December 22, 2017

"If Bill Clinton hadn’t twisted my arm, I would have stayed at Wisconsin forever."

Bill Clinton twisted Donna Shalala's arm, according to Shalala, who was the chancellor here at UW-Madison until she became Clinton's Secretary of Health and Human Services. Upon leaving that job, she became president at the University of Miami. She's still there, where the UW football team will play Miami in the Orange Bowl on December 30th, which is why there's an article about her today in the Wisconsin State Journal.

Shalala says her "loyalties are sort of half-split" — loyalties to the 2 football teams.

We're given a truncated list of famous alumni from the 2 schools. From Miami:
... actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, singer and songwriter Gloria Estefan, former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus of Kenosha, Pro Football Hall of Famers Jim Kelly and Michael Irvin, and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
From Wisconsin:
... Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, author Joyce Carol Oates, Sierra Club founder John Muir, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, astronaut Jim Lovell and John Bardeen, the only two-time recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
As long as we're catching up with Donna Shalala and thinking about Bill Clinton twisting her arm, here's a CNN report from September 11, 1998, "Clinton apologizes to Cabinet":
One of the participants, speaking on condition of anonymity, said... Shalala told Clinton that women feel a special bond with him because of his policies, but they are especially sympathetic toward his wife and daughter.... Shalala listened to Clinton apologize, ask for forgiveness and promise to improve as a person. "To say it is one thing," she was quoted as saying, "to demonstrate it is another."...
IN THE COMMENTS: mockturtle said...
Sounds to me like physical abuse, man vs. woman, ergo, sexual assault.
Rob said...
"If you're a president, they let you do it, you can do anything--twist their arm."

23 comments:

rhhardin said...

Rush has a nice Shalala song parody to the acoustic Clapton Layla on his site probably.

Original Mike said...

"John Bardeen was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on May 23, 1908.[8] He was the son of Charles Russell Bardeen, the first dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School.". Wikipedia

Oh! I was always confused about this (never looked it up before). In graduate school I worked for a time in a building named "Bardeen" in the old Medical School. I never understood the connection to Bardeen the physicist.

Curious George said...

"Upon leaving that job, she became president at the University of Miami. She's still there..."

wiki said she left in 2015 and became president of the Clinton Foundation.

"According to the New York Times, Chelsea Clinton helped persuade Shalala to leave the Miami position, move to New York and head the foundation.[21]"

Unknown said...

-Shalala.

-ShaNaNa.

- james james

mockturtle said...

Sounds to me like physical abuse, man vs. woman, ergo, sexual assault.

Rob said...

"If you're a president, they let you do it, you can do anything--twist their arm."

Curious George said...

"One of the participants, speaking on condition of anonymity, said... Shalala told Clinton that women feel a special bond with him because of his policies, but they are especially sympathetic toward his wife and daughter.... Shalala listened to Clinton apologize, ask for forgiveness and promise to improve as a person. "To say it is one thing," she was quoted as saying, "to demonstrate it is another."..."

#sheknew but would rather head up the Clinton Foundation than rat out Bill the rapist.

Carter Wood said...

I've always been intrigued by Shalala's twin sister, Diane Fritel, in a road-not-taken sort of way. Fritel became a farm-wife in North Dakota. From a 1973 New York Times feature on Rugby, N.D., "Down on the Farm, a Wife's Life Isn't the Drudgery It Used to Be."

One of the young activists in the community is Diane Fritel, 32, who met her husband Robert, 28, traveling through France when she was a teacher in Germany and he was in the Army.

Mrs. Fritel, who is a native of Cleveland and has a masters degree, spent her first summer in Rugby organizing tennis classes and held the town's first tennis tournament. Now she's city editor and only reporter for The Pierce County Tribune, a weekly newspaper.

Mrs. Fritel said she misses the company of women who can talk about politics as easily as pickles, but she has grown to respect the farm women tremendously.

“They are really much more talented than I am,” she said.

She has decorated their modest threebedroom farm house with the purchases of her world travels — an Egyptian pouff, brass rubbings from England, Moroccan blanket, African masks and the spear of a Masai farmer.

Sebastian said...

"they are especially sympathetic toward his wife and daughter"

Not a word about his actual victims. She knew.

That's the sisterhood for you.

When progs start lecturing us again, remember.

bagoh20 said...

All that name dropping, and no mention of a single name of one of the guys who picked up the garbage or cleaned the toilets they sat their ass on everyday. Imagine one of those celebrities never existed at those universities. Now imagine the place without the janitor.

Merry Christmas to those who invisibly make our lives better every single day, and thank you.

mockturtle said...

Merry Christmas to those who invisibly make our lives better every single day, and thank you.

Amen to that, bagoh!

tcrosse said...

It's the same old Shalala my father brought from Ireland....

Michael K said...

I personally think Bill recruited her so that Reich would not be the only short one in the cabinet.

They are sort of a matching pair.

roesch/voltaire said...

She made a great Bucky Badger among other things.

madAsHell said...

the spear of a Masai farmer.

The Masai are nomadic ranchers.

Carter Wood said...

madAsHell said...
the spear of a Masai farmer.

The Masai are nomadic ranchers.


Yes, and the NYT dateline is Rugby, S.D., instead of the accurate N.D.

lgv said...

Dear commenters, thanks for the laughs.

I think UW wins the alumni comparison contest, but it is a much larger school.

Johanna Lapp said...

For decades Ira Einhorn was acknowledged as the principal creator of Earth Day. Until he was convicted as the Unicorn Killer.

Now, this Gaylord Nelson takes all the credit?

Gahrie said...

I have long said that what Clinton did to the other women who worked for him, having them go out and lie for him, was just as bad as what he did with Lewinsky. Surely one of those women has the character to apologize to the American people and denounce Clinton for having them lie for him.

Gahrie said...

Einhorn is a man!!

n.n said...

Violence innuendo.

David said...

I guess she thinks UW would let her stay forever. What does she think she is, the athletic director?

Jupiter said...

Wish he'd twisted her neck.