Althouse: What Hillary Clinton said about Bill that got a big laugh: "I am so grateful to him for a lifetime of, uh...all kinds of experiences."

February 2, 2009

What Hillary Clinton said about Bill that got a big laugh: "I am so grateful to him for a lifetime of, uh...all kinds of experiences."

She was just sworn in as Secretary of State. Transcribed by my son Chris — who loves Hillary. He opines that the audience must have thought of Monica Lewinsky and adds "Bill looked red, but he always looks red."

She also said this about Biden: "As Joe laughingly referenced, neither one of us thought that we would be standing here together doing what we are now doing together. Life has a funny way of unfolding and politics is even stranger."

54 comments:

SteveR said...: Bill and Hillary, a laugh a minute.; 2/2/09, 3:57 PM
traditionalguy said...: Recieving a Lifetime Achievement Award from your wounded spouse is too prescious for comment.She's a tough Lady for sure.; 2/2/09, 3:58 PM
TitusCoffeeShopLove said...: I saw it and thought it was great.

Love her.; 2/2/09, 4:00 PM
Methadras said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/2/09, 4:08 PM
kjbe said...: How very 'diplomatic' of her. She's certainly one tough bird.; 2/2/09, 4:09 PM
TitusCoffeeShopLove said...: She's smart and tough. Just like I love my women.; 2/2/09, 4:11 PM
Methadras said...: The leftist/liberal Democrat circle jerk continues. Lifetime membership in the knee-pad brigade earns you progressive pay and promotions every 4 to 8 years. Further proving it's about not only who you know, but also who you blew and who you can blow. Sucking and fucking your way to the top is the new Democrat motto. Also, the ignorance of paying taxes too.; 2/2/09, 4:15 PM
Simon said...: I like her; I think she would have made a terrific secretary of state, and I would rather she was President today than Obama. Too bad she isn't eligible, and we're going to have to find a plaintiff to eject her. It's nothing personal.; 2/2/09, 4:16 PM
dbp said...: Simon, I think the tough part will be finding somebody who has standing.; 2/2/09, 4:22 PM
Ann Althouse said...: There was a lawsuit filed. I was going to blog about it, but it's not important, in my view. It will go nowhere and it should go nowhere.; 2/2/09, 4:29 PM
blake said...: Really? Isn't that what they call "black letter law"?; 2/2/09, 4:31 PM
traditionalguy said...: All things Federal are open to Supreme Court readings in context, whether Black Letter, or otherwise. What does that clear as a bell 10th Amendment say today?; 2/2/09, 4:49 PM
Palladian said...: "It will go nowhere and it should go nowhere."

Yeah, to hell with that stupid Constitution thingy! The Obama has spoken!; 2/2/09, 4:55 PM
Palladian said...: The Constitution means what it says... until it doesn't!; 2/2/09, 4:56 PM
ricpic said...: For all her tough, even killer survival skills, without the red faced one Hillary would be a womens' studies professor or upper level diversitycrat at this stage in her career.; 2/2/09, 5:02 PM
Skyler said...: The exact meaning and intent of the Constitution is only important when the magic incantation of the oath is mispoken. If you trip over a word, even with no change to the meaning of the oath, then we must rush the Chief Justice over to do it again.

When it comes to unimportant issues, such as the tenth amendment or the unending reach of the commerce clause, well, then words and intent aren't so important.; 2/2/09, 5:03 PM
Skyler said...: ricpic, or she'd probably be in jail.; 2/2/09, 5:03 PM
Kirby Olson said...: Why is this office called the Secretary of STATE? I don't understand any of the terms. First, the office holder doesn't seemingly take notes, or do any filing, or answer the phones, as a secretary might do. You'd think this would be a secretary for the state.

Secondly, why is it that this office is now mostly about doing foreign diplomacy in troubled war-time regions? Condi at least back to Kissinger were mostly concerned with foreign wars.

Why isn't this post called something like Director of Foreign Wars?; 2/2/09, 5:04 PM
John Stodder said...: So, Titus, would you say Hillary has become a "gay icon?" Like Judy Garland and Tammy Faye Messner?; 2/2/09, 5:07 PM
garage mahal said...: The Constitution means what it says... until it doesn't!

We're at war, [a different kind of war!], and all terrorist loving hate America first Palladian can think about is how to give comfort to the enemy by throwing out a trumped up technicality [witchunt!] on a Sec State appointment.; 2/2/09, 5:10 PM
tim maguire said...: I have grown to like Hillary over the years. Among the serious candidates from both parites, she was my first choice for president (I voted for her anyway as a write in). But, man!, she sure has mastered the art of talking without saying anything!; 2/2/09, 5:10 PM
Anonymous said...: Perjury - what a side splitting joke!

The President of the United States perjuring himself in an attempt to deprive a citizen of a full presentation of evidence, and her fair day in court - what hilarity!

Please! Stop! It's killing me.; 2/2/09, 5:18 PM
jaed said...: She has iron self-control, not to have strangled Bill ten times over by now.

Like or dislike her, one must give Hillary that.; 2/2/09, 5:22 PM
Skyler said...: She has iron self-control, not to have strangled Bill ten times over by now.

Who's to say she didn't?

I can think of no single person with more evil intent than this woman, Hillary Clinton. except for her husband. I find it unfathomable that anyone would think well of her.; 2/2/09, 5:28 PM
Revenant said...: She has iron self-control, not to have strangled Bill ten times over by now.

If she had divorced bill in 1998, she'd have spent the last ten years as a lobbyist instead of a Senator, Presidential candidate, and Secretary of State.

And Simon... dude, give it UP already. Even if someone sued and the issue made it all the way to the Supreme Court they'd find some flimsy rationalization for leaving her in place.; 2/2/09, 5:29 PM
Host with the Most said...: I would not vote for her for President - I disagree with her on way to many basics.

But Secretary of State may be just the right fit for her.

I do not believe that she is really all that much "stronger" than many, many other women. Plenty of women could certainly do as good a job. But she wants it, and the desire for both another shot at the Presidency and/or burnishing her legacy will keep her worst impulses within bounds.

That said, everyone feels for her - or at least should - for what she went through with Bill/Monica. That, and the breakdown on the campaign show an actual vulnerability that is perversely reassuring.

Now if Eric Holder can only listen to his better angels . . .; 2/2/09, 5:47 PM
Mark O said...: So, here we are, a few short days into the Era of The Sublimely Unqualified and we are reduced to describing Hillary Clinton as “tough?” Other words leap to my mind, like calculating, enabling, manufactured, limited, mendacious and, for want of a kinder word, rich. Were we to imagine a story of a “tough” woman, none of the salient events of her life, except going to law school in the early 1970's would qualify. In everything else she is only an opportunist.; 2/2/09, 6:07 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Now if Eric Holder can only listen to his better angels . . .

Would that be the sound of a cash register by any chance?

A cabinet of tax cheats and a secretary of state in the deep pockets of half the deep pokets in the world.

Yea we got change - short-changed.; 2/2/09, 6:12 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Yeah, to hell with that stupid Constitution thingy! The Obama has spoken!"

The problem here is that "the fix" has been used in the past, and it's too late to use it to get rid of Hillary. This is an area of constitutional law that has been dealt with within the political branches and not the courts, mainly because no litigant has standing to bring a case. As such, the past precedent is crushingly convincing. The fix fixes it.

(The fix = reducing the salary to the level where, if it had remained, there would be no emoluments clause problem.); 2/2/09, 6:14 PM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: I'm not a Hillary fan, but this makes me feel sorry for her. She could not have convincingly even LIED and said "a lifetime of love" because of what he's done. That sucks.

As to the lawsuit - I am not a lawyer but I have experience dealing with quality systems. You don't say you're going to do something if you're not going to do it. If there is an unnecessary rule that you don't mean to follow, take the sucker out. Otherwise you have a big old NONCONFORMANCE and will have a finding on an audit, for nothing. From an employee morale standpoint, you absolutely can't have rules that you're going to let slide because people will not differentiate between "rules" and "I really mean it rules" and it's not fair to expect them to.

I suppose that lawyers' reasoning as to a specific lawbreaking being a non-issue is totally alien to this.; 2/2/09, 6:17 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Hey, I got a question.

Will all the Federal District Atts be fired under the One?

Clinton fired them all.. Bush fired a few and we never heard the end of it.; 2/2/09, 6:21 PM
Jeremy said...: Lem,
No, because the Fed Gov't benefits from the expertise and continuity when a new contractor replacing an old contractor is required to employ the same workers. Or something.; 2/2/09, 6:42 PM
TMink said...: GM wrote: "all terrorist loving hate America first Palladian can think about is how to give comfort to the enemy by throwing out a trumped up technicality"

Garage Mahal: Defender of America.

Trey - future Supreme Court Justice becasue of his advanced empathy; 2/2/09, 6:59 PM
TMink said...: Or banned from posting because of his insidious dyslexia.

Trey - just because; 2/2/09, 7:01 PM
Simon said...: dbp said...
Simon, I think the tough part will be finding somebody who has standing.

I agree with that. On the one hand, it would seem particularly tough in light of Steel Co. and Laidlaw, which emphasize that it isn't enough to have standing to challenge clinton generally - one must have an injury, caused by the fact of her being SoS, that will be redressed by her removal from office. (Or would it suffice to simply have the court hold as much? Is it enough to simply neutralize the saxbe fix for future use in a damages action?) On the other hand, I think that the Supreme Court left Lujan's redressability prong for dead Mass v. EPA. Whether they'd hew to that, I don't know. I hope not. And all this, by the way, is to the good in my view: I'm a standing hawk, I regard jurisdiction as a vital limit on the otherwise immense power of the courts, but I feel sure that someone has standing.

Ann Althouse said...
"There was a lawsuit filed. I was going to blog about it, but it's not important, in my view. It will go nowhere and it should go nowhere."

Almost certainly, again because of the near-impossibility of finding a plaintiff with standing. Nevertheless, I very respectfully disagree with what I have taken (from your BHTV with JB) to your view that the issue is a political question. Stipulating a viable plaintiff, arguendo, this in in my view, plain as day a justiciable question if Nixon controls the question.

traditionalguy said...
"All things Federal are open to Supreme Court readings in context, whether Black Letter, or otherwise."

Not quite. For one thing, many questions are nonjusticiable - they are left, for various reasons, to the political branches to squabble it out. For another, even if that was literally true in practice, the difficulty of finding someone with standing to challenege particular points keeps the court out. For example, if I had my druthers, I would overrule Flast v. Cohen, which creates an exception to the taxpayer standing rule for a particular class of establishment clause violations; thereafter, it would still be possible to mount the sort of cases that arise now, but it would be much harder for a case to arise that would let the courts sink their teeth into those issues.

"What does that clear as a bell 10th Amendment say today?"

It is very clear what the Tenth Amendment says. What it means, however... ;); 2/2/09, 7:22 PM
traditionalguy said...: The "Secretary of State" is an old title for the King's representative who met the foreign emissaries who showed up in the Capitol to call on the King. He was the go between so the king (L'Etat c'est moi) could either tell them "Nuts" by delays and the famous merrygo-round of underlings to send them thru, and refer them on, and on. So he had to have the King's complete trust, and be a known and skilled prevaricator at the same time. His job was on the otherhand, to play the balance of power game by using Extreme flattery and bestowing made up honors upon a foreign representative in hopes of creating in them a desire to join their State's destiny up with this State's destiny. It appears that Hillary should be a natural. There are NO war duties, only suck up duties.; 2/2/09, 7:26 PM
Kirby Olson said...: Traditional guy -- but won't she have something to do with the war in Iraq, and didn't she say in the election run that she wanted to stay there? Isn't this sending mixed messages on Obama's part? Let's get out, oh wait, Hillary says we gotta stay!

(?); 2/2/09, 7:30 PM
Simon said...: Ann Althouse said...
"[P]ast precedent is crushingly convincing. The fix fixes it."

I don't think that the past precedents -- which were, by the way, themselves a 20th Century departure from very convincing 19th century precedents, see, e.g., 17 Op. Attorney General 365 (1881), that have since been repudiated to one extent or another by the Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations -- settles it. How crushingly convincing, how fixed, did Fay v. Noia look, once upon a time? Nowadays, the NYT alarmistly said, the exclusionary rule itself - the ultimate crushingly convincing settled question - is crumbling. I don't buy that, but it illustrates that what was once settled can cease to be. And political expediency is surely the very weakest reason to coin and retain a constitutional rule.; 2/2/09, 7:30 PM
traditionalguy said...: Simon... I think your comment affirms that The Supremes play the role they chose politically to play, even in the black letter law cases. So how does their refusing to rule on such a case differ from their agreeing that the black letter law is not applicable to a black letter law case? Of course it makes for fun dissents.; 2/2/09, 7:34 PM
Simon said...: Revenant said...
"And Simon... dude, give it UP already."

I realize I'm becoming a bore on the subject, so will soon let it fade into the backgrond. For now, however, I remain infuriated by it. And not just for the obvious reason; what makes it particularly galling is that this latest violence against the Constitution is brought to us not only with the consent of but by the authorship of a group of people who have spent the last eight years dreaming up any number of bogus theories for why the last President violated the Constitution and bleating neverendingly about it. And yet, confronted with a real violation - direct, obvious, and beyond serious argument - they are silent. The un-self-aware hypocrisy of it is infuriating - it confirms the accuracy of Althouse's remark that "[p]eople use the Constitution when they like what it says, but when it's in the way, they're not very respectful of it." 82 ABA J., Oct. 1996 at 79.; 2/2/09, 7:39 PM
Joe said...: I concur with Simon.; 2/2/09, 7:47 PM
traditionalguy said...: Simon... I feel your pain. Seriously, I tried you exact arguments at a dinner party in December that included conservative people. They were friendly, but could not have cared less. My wife gave me the Zip-it-dotcom gesture, and I did so. I concluded that the Emolument Clause is just over the heads of most people, and that means there is no political payoff in this for you,for me, or more importantly,for the Supremes.; 2/2/09, 7:50 PM
Simon said...: Traditionalguy, the best formulation of it is in the Nixon case that I mentioned above. It's not that Nixon, this is a different Nixon. The basic rule is that the courts will stay out of a dispute when the Constitution comits the issue to another branch of government (for example, the power to judge elections and to make rules of procedings are plainly political questions, because the Constitution directly and explicitly comits them to each house of Congress), or when there is "a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it" (think of gerrymanders, for example: any standard the court created for policing that kind of thing would be cut from whole cloth). That second one is particularly important for keeping courts out of the business of deciding which of two competing policy choices is better. The courts, you have to keep in mind, aren't there to referee. Their job is to decide cases and controversies - their lawsaying power (which in my view extensive) arises exclusively in that context, and then only to the extent necessary to resolve the case.; 2/2/09, 7:53 PM
TMink said...: "And yet, confronted with a real violation - direct, obvious, and beyond serious argument - they are silent.'

That is because they care neither a jot nor a tittle for the Constitution. They crave power.

Trey; 2/2/09, 8:05 PM
traditionalguy said...: Simon... you will soon have John Marshall turning over in his grave to applaud you; since you want more, and not less, Judicial Review Powers taken into the hands of the 9 unelected and un-running for re-electionable men and women even when they don't want to take that power. Yes, Law is technical and sometimes appears "black letter", but the President's choice for his Secretary of state is truly a political issue best left to elected Men and Women.; 2/2/09, 8:14 PM
Mark O said...: It’s not surprising, then, is it that most people lack respect for the law and lawyers. So far, the Obama Administration has shown a bracing lack of respect for ethics or, what ever it might be, the law.

Oh, he won.; 2/2/09, 8:37 PM
Anonymous said...: Clinton didn't fire all of the US Attorneys. Bill Bradley stepped in with a special request to retain one.

Michael Chertoff.

Things just have a weird way of turning out, don't they?; 2/2/09, 8:42 PM
blake said...: Ace reports Judicial Watch is suing.; 2/2/09, 8:49 PM
Simon said...: traditionalguy said...
"Simon... you will soon have John Marshall turning over in his grave to applaud you; since you want more, and not less, Judicial Review"

That's a, um, novel idea of John Marshall's view of the authority of federal courts. ;) At any rate, I have no objection to federal courts exercicing their lawsaying power when it's appropriately called into play. What I have a problem with is people using the courts to engineer policy changes that they can't push through the legislature (from Lochner to Roe to Mass v. EPA), and the willingness of courts to allow that by relaxing jurisdictional doctrines. Some things ought to be decided by the political branches, but the defense of the structural constitution is too important to leave to those who have incentives to bend it.

"the President's choice for his Secretary of state is truly a political issue best left to elected Men and Women."

I agree, to the following extent: the President should be able to choose anyone who is eligible for the office. The issue with Hillary isn't a question of the President's choice, but rather, the extent to which the Constitution circumscribes the available pool of talent. The ineligibility clause does limit the President's options, and that limit should not be ignored. It is unfortunate that President Obama and the Congress have chosen to flout their oath of office, but their doing so does not settle the question.; 2/2/09, 9:41 PM
Skyler said...: I can only think of one person with standing: Condoleeza Rice.

And she's not about to sue.

It is a trite issue, but law is law.; 2/2/09, 9:55 PM
Simon said...: blake said...
"Ace reports Judicial Watch is suing."

Sure - their complaint is here (captioned Rodearmel v. Clinton), but I agree with Althouse as to this particular case, I don't see how this plaintiff establishes standing. His argument boils down to the implicit theory that because he's served many years and doesn't think he'll be happy taking orders from someone who isn't eligible to give them - what case holds that such a minor kind of psychic injury establishes standing?; 2/2/09, 10:04 PM
traditionalguy said...: Simon... When you can introduce me to a judge, or a teacher, or a clergy person who is not primarily Politically motivated, then we can start our own perfect Oneida community. But no children can be admitted sense they are truly innocent and will expose us.; 2/2/09, 11:42 PM
blake said...: Oh, hell, Simon, I don't know.

I have, since I started driving, felt that the 55 mph speed limit was damaging to all of us, in that it promoted disrespect for the law.

So, you know, what do I know?; 2/3/09, 4:22 AM
AllenS said...: Anybody who would dare land in that war torn hell hole of Yugoslavia under sniper fire is ok in my book.

Why would she do it? She did it for us. She did it because she cares.; 2/3/09, 6:54 AM