March 7, 2008 -- 'I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president," Sen. Hillary Clinton's top press aide said yesterday.
With a straight face.
The issue: The Clinton campaign's continued refusal to make public the former First Couple's income tax returns - and Sen. Barack Obama's insistence that the Clintons come clean. Finally.
To Clinton flack Howard Wolfson, Obama's hectoring is of a piece with Special Prosecutor Starr's pit-bull approach to Clinton transgressions real and imagined.
Wolfson may have a point - but does he really think a dose of '90s nostalgia is what his client needs right now?
Monica Lewinsky?
Webster Hubbell?
You remember Monica - but probably not Webb. Hubbell was the No. 3 guy in the Clinton Justice Department and a former Rose Law Firm partner with Hillary Clinton who wound up pleading guilty to federal mail fraud and tax charges and doing 21 months in prison.
(Speaking of the Rose Law Firm, how did billing records under subpoena for two years mysteriously reappear - in the then-First Lady's library?)
And then there were:
* Craig Livingstone, the White House Office of Personnel Security chief, who gained inappropriate access to the raw FBI files of hundreds of officials from former administrations - nearly all Republican. FBI Director Louis Freeh admitted that his agency and the White House had committed "egregious violations of privacy."
* Charlie Trie, the major fund-raiser in the Clinton-Gore '96 re-election effort, who was later convicted of violating federal campaign finance laws.
Indeed, 22 others were also convicted in the probe of illegal efforts to funnel foreign money (primarily from China, Taiwan and Indonesia) into the US election; another 94 either took the Fifth or skipped the country.
* Maria Hsia, who arranged Vice President Al Gore's '96 campaign visit to Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in California - a visit that Gore claimed not to know was a fund-raiser. She was convicted of money-laundering.
* Marc Rich, financier and ex-husband of major Clinton fund-raiser Denise Rich, who got a presidential pardon on the last day of the Clinton administration - despite having fled to Europe rather than face trial for tax evasion.
* Abraham Lincoln - well, the bedroom named after him, anyway. As part of the Clinton fund-raising drive, the bedroom essentially was made available to major contributors for sleepovers.
Of course, a list of notorious names and places of the last Democratic administration wouldn't be complete without:
* Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States, who avoided federal perjury charges by agreeing to a fine and suspension of his law license for five years.
And, yes, the perjury was directly connected to Starr's probe.
Democrats doubtless will be delighted to stroll down this memory lane again.
Right?
Here's a better idea: The Clinton's need to release the returns - now, not in April as the campaign has promised.
That should make the issue disappear, and the specter of Ken Starr with it.
Or maybe not - which could explain a lot, couldn't it?"
If the Clinton's are that fearful of releasing those records then something really juicy MUST be there. She says April, then April will stretch into May, etc, etc, hoping that she'll have the nomination locked up and her lunatic fringe followers will once again turn a blind eye to yet another Clinton disgrace and continue to back her as she takes on those evil Republicans.
If I'm Obo I mention CLINTON TAX RETURN each and every place I go, and even find a way to mention how Billy BJ was and remains a felon.
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