Bloodthirsty Liberal

I told Aggie this was how I intended to title all of my UN posts, and I took her hysterical cackle for agreement.

Give Bill Clinton credit for saying so: when you step in the [bleep], sometimes you have to wear it:

Former President Bill Clinton, the United Nations special envoy for Haiti, has acknowledged the role U.N. peacekeepers played in a deadly cholera outbreak that has killed thousands in Haiti, according to ABC News. The U.N. has repeatedly denied its role in the outbreak despite the ever-mounting scientific evidence that its troops were the culprits.

“I don’t know that the person who introduced cholera in Haiti, the U.N. peacekeeper, or [U.N.] soldier from South Asia, was aware that he was carrying the virus,” Clinton said, adding that “it was the proximate cause of cholera. That is, he was carrying the cholera strain. It came from his waste stream into the waterways of Haiti, into the bodies of Haitians.”

Clinton also said that Haiti’s dismal sanitation conditions were the real culprit, not the U.N., “Unless we know that he knew or that they knew, the people that sent him, that he was carrying that virus and therefore that he could cause the amount of death and misery and sickness, I think it’s better to focus on fixing it,” he said.

Leading researchers from Harvard Medical School told ABC News they felt confident that the cholera strain came from Nepal and was carried to Haiti by Nepalese soldiers who served as U.N. peacekeepers in January 2010. Allegedly, the peacekeepers failed to keep sanitary conditions on their base.

Allegedly? [Bleep] allegedly!

The UN’s own study was clear: “The source of the Haiti cholera outbreak was due to contamination of the Meye Tributary of the Artibonite River with a pathogenic strain of current South Asian type Vibrio cholerae as a result of human activity.” In other words, somebody dumped human fecal matter containing a deadly cholera bacteria from South Asia into one of the country’s main sources of water for drinking and irrigation. Who might that be?

…

When Associated Press journalists visited Wednesday, they found open and cracked pipes behind the base, with U.N. military investigators taking samples. There was an overpowering smell of human waste, and a pipe leading toward a septic tank was leaking foul-smelling black fluid toward the river.

The waste is dumped across the street in open pits that residents, who live a few yards away, said often overflow into the Artibonite tributary running below.

A UN official told the BBC that “everyone knew the sanitary situation in the Nepali base was deplorable”.

And this ain’t your grandma’s cholera:

According to John Mekalanos, chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School, cholera strains from South Asia are far more virulent, and more capable of causing lethal epidemics. “These strains are nasty. So far there has been no secondary outbreak. But Haiti now represents a foothold for a particularly dangerous variety of this deadly disease,” he said.

…

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been over 470,000 reported cases of cholera and over 6,631 deaths during the Haitian epidemic, making it the worst cholera outbreak in recent history.

I would be more receptive to Clinton’s message of forgiveness if the UN took responsibility. Without that, who’s to say Nepalese peace-keepers won’t be crapping in other water tables the world over?

Oh yeah, as we also reported over two months ago, substitute Haitians for Nepalese:

More than 500,000 Haitians have been infected, and Mekalanos said a handful of victims who contracted cholera in Haiti have now turned up in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and in BOSTON, Miami and New York, but only in isolated cases.

Oh, okay, only isolated cases. I want to drink a bottle of hand sanitizer just writing this.

Maybe the execs at NBC news thought they were hiring Chelsea Handler?

Despite poor marks for her reportorial performance it looks like Chelsea Clinton is preparing to renew her contract with NBC News.

According to insiders familiar with negotiations, the Stanford and Columbia graduate is poised to extend her contract with the network to work on special segments for the shows “Rock Center” and “Nightly News,” a move that has media watchers confused.

“She has done a bunch of warm and fuzzy stories that haven’t gotten any kind of critical appreciation but she does have that Clinton name,” US Weekly senior television editor April Bernard told Fox411. “Critics say she doesn’t dig deeply enough as a reporter. She is amateurish and green. She also isn’t charismatic on camera…

Yeah, but other than that…

If it’s hard for the audience, it is even harder on some NBC veterans.

NBC insiders tell FoxNews.com that Clinton is doing a job meant for deserving journalists within the network who have toiled for years, and sometimes decades, in the trenches to get the chance to produce segments and report them on air.

…

But even though NBC may be clinging to Clinton’s possible appeal, Adgate says there has been no discernible difference in ratings yet for the program “Rock Center” since Clinton made her debut.

Didn’t Harry Truman threaten to punch a critic in the nose for a nasty review of his daughter’s recital? Why doesn’t Bill put up his dukes? Or does he think they’re right?

I watched parts of the two-part American Experience program about Bill Clinton. Somebody had to.

While they fell short of hagiography (he’s a lesser god to the one true god, Obama), there were certain biases that I’m not sure the filmmakers were aware of.

After Clinton returned from Oxford, he attended Yale Law School (where he met Hillary). As the narration put it (and I’m paraphrasing from memory), he didn’t study very hard, but was a schmoozer, a networker. Hillary was more bookish, more disciplined. (Plus ça chgange…)

Anyway, fresh from Yale Law he returned to Arkansas… to run for Congress! It’s a free country, good for him—but I never want to hear another word about Mitt Romney’s unbridled ambition again! The THC was barely out of Clinton’s system and he was already plotting his assault on Washington. Again, bully for him. (He reminds me of another Democratic candidate for president who thought it was his time, despite barely being “present” for the previous few years.)

He lost, but came back soon after and won the office of Attorney General. Then the assault on the governorship, which he won. (Again, ambitious much?) But he overreached in office, trying to solve too many problems too fast, including a politically fatal license fee increase to pay for road improvements.

Let’s pause for a second. His idols, according to the film, were JFK and FDR, presidents roughly 30 and 60 years previous to his administration, in times radically different from his own. FDR especially represented a radical expansion of federal power and reach. He was a role model? The people of Arkansas thought they elected a local boy made good, but they got a crusader for government expansion. And they turned him out after two years (the length of term at that time).

Even if the filmmakers seem perplexed by the rejection of someone so filled with the zeal to do good, Clinton got the message. He came back, but with a narrower message: improving education. Again, he won, and pretty much never looked back.

There’s plenty in there about the affairs, the frictions in the marriage—Hillary comes off as a kind of positive Lady Macbeth, perhaps another bias—but the underlying bias toward big governmentism is maddening. The producers say “what a waste of talent and opportunity”; I say “we dodged a bullet—until Obama got elected.”

To President Obama, GI are only the first two letters of “Git the [bleep] away from me!”

After the talk, out of earshot from the soldiers and diplomats, he starts to complain. He starts to act very un-Obamalike, according to a U.S. embassy official who helped organize the trip in Baghdad.

He’s asked to go out to take a few more pictures with soldiers and embassy staffers. He’s asked to sign copies of his book. “He didn’t want to take pictures with any more soldiers; he was complaining about it,” a State Department official tells me. “Look, I was excited to meet him. I wanted to like him.

Let’s just say the scales fell from my eyes after I did. These are people over here who’ve been fighting the war, or working every day for the war effort, and he didn’t want to take fu**ing pictures with them?”

Well, it was a long flight, and you know how little leg room there is on those flights these days. He had probably already seen the movie.

Here’s a president who knows how to handle adoration—with both hands!

“Clinton” is the latest installment in PBS’s “American Experience” series and is set to air in February. A half-hour sneak peak is being previewed Thursday evening at the National Press Club.

The film covers Clinton’s life in its entirety — from his childhood in Arkansas to his first runs for office to his election as governor of Arkansas to his presidency — but almost a full hour of the documentary focuses on Clinton’s personal struggles with fidelity, coupled with harsh, blunt language from many of his colleagues and chroniclers. In fact, the film’s introduction, a quick summary of the entire documentary, opens with the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Eight minutes in, the topic of Gennifer Flowers surfaces.

“There was this growing skepticism in the press that this guy was just a big phony,” Time’s Joe Klein said, discussing Clinton’s reaction to the allegations. “He was too slick. He was too smooth. And he would lawyer answers to questions.”

When discussing the Clintons’ years in Arkansas, narrator Campbell Scott said, “Hillary had to deal with Bill’s constant womanizing.”

“You’ve got to understand, at one time, there [were] at least 25 women per day coming through there trying to find him,” sais Paul Fray, Clinton’s campaign manager during his unsuccessful congressional run in 1974. “I’d tell them, ‘He’s on the road, get out the door.’ But, Lord, it was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.”

…

“It’s almost as though there was a part of Bill Clinton that he had no control over,” said William Chafe, a history professor at Duke University.

Yeah, it was a little part that hangs to the left, I hear.

[Oh BTL, did you have to? Yeah, I did.]

My understanding of the phrase “environmental justice”, to the extent it has any meaning at all, is the justice the wolf metes out to the caribou or the owl to the chipmunk.

Would that it were:

In 2011 the Environmental Protection Agency provided $1 million in grants to 46 different non-profit and tribal organizations to promote what it called “environmental justice.” Since 1994, a little-noticed EPA program has handed out a total of $23 million in such grants to 1,253 organizations, for stated purposes that observers are questioning.

President Bill Clinton and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) were responsible for implementing “environmental justice” as part of the EPA’s mission. In early 1990, following a lobbying push by the CBC, the EPA established the Environmental Equity Workgroup. In 1994 it was renamed the Office of Environmental Justice.

In February of that year, Clinton signed an executive order requiring all federal agencies to develop environmental justice strategies. The order established an interagency working group comprised of the heads of 11 departments and agencies and several White House offices.

As a result, the EPA has spent millions each year to promote its “environmental justice” vision to Americans by awarding cash grants to community-based activist groups.

…

The EPA’s grants have gone beyond organic gardening projects and tree plantings. One financial award went to the Cleveland Tenants Organization for fighting bed-bug infestations. Another paid the Florida-based Institute for Community Collaboration train teenagers to become environmentalists.

The Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island received money in July 2010 to organize barn-raising events. That same month, Groundwork Somerville was funded to persuade suburban Bostonians to replace their incandescent light bulbs with more energy efficient — and more expensive – compact fluorescent bulbs.

I don’t mind the government wasting millions of dollars—that’s what government does, and it does it exceptionally well. But to waste money training a new generation of money-wasters? That’s perverse.

I’m really happy for Chelsea Clinton that she landed the gig of Special Correspondent at NBC News. The though of her living in public housing or bagging six-packs of Old Milwaukee, like Obama’s relatives, depressed me.

Special correspondent… is that like mail room clerk or cub reporter?

[T]he title “special correspondent” puts Clinton in the same category as Ted Koppel and Meredith Vieira on “Rock Center.”

They’re both semi-retired, aren’t they? How can Chelsea be a has-been when she’s a never-was?

Explained Capus: “Given her vast experiences, it’s as though Chelsea has been preparing for this opportunity her entire life.”

And by “preparing for this opportunity her entire life,” Capus meant: “successfully dodging the media her whole life.” Because she is the child of Bill and Hillary Clinton, of course, the press was supposed to keeps its hands off Chelsea as she was growing up, so she could live her life as privately as possible.

I just checked. She’ll be 32 in February. She was a child when Bill was in office, fine, but she has never granted an interview, much less conducted one.

And don’t think the media haven’t noticed:

So let the interviews commence, right? Make Clinton available for interview upon interview, right?

When asked about media interviews, NBC’s Lauren Kapp responded, “Sorry, we’re not putting anyone out on this other than what’s in the press release.”

Oh no, the press release-only treatment! Isn’t that the province of companies that are trying to hide — not promote — something?

On Twitter: @carr2n: “Chelsea Clinton steps out of the shadows, hired by NBC News .?.?. and doesn’t give interview about new gig. http://nyti.ms/u8X0rS #FAIL”

…

After all, you can’t say it’s not relevant — if you’re going to interview other people, it might be helpful to have spent a moment or two on the other side of the mike.

The story of Clinton’s allergy to the media has several distinct phases, each with a distinct Media Avoidance Propriety Rating:

1) Chelsea as a kid living in the White House.

Media Avoidance Propriety Rating: Unimpeachable — let the kid live her life.

2) Chelsea as a young adult working in the business world.

Media Avoidance Propriety Rating: Perfectly fine — she didn’t seek the spotlight.

3) Chelsea as an advocate for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential run.

Media Avoidance Propriety Rating: Lame — Chelsea made many appearances for her mother but avoided interviews. Rigorously avoided them, even when the stupidity of doing so should have dawned on her: She stiffed a query from a 9-year-old reporter from Scholastic News.

4) Chelsea as an NBC reporter.

Media Avoidance Propriety Rating: Hypocritical and intolerable: Now Clinton will be asking lots of questions. She just won’t answer any. What a great media world we inhabit.

A popular opinion among journalists:

Journalists have tried and failed for years to interview the famously press-shy Ms. Clinton. And it was no different on Monday, as several journalists pointed out on Twitter:
“
In ’08, Chelsea Clinton (in NH) told me “Sorry, I don’t talk to the media.” I said, “But you are all grown up now.” Now she IS the media.
Glenn Thrush

Will Chelsea talk to media now that she IS the media? Disdained reporters in ’08. Chelsea Clinton Hired by NBC News: nyti.ms/tP8nn9
Amy Chozick

The supreme irony of Chelsea Clinton becoming an NBC reporter: I’m pretty sure she’s never granted an interview. nyti.ms/uWs82Q

She does have one fan, though it’s one you might expect:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: … I would remind everybody that there was much kerfuffle about Tim Russert’s resume. Oh, my goodness, he worked for a couple elected Democrats. And what that nicely left out was Tim Russert’s talent and intellect and ability to call them down the middle. What is he remembered for and what do people miss about him? His decency, his humanity and his incredible ability to call them down the middle.

Leaving aside the validity of that opinion, Rush wondered how NBC journalist Luke Russert felt about the appointment. If anybody knew who he was, they might ask him.

My own opinion: a few years ago, she would have been getting coffee, not starting at the top.

Bill Clinton laments

Former US President Bill Clinton is blaming the failure of the peace process with the Palestinians on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yearning for leaders of the past, Clinton said, “The two great tragedies in modern Middle Eastern politics, which make you wonder if God wants Middle East peace or not, were Rabin’s assassination and Sharon’s stroke.”

In a roundtable with bloggers Thursday on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, Clinton added, “The Israelis always wanted two things that once it turned out they had, it didn’t seem so appealing to Mr. Netanyahu.

“They wanted to believe they had a partner for peace in a Palestinian government, and there’s no question — and the Netanyahu government has said — that this is the finest Palestinian government they’ve ever had in the West Bank,” he noted.

Isn’t the best Palestinian “government” akin to the largest shrimp? Or the tastiest dog poop? I mean, you are what you are.

And even so, what has Netanyahu done to discourage them? Sorry, Bill, but Jews will get to live in Judea and Samaria (though where is open to negotiation). And, sorry again, but stoning Jews and shooting at their cars does not imply good government.

But no, it’s really all about Bill:

According to Clinton, “(Palestinian leaders) have explicitly said on more than one occasion that if Netanyahu put up the deal that was offered to them before — my deal — that they would take it,” referring to the 2000 Camp David deal that was rejected by Yasser Arafat.

“For reasons that even after all these years I still don’t know for sure, Arafat turned down the deal I put together that Barak accepted,” he said. “But they also had an Israeli government that was willing to give them East Jerusalem as the capital of the new state of Palestine.”

Clinton spoke highly of the Saudi initiative, saying, “The King of Saudi Arabia started lining up all the Arab countries to say to the Israelis, ‘if you work it out with the Palestinians … we will give you immediately not only recognition but a political, economic, and security partnership,’” Clinton said. “This is huge…. It’s a heck of a deal.

“Now that they have those things, they don’t seem so important to this current Israeli government, partly because it’s a different country,” said Clinton.

Earth to Bill: the point is that they did turn it down—and immediately launched an intifada (you say intifada, I say pogrom)! Did you forget? And, oh yeah, that “uprising” was supposedly “caused” by your sainted Ariel Sharon displaying the chutzpah of setting his Jewish feet atop the Temple Mount.

The Palestinians rejected a Palestinian state because they rejected the Jewish people. What’s more, you know that.

And only a lying, cheating, whoring (there’s good in everyone, I guess) scumbag could espouse the Saudi initiative as a genuine opportunity for peace. Lining up the Arab countries? Work it out with the Palestinians? Political, economic, security partnership?

With Jews—who are forbidden from even entering the damned country?

I love the Tales of the Arabian nights, but I do not believe in magic lanterns. Magic interns, yes, Bill, you’ve convinced me—but magic lanterns, no.

It wasn’t all that long ago:

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright
Interview by Matt Lauer, The Today Show – NBC TV
New York, New York, October 1, 1997

…

MR. LAUER: But do you think you were blind-sided by the Prime Minister?

SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: I wasn’t happy. We had had a conversation, and I felt that going forward with those kinds of buildings was not helpful. It is not in any way not part of what they can do, but they shouldn’t do it.

MR. LAUER: It’s legal.

SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: It’s legal. But I think that, in this kind of an atmosphere, it’s very important not to take actions that are viewed by the other side as creating more difficulties.

So, settlement is legal, but in a circumlocution worthy of her boss (don’t say circumlocution in front of him—it makes him horny), “It is not in any way not part of what they can do, but they shouldn’t do it.”

How about breathing? Is that “in any way not part of what they can do”?

Anyway, the gray suits of the State Department rode to the rescue:

QUESTION: However, in her Today Show interview this morning, the Secretary was asked if the settlements are legal. And she said, quote, “they are legal.” Was she talking about legal within the context of Israeli law? Or was she talking about international law, specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention?

MR. FOLEY: No, she was not talking about international law. Our overall position on the question of the legality of settlements remains the same. We are, of course, not taking a legal position on that overall issue. We believe, as I stated, that settlements are very unhelpful to the peace
process.

The Secretary of State says settlements are legal; some Foggy Bottom panjandrum says they aren’t—while in the same breath denying taking a legal position. Is it any wonder some of us think there is an anti-Israeli settlement unhelpfully embedded in the State Department?

And another one in the media? Else why is Madame Secretary’s position not more widely known?

Did you know Israel tried to take out Osama in 1995? Can you believe it?

Before most Americans had heard the name Osama bin Laden, Israel’s Mossad was on to him. In 1995, when unknown assailants tried to kill then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia, the CIA and the Egyptian intelligence service requested the Mossad’s assistance in investigating the incident. The Mossad discovered that Iran and a hitherto unknown mujahedeen group were jointly responsible for carrying out the attempted assassination. Notable among these mujahedeen—veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan who had found refuge in Sudan—was a certain wealthy Saudi by the name of bin Laden.

The Mossad was sufficiently concerned by this development that it set up a Global Jihad desk—the first Western intelligence organization to do so—in a bid to gather information on the new phenomenon of scattered terrorist cells lacking a hierarchical structure and regular state assistance. The Mossad was also the first to attempt, unsuccessfully, to assassinate bin Laden: In 1995, it recruited his secretary to poison him.

Hey, thanks for at least trying, Israel. In 1995, our leader was getting serviced by an intern, and passing up kill-shots (technically in 2000):

In the fall of 2000, in Afghanistan, unmanned, unarmed spy planes called Predators flew over known al-Qaida training camps. The pictures that were transmitted live to CIA headquarters show al-Qaida terrorists firing at targets, conducting military drills and then scattering on cue through the desert.

Also, that fall, the Predator captured even more extraordinary pictures — a tall figure in flowing white robes. Many intelligence analysts believed then and now it is bin Laden.

Why does U.S. intelligence believe it was bin Laden? NBC showed the video to William Arkin, a former intelligence officer and now military analyst for NBC. “You see a tall man…. You see him surrounded by or at least protected by a group of guards.”

Bin Laden is 6 foot 5. The man in the video clearly towers over those around him and seems to be treated with great deference.

Another clue: The video was shot at Tarnak Farm, the walled compound where bin Laden is known to live. The layout of the buildings in the Predator video perfectly matches secret U.S. intelligence photos and diagrams of Tarnak Farm obtained by NBC.

“It’s dynamite. It’s putting together all of the pieces, and that doesn’t happen every day.… I guess you could say we’ve done it once, and this is it,” Arkin added.

The tape proves the Clinton administration was aggressively tracking al-Qaida a year before 9/11. But that also raises one enormous question: If the U.S. government had bin Laden and the camps in its sights in real time, why was no action taken against them?

“We were not prepared to take the military action necessary,” said retired Gen. Wayne Downing, who ran counter-terror efforts for the current Bush administration and is now an NBC analyst.
Global dragnet

“We should have had strike forces prepared to go in and react to this intelligence, certainly cruise missiles — either air- or sea-launched — very, very accurate, could have gone in and hit those targets,” Downing added.

Gary Schroen, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, says the White House required the CIA to attempt to capture bin Laden alive, rather than kill him.

What impact did the wording of the orders have on the CIA’s ability to get bin Laden? “It reduced the odds from, say, a 50 percent chance down to, say, 25 percent chance that we were going to be able to get him,” said Schroen.

A Democratic member of the 9/11 commission says there was a larger issue: The Clinton administration treated bin Laden as a law enforcement problem.

I can easily argue that that was a stupid position, even at the time. But the more compelling question no one can answer is what would have happened on September 11, 2001 if Osama had been vaporized on September 11, 2000?

The main point of the first piece cited above is that the elimination of the figurehead may work in the short term, but that the replacement figurehead is often worse. (He cites the examples of Hamass and Hezbollah.) What he doesn’t address is the effect of killing the replacement figureheads ad infinitum. The short term can last indefinitely if it is indefinitely renewed.

Only Nixon could go to China; and only Clinton could go to Iowa:

America’s political addiction to ethanol has consequences, from raising the price of food to lining the pockets of companies like Archer Daniels Midland. So we’re delighted to see another prominent booster—Bill Clinton—see the fright.

“We have to become energy independent” but “we don’t want to do it at the expense of food riots,” the former President told an agriculture conference Thursday. He urged farmers to consider the needs of developing countries—the implication being that the diversion of corn to ethanol production limits food supplies and artificially raises prices.

Now way! Seriously? That’s amazing!

No, I don’t mean that leftist interventions in the marketplace, doing good by do-gooding, have led to inevitable and predictable consequences detrimental to the very people said leftists were trying to help. That was, as I said, inevitable and predictable.

No, what’s amazing is that a Democrat acknowledged it. Of course, it’s a Democrat past his electoral sell-by date:

Department of Agriculture chief economist Joseph Glauber did the math. Despite a forecasted 4% increase in corn planting, Mr. Glauber expects corn used for ethanol to hit a record five billion bushels in 2011-12, or more than one-third of total U.S. production, thanks to renewable fuel mandates and tax incentives. Corn prices recently hit two-and-a-half-year highs.

That means the forced U.S. ramp-up in ethanol production is commandeering corn that could otherwise go for food and contributing to higher food prices here and in much of the world. Meanwhile, India is seeing protests, China is imposing price controls, and Indonesia is stockpiling rice. Don’t forget the inflationary impact of the Federal Reserve’s easy money policies, which are pushing up prices across the globe more generally.

Never a movement to let a crisis go to waste, the lefto-enviro-socio-buttino types at the UN and elsewhere have cited this man-made natural disaster as a reason for the world to join under the auspices of—you guessed it—the UN to spend more money and create less wealth on behalf of the potential starving billions around the globe.

Much as I enjoy a good famine, I think I’ll pass. I can always just watch North Korea if I want to see sunken eyes and protruding ribs (or a good fashion show).

How about instead, we burn oil, coal, and natural gas, and we eat the corn? You can pop it, pone it, syrup it, meal it, tortilla it, butter it… the very last thing you should do is burn it.

But it’s your funeral(s).

Which suggests a different method of energy production: steam turbines powered by the incineration of all the people who will starve to death from such insane ideas. Too Aldous Huxley? Yeah, you’re right. Besides, the emaciated bodies of malnourished children are more kindling than they are Yule logs.

PS: I’ve been hearng a lot about switchgrass lately too. It has potential as a source of energy, but I still have the same problems. Maybe you can’t eat it, but it still requires land to grow it on. Land on which we could grow food, or leave as forest. So, I still say let’s find our energy underground, not in it.

Our long national nightmare is over:

President Obama will sign the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 into law Wednesday, ending a policy enacted in 1993 that banned openly gay and lesbian soldiers from military service.

The changes won’t be immediate, possibly taking several months to implement, the White House has said.

The Pentagon has an 87-page implementation plan for the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Over the next several weeks, military officials need to examine and rewrite a series of policies, regulations and directives related to the current law.

Eighty-seven pages? Truman desegregated the armed forces in two—the key section of which was a mere 64 words:

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.

Of course, Truman’s directive was conspicuously silent on gays in the military. But I still don’t get why Obama couldn’t have done the same.

Actually, I know the answer: Congress passed a law—which Clinton signed—cementing DADT into place.

Leading to some very interesting contradictions:

Twenty-nine senators who voted in 1993 on the bill that brought DADT to life — the Conference Report on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 1994 — also voted today on the repeal bill.

…

Earlier in 1993, Boxer had attempted to remove DADT from the NDAA by replacing it with language leaving the decision about the policy “concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces” up to the president. Even on that vote, though, she only found support from a third of the Senate. Fourteen of the 32 who joined her then in attempting to strip DADT from the NDAA joined her again today in repealing the law.

…

Then-Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and five other Democrats voted for repeal today but voted against the Boxer amendment — and hence for DADT — in 1993: Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) and John “Jay” Rockefeller (D-W.V.).

…

Of the Democrats who voted to repeal DADT today, 17 had voted for the original NDAA bringing DADT to life.

It’s okay, Democrats. No one will remember how you once stabbed homosexuals in the back. In the national annals, it’ll be just Republicans who opposed gays in the military. You’ve covered your a**es very nicely. (You can find three juvenile double entendres in that short paragraph if you look hard enough—there’s another one!)

Ew…

In an effort to help pay down his wife’s remaining campaign debt, former President Bill Clinton is once again lending a hand to bring in donations.

Specifically, he is offering campaign donors the chance to win a day in New York City with him.

“Hillary’s campaign is so close to paying off the last of her debt, but she’s not there yet.” Clinton writes in an email to supporters. “Will you consider helping her in this last phase by making a contribution to her campaign? If you enter by Thursday, December 16, you and a friend will have the chance to fly to New York to spend a day with me.”

According to the Federal Election Commission, as of September 2010, Hillary Clinton’s campaign debt was $479,010.00, and cash-on-hand was $391,254.86. The next update on Clinton’s debt will be released on January 31, 2011.

A federal law known as the “Hatch Act” prohibits Secretary Clinton and other federal government employees from personally soliciting or accepting political contributions. The law does allow others to raise funds on Clinton’s behalf, without her direct involvement.

And God knows Hillary has no direct involvement with Bill.

Let’s see: breakfast at the Carnegie Deli; then maybe an early movie in Times Square, if you know what I mean (they’ve closed most of the joints, but he knows a few places); by which time, you’ll be ready for lunch at The Prime Burger; linger over coffee and dessert somewhere, then dinner and a Broadway show (a live version of the movie above), and call it a day.

Who’ll open the bidding at five hundred grand?