Mixner who was the gay shill for the Clintons who later wrote how betrayed he felt by the Clinton's support of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and his signing the Defense of Marriage Act. Tough titty, David.

Ask Marian Wright Edelman and her husband who watched the ultimate betrayal by the Clintons when the heartless "Welfare Reform Act" was signed into law. Marian who?

Ask Webster Hubbell who took it on the chin and went to prison keeping his mouth shut to protect the Clintons. Hubbell had worked on their behalf most of his entire adult life and had foolishly hoped that Bill might extend a pardon to him. Hubbell who was persecuted and prosecuted by Special Counsel Kenneth Star found himself entangled in Starr's over-zealous net himself. Even the Supreme Court found that Starr had overstepped his bounds on most of the charges against Hubbell. But no pardon was to ever come Webster's way. No sir. Because pardons, it proved out, were exclusively for those who were part of Bill's future, such as Marc Rich, and not part of Bill's past. Like the consummate salesman, with Bill the "prospect" was always more important than the loyal "customer." Nice knowing you Webster.

But betrayal by the Clintons was not just limited to individuals either. Hell, they introduced the American people to their special skill of "Triangulation" where they pitted their own party members within the House of Representatives and the Senate against Republicans where they alone would wind up on top. Rather than doling out betrayal one person at a time, the Clintons could, through "triangulation" essentially transform the seats of hundreds of Democrats in Congress into electric bleachers.

And most reprehensible of all, was the Clintons betrayal of those caught up in the genocide in Rwanda in the early 1990's. Bill Clinton, like Pilate of old, had no problem washing his hands of the bloodshed that he could have prevented. That's betrayal on the highest scale of all.

So, Patti Solis Doyle, should have known better, but she didn't and now she finds herself in the basement with the remains of all those who preceded her much like the victims of Sweeney Todd and his girlfriend who seemed to never lack for the sucker, who is apparently born every day...or so we are told.

My companion of over 30 years, a Latino, says he hopes that Hispanics in Texas see what happened to Patti as a metaphor of how they will fare with the Clintons. Que lastima.

[dsc]

1. You can't have it both ways

I have seen dozens of threads excoriating Clinton's for Hubble's and Espy's corruption. Now the problem is they didn't defend these people. Which is it?

[David Zephyr]

15. You falsely imply that I've said otherwise regarding Hubbell and Espy.

Why would you do that? By the way, it's "Hubbell" not "Hubble(sic)".

How am I having it "both ways"? That is what you wrote.

You can apologize if you wish for saying I had said otherwise or you can prove your assertion by providing just one of the "dozens of threads" that you imply I participated in "excoriating" over any "corruption" by Hubbell or Espy.

Good luck.

[dsc]

21. you appear in none of them taking the posters to task

Obama supporters are all over the map. One minute all the people who work for or endorse Clinton are corrupt and or racist and then the very next Clinton is evil for letting the very same people go.

[David Zephyr]

25. Nice job of extrapolating the absurd.

So now you justify your clearly false statement about me by rationalizing I'm guilty by lack of association. How inventive you are, dsc. I'm impressed.

An apology would be easier.

[H2O Man]

2. Mike Henry quit, too.

It seems like the Clinton campaign is having difficulty.

[David Zephyr]

7. And the irony is that if they'd listened to Mike Henry she might now be the nominee.

The list is endless.

[H2O Man]

12. Right.

There are new ones that can be added to the mountain of "could of been" and "if only" questions from history. But history moves in its own way. And we are witnessing something different in our nation's history.

Enjoy this night.

[bigtree]

23. staff changes are 'different'?

since when?

[H2O Man]

28. In my opinion,

when a boxer changes his trainer after a string of victories, it is different from when a boxer changes trainers after a string of defeats.

[bigtree]

30. It's been done, without a speck of notice from the voters who count

standard, overblown minutia

[H2O Man]

32. Well, I'd think

the "without a speck of notice" is due to the size of the recent string of Obama victories. (grin)

[bigtree]

26. he'll probably stick around in a lesser capacity in the chain of command

like his mentor who brought him to the campaign, the exiting manager, has.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

36. seems like? Ahoy, Captain! It seems like the iceburg may have caused a leak

Really? Deck officer, time to rearrange the deck chairs. And have the orchestra begin playing while the bubbly is poured. After all, we are the Titanic of political campaigns!

[journalist3072]

3. Do you make this stuff up out of your ass? You are trying to turn this into some racial thing,

where the Clintons are supposedly dispensing of the Latina they don't need anymore?

I was reading the other day that the reason for her being demoted, was because she never told Sen. Clinton about the money woes until after New Hampshire.

Apparently the campaign knew they had run out of money, but failed to tell Sen. Clinton until after New Hampshire, leaving her with not a lot of money to compete in the Super Tuesday states.

[QC]

4. Don't forget how they murdered Ron Brown and Vince Foster.

And that poor boy who got left on the railroad tracks.

:eyes:

[ronnykmarshall]

5. And SOCKS!

Don't forget how they dumped Socks!

[Darth_Kitten]

6. Socks.......

that was one cool kitty. :D

[MonkeyFunk]

13. She killed Kathleen Willey's cat, too

I keep telling people - surrender now. You don't fuck with that kind of evil.

[QC]

31. And she ate my puppy! Poor Spot! n/t

[KoKo]

34. that's disgusting....what you say... either give a link or shut the hell up!

[MonkeyFunk]

35. calm down

it was a claim made by noted nutcase Kathleen Willey.

[Cha]

9. Your red herrings are noted

and dismissed.

[QC]

33. Aww, don't be that way. Here's something to cheer you up!

[Cha]

38. More red herrings from you.

"The cult meme was also used against Howard Dean. It’s the attempt by the Force of Inertia to stop progress. It’s Cynicism trying to validate itself by keeping things static.".. CS

[Cha]

8. This is the most reprehensible..

"Ask Marian Wright Edelman and her husband who watched the ultimate betrayal by the Clintons when the heartless "Welfare Reform Act" was signed into law. Marian who?"

…”In fact, by all accounts, Edelman was devastated by the Clintons’ support for this bill and took great pains to let her position be known. A New York Times story at the time reported that Edelman “sent a blistering memorandum to the Cabinet, warning that one of the welfare options being considered will ‘violate every standard of decency and fairness.’”Back to Her Way: “Publicly, Hillary denied compromising her principles or values when she endorsed her husband’s support of the welfare legislation, which came as he was facing reelection. She believed, she claimed, that the third bill passed by Congress went far enough in its guarantees of medical benefits, child care and food stamps to warrant her and Bill’s support. (Others, both liberals and conservatives, noted that the third bill was almost the same as the previous two Bill had vetoed.)”This sort of self-deceptive justification sounds too familiar. When Hillary describes her vote for this blood-draining, money burning, illegal occupation known as the Iraq War, she likes to say the bill she voted for wasfor diplomacy. She’s the only one who believes that.Back to Her Way: “Years later, the welfare reform bill was viewed by many as a success; others considered it an abandonment of the truly needy for the sake of scoring political points. In her book Living History, Hilary found the space to acknowledge more than four hundred friends, colleagues and supporters. Marian Wright Edelman was not one of them”Damn. That’s cold. It’s one thing to have a disagreement. It’s another to completely and utterly dis a friend, supporter and mentor of over 20 years.This past July, Marian Wright Edelman was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. The subject was, in part, Hillary Clinton and welfare reform. Here is the exchange:

AMY GOODMAN: Marian Wright Edelman, we just heard Hillary Rodham Clinton. She used to be the head of the board of the Children’s Defense Fund, of the organization that you founded. But you were extremely critical of the Clintons. I mean, when President Clinton signed off on the, well, so-called welfare reform bill, you said, “His signature on this pernicious bill makes a mockery of his pledge not to hurt children.” So what are your hopes right now for these Democrats? And what are your thoughts about Hillary Rodham Clinton?

http://baratunde.com/blog/archives/2007/11/why_i_dont_support_clinton_-_part_1_-_abandoning_friends_and_principles.html


Don't the clintons depend on people who are loyal to them?

[David Zephyr]

11. Pretty sad, huh? And yet, did you notice when Hillary mentioned Marian's name in a recent debate?

I nearly fell out of my chair at the gall after what had transpired.

[Cha]

14. No, I didn't hear that..

doesn't that, among many other instances, prove hilary has a dangerous disconnect?

[bigtree]

22. sure, back then, President Hillary . . .

Oh yeah, she wasn't in charge of that decision, Bill Clinton was.

[KoKo]

10. Whatever happened to Susan (lips are sealed) MacDougal...?

:shrug:

Here's what a search for "What happened to Susan MacDougal reveals:

"The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk," Susan McDougal, Talks With ...
Such was the role thrust upon Susan McDougal by the self-righteous prosecutor .... BUZZFLASH: What happened next? MCDOUGAL: It was about two days before my ...
www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/02/14_McDougal.html - 81k - Cached - Similar pages

Truthdig - Interviews - Susan McDougal: The Woman Who Wouldn’t Talk
Jan 16, 2007 ... 2007/01/16 - When Susan McDougal refused to implicate the Clintons in the ... It absolutely never happened. It couldn’t have happened. ...
www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20070116_susan_mcdougal_the_woman_who_wouldnt_talk/ - 162k - Cached - Similar pages

frontline: once upon a time in arkansas: interviews: susan mcdougal
interview: susan mcdougal As a young college student at Ouachita Baptist ..... A: This Whitewater, this entire episode, would never have happened. ...
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/arkansas/interviews/smcdougal.html - 35k - Cached - Similar pages

Her Lips Were Sealed - New York Times
You will remember Susan McDougal as the woman who in the mid-1990's stood up ... What happened to appeasement? The Clintons may have gained from her refusal ...
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02EEDD1E31F935A15752C0A9659C8B63 - 38k - Cached - Similar pages

[bigtree]

20. She still strongly defends her choice and the Clintons as well.

[rodeodance]

16. She is still working in the campaign, Lehrer news hr PBS last night

[bigtree]

19. and both had very good things to say to the campaign in their letters of resignation

encouraging the changes

[rodeodance]

27. good thanks.

[KoKo]

29. You know...I'm really giving Hillary a break...as an undecided...

but believe in getting the "bad news out." I was hoping to find something current about MacDougal working on the campaign. What I came up with in sourcing was what I posted.

If you have a link I would like to see it...thanks. I'm not an Obama supporter ...I'm not sure who I'm voting for on May 6th...:-( But, I want to read it all.

:hi: so you don't think I'm some "Freeper" here.

[bigtree]

17. this is pathetic

staff changes are now a big deal?

Obama's never had any staff changes?

[KoKo]

18. "Atlantic Monthly" on how "poor Patti keeps losing Millions of Hillary's Contrbutions."

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200802u/patti-solis-doyle


by Joshua Green
Inside the Clinton Shake-Up


Like so much involving Hillary Clinton, Sunday’s departure of her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, has gotten tons of attention, but its larger significance has been somewhat misunderstood. I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the last two years reporting on “Hillaryland,” as Clinton’s inner circle is known, for pieces like this one and this one, and also, infamously, for one that did not run when GQ magazine opted to kill it after learning of the Clinton campaign’s displeasure (full story here). The latter piece focused on the inner workings of Clinton’s presidential campaign and Solis Doyle’s controversial role in it, and I’ll draw on what I learned then to try to add perspective to recent happenings.

For the many people in and around Washington who obsess over the latest machinations in Hillaryland, the firing of Solis Doyle—and she was fired, several insiders confirm—is a big deal, but for reasons somewhat different from what the media coverage has suggested. Her title of “campaign manager” implies a loftier role than the one she actually played. She is the furthest thing from a Rove-like strategic genius (Mark Penn inhabits that role for Hillary), so her leaving doesn’t signify an impending change of strategy, as some reports seem to assume. Rather, Solis Doyle, who began as Clinton’s personal scheduler in 1991 (and who, as it happens, coined the term “Hillaryland”) was Clinton’s alter ego and was installed in the job specifically for that reason. Her performance in Clinton’s past races and especially in this one reflects all the good and the bad that the alter-ego designation carries. I’ve always felt that the most revealing thing about Solis Doyle is her oft-repeated line: “When I’m speaking, Hillary is speaking.” It is revealing both because it is true and because it conveys—and even flaunts—an arrogance that I think is the key to understanding all that has gone wrong for the Clinton campaign.

Such arrogance led directly to the idea that Clinton could simply project an air of inevitability and be assured her party’s nomination. If she wins—as she very well might—it will be in spite of her original approach. As one former Clinton staffer put it to me last spring: “There was an assumption that if you were a major donor and wanted to be an ambassador, go to state dinners with the queen—unless you were an outright fool, you were going to go with Hillary, whether you liked her or not. The attitude was ‘Where else are they going to go?’”

It’s important to emphasize that Solis Doyle was not the architect of the Clinton strategy. It was devised and agreed to by many of the campaign’s top staffers, and the candidate herself signed off on it. But in all my reporting and personal experience with the campaign, Solis Doyle probably embodied it more than anyone else. It’s not unfair that she lost her job; but it is unfair that no other senior staffers appear to be in danger of losing theirs.

No one could have predicted Barack Obama’s sudden rise, though the Clinton campaign was slower to recognize it than most. Solis Doyle’s failure is another matter. As much as Clinton touts her own “executive experience” and judgment, she made Solis Doyle her campaign manager because of Solis Doyle’s loyalty, rather than her skill, despite a trail of available evidence suggesting she was unsuited for the role.

To understand how this happened, it’s helpful to know a bit about the history of rivalry and factionalism in Hillaryland. The self-mythologizing tale most often told by its inhabitants is that during Bill Clinton’s administration, while his advisers were leaking left and right as they jockeyed for primacy and influence, Hillary’s were fiercely loyal. “My staff prided themselves on discretion, loyalty, and camaraderie, and we had our own special ethos,” Clinton wrote in her memoir, Living History. “While the West Wing had a tendency to leak, Hillaryland never did.”

But when Clinton ran for a New York Senate seat in 2000, that began to change. Without the drama of Bill Clinton’s administration to occupy the media, the spotlight fell squarely on Hillary’s advisers, who now included not just the loyal White House cadre, but others who had been added to her team, like Penn and Dwight Jewson, an advertising consultant specializing in branding who had helped sell Doritos, Red Wolf Beer, and the Taco Bell Value Menu. The arrival of these outsiders complicated the ever-shifting pecking order in Hillaryland, suddenly putting it on full display and making it more consequential than ever.

As Clinton stagnated in the polls that year, a turbulent divide opened up within her own camp over how to respond to her image problem. Tensions flared between advisers such as Penn and Mandy Grunwald, her media consultant, who wanted her to stick to the issues, and others, such as Jewson and Harold Ickes, who thought she should confront her chief shortcoming—the notion that she was power-hungry and calculating. As Michael Tomasky revealed in his fine memoir about the campaign, Hillary’s Turn, Jewson conducted a series of focus groups to see why Hillary wasn’t selling and learned that women saw her as “savvy, pushy, cold … back-stabbing … self-centered.” One woman compared Hillary to her mother-in-law. The battle between the camps intensified to the point that it began to go public, most notably when someone leaked Penn’s internal polling data to The New York Times Magazine . Penn and Ickes regularly erupted into shouting matches and eventually stopped speaking to each other, communicating instead through an intermediary.

With her staff’s squabbling threatening to torpedo her campaign, Clinton dispatched Solis Doyle to New York in August to serve as an enforcer and get things under control, which she largely managed to do. The leaks were contained, the play-it-safe camp of Penn and Grunwald ultimately prevailed, and Clinton herself did too, after Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race. By squashing rivalries and imposing discipline, Solis Doyle distinguished herself in the eyes of the candidate.

After the race, Solis Doyle was put in charge of fund-raising and later became campaign manager for Clinton’s Senate reelection bid in 2006. She earned a reputation as a contentious, domineering boss. Along the way, many of the staff members who worked under her left or were forced out, including several high-powered members of Clinton’s inner circle, such as Kelly Craighead and Evelyn Lieberman, the deputy chief of staff to Bill Clinton famous for banishing Monica Lewinsky to the Pentagon. The frequent turnover in the fund-raising shop was a significant measure of Solis Doyle’s unpopularity. Clinton staffers are notably loyal, and turnover among them tends to be much lower than it is among the staffs of other politicians. Fund-raising under Solis Doyle was a glaring exception, chalking up the kind of body count you’d expect from an episode of The Sopranos. She was infamous among her colleagues for referring to herself as “the queen bee” and for her habit of watching daytime soap operas in her office. One frequent complaint among donors and outside advisers was that Solis Doyle often did not return calls or demonstrate the attention required in her position.

[KoKo]

24. And this from Michelle Cottle: "Putsch in Hllaryland"

The New Republic
Putsch in Hillaryland by Michelle Cottle
The Clinton campaign's silent shake-up.
Post Date Friday, January 25, 2008


The morning after is never pretty. In the wake of defeat in the Iowa caucus, it was a sad and sorry Team Hillary that assembled for a conference call with the candidate. Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, in transit back to Washington, was absent. Top strategist Mark Penn was dazed and subdued, waiting for the candidate to come on the line. When she did, Hillary gave a brief greeting making clear that there would be no navel-gazing and that she was ready to look ahead, according to a participant in the call who was already on the ground in New Hampshire (desperately seeking guidance). Adopting the same ready-for-business tone, message guru Mandy Grunwald tried to spur conversation by asking other top advisers if they wanted to share any thoughts. Nothing. After a pregnant pause, Hillary jumped back in to talk for a few minutes about what she saw as the next step. Again, she was met by silence that stretched out awkwardly until a displeased Hillary snipped, "This has been very helpful talking to myself," and hung up on the group.

Post-Iowa, even the most blindly devoted members of Team Hillary could see that a shake-up of the campaign was in order. The peculiarities of Iowa's caucus system aside, broad structural and tonal problems needed to be addressed. So, as a devastated top leadership struggled to make sense of what had happened, the candidate went to work: Plans were made to bring in new blood; rumors circulated about who among the senior staff would be booted after New Hampshire. But then--surprise!--Granite State voters smiled on the Clinton clan once more, delivering Hillary a political resurrection even more stunning than Bill's 1992 comeback. The troops were elated. The generals were relieved. The candidate was glowing and crowing about her found voice. It was a grand and glorious triumph. Except...

The campaign still needed shaking. The percolating trouble brought to the surface in Iowa could not be ignored. But how to accomplish this without damaging the campaign's miraculous new momentum? Especially when much of the discord, say multiple insiders, flowed from decision-makers at the very top of the pyramid.



For all Team Hillary's gifts, it is not known as a happy group. "I've never seen a campaign where everyone feels so bad about themselves," says one campaign staffer, echoing others. This may be somewhat unavoidable: Too much is on the line. Everyone is exhausted. The public scrutiny (damn those scrounging reporters!) is relentless. But compounding these generic stressors, say insiders, has been the fear-inducing, high-handed leadership of the coterie of überadvisers known as "the Five."

High atop Hillary's disciplined, leakproof operation, Solis Doyle, along with Penn, Grunwald, policy chief Neera Tanden, and communications director Howard Wolfson, have kept an iron grip on everything from ideas to access. Characterized by their colleagues--and even themselves--as a collection of brilliant but not especially likable political talents, the Five are seen by many insiders as contributing to the candidate's image problem. Even those who profess fondness for individual members admit that none makes a compelling Face of the Campaign. So, when Team Hillary hit its Iowa speed bump, the thoughts of many immediately turned toward shattering the hold of the Five.

In any given situation, the first member of this inner circle to be targeted for abuse is Penn. The reasons are legion: his high profile; his right-of-center politics; his myopic focus on issues; his dismissal of the need for Hillary to get personal and address her likability problem; his unusual dual role as top strategist and pollster; and, of course, his famously rough manner. It's little wonder that all those insiders who didn't care for Penn when the team was riding high were salivating at the idea of prying the campaign from his cold dead hands as things turned south in Iowa. But, despite political watchers crediting Hillary's comeback to her at last getting personal (a move Penn had fought against in favor of more Iron Lady messaging), New Hampshire bought Penn a reprieve.

Instead, the adviser most damaged by

MORE at........

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=75e41edb-784d-4f9a-ba6e-08cab93d09ae

[David Zephyr]

37. Fascinating article. babylonsister posted another from talkingpointsmemo, too.

"Hillary Bloodletting Continues: Two More Staffers Out"

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02...

[KoKo]

39. Just Remember, David...Same people dancing on Clinton Grave gave us Bush...and

It's either a true Obama Phenomena...or...same people dancing on Bush's Grave giving us another President.

Just cautioning that all of us who've been here for years..should maybe think about that. We who are the "hopeful, idealists" who somehow always lose in the end....just saying...for what it's worth.

[David Zephyr]

40. I do remember.

And there is a big difference between the attacks by the right wing on the Clintons and those from the Left on their policies and betrayals. I know the difference, even if others don't.

And while I have you here, KoKo01. I'd love to have you come aboard the bus of hope and when you do, I'll get up and give you my seat. It's saved for you. And you will never feel so proud as when you do. I know. I waited all year through 2007 bouncing around.

I didn't believe that Obama could raise the money. I didn't believe he could put together a credible and organized campaign for the primaries. How wrong could I have been?! He and Michelle have won my heart and have me believing one more time. And if, by any stretch of the possible, you find it in your heart and mind to come over with the hope-mongers, you will have the warmest welcome possible from me. In the meantime, here's wishing you all the best.

[creeksneakers2]

41. Web Hubbell kept his mouth shut about what?

Web Hubbell cooperated with Starr and answered extensive depositions. Starr was angry because Web didn't sell Clinton out with lies.

Why didn't Web get a pardon? Probably because Hillary didn't forgive him for the money he stole from her.

I also don't know about Web spending half his adult life working for the Clintons. Web was a senior partner at Hillary's law firm. If anything, she was working for him.

The only time Web worked for the Clintons I know of was when he was solicitor general. That didn't last long.

[David Zephyr]

43. Bill should have given the poor man a pardon.

.

[Skwmom]

42. About Rwanda. In the movie "Sometime in April" or "Hotel Rwanda"

can't remember which one, on the movie disk, there is footage of Clinton giving a speech about how this can never happen again, then there is footage about how Clinton didn't just remain silent, he pushed to remove the UN peacekeepers from Rwanda.