2.11.02 @ 12:55AM
Plus, Clinton Goes South: Is there a Heritage USA in his future?
HUGH COMES THROUGH
If former President Bill Clinton was mad at his
brother-in-law Hugh Rodham for his role in the
pardons mess that roiled the Clinton White House in its final days,
all seems to be forgiven now.
Clinton traveled to Florida late last week for a series of
speeches and fundraisers, some of them "organized" by Rodham.
According to one current Clinton associate, Rodham was behind a
gala event for a local Miami charity. Clinton agreed to attend,
though he "was suspicious about it. Given everything he has been
through with Hillary's brother, the president just assumes there is
an angle being played. It's funny to hear him of all people saying
that, since we all know he's king of playing the angles. Those two
deserve each other."
One person Clinton wasn't interested in seeing: his former
attorney general Janet Reno. Clinton declined a
request to fundraise for the current gubernatorial candidate, and
lent his name to a DNC fundraiser instead. "Unless [DNC Chairman]
Terry McAuliffe asks him to do it, he doesn't want
to do Reno any favors," says the Clinton aide.
THE PERMANENT SCAMPAIGN
Clinton needs to do some fundraising of his own. Donations to his
Little Rock-based presidential library were down long before 9/11
and practically dried up in the aftermath of the tragedies. So
Clinton is sending off new letters to potential donors, promoting a
"new" addition he'd like to add to the facility: a "School of
Public Service."
"He envisions it someday rivaling Georgetown's school for
international studies, and Harvard's Kennedy School," says a
library donor, who declined Clinton's latest request for more
dough. "It's absurd. This library is beginning to have the look and
feel of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Heritage USA amusement park.
Clinton's always asking for money, always adding on some program or
scam. I don't believe any of it will become a reality.
"He says he wants this place to be for idealistic young people
like he was. Who the hell wants more of him? And besides he says
his school will study terrorism. What? So he can learn from his
many mistakes? I don't think so."
BYRD-DOGGING
President Bush called Secretary of the Treasury Paul
O'Neill on Thursday evening and thanked him for his
service to his country and for serving as a "great secretary of the
Treasury," according to sources in the White House and Treasury
Department. The impromptu pat on the back came in the aftermath of
one of the more stunning exchanges in memory between a top
administration official and a U.S. senator.
O'Neill appeared before the Senate Budget Committee on Thursday
to discuss the new Bush budget. West Virginia Democrat Sen.
Robert Byrd lit into him for his criticism of
Senate rules limiting the number of amendments that can be tacked
on to tax legislation, and other rules that constrain federal
agencies from getting funds the administration deems necessary.
Byrd told him "you're not Alexander Hamilton" and excoriated him
for having been a "CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation." Byrd
then asked O'Neill if he could recall any rules that limited human
potential or were unjust. By now O'Neill was primed. In an
unmistakable allusion to Byrd's past membership in the Ku Klux
Klan, he shot back: "Rules that said, 'Coloreds cannot enter
here.'"
Before they were finished, each described the humble
circumstances in which they grew up, without running water or
electricity (an exchange hilariously compared to a Monty Python
skit by
OpinionJournal.com's "Best of the Web Today" last Friday.) At
one point, O'Neill appeared to be in tears.
"President Bush felt O'Neill went above and beyond the call,"
says a Bush aide who works on Treasury issues. "He told us he would
have stalked out of the room had Byrd done that to him. He just
wanted O'Neill to know he was proud of him. It's the kind of thing
Bush does."
topics:
Bill Clinton, Law, NATO, Oil
