The Clintons and the lies

Larry Kudlow:

Whatever the mighty Clinton spin machine is saying about the front-page catfight between Hillary, Barack Obama, and David Geffen, the fact is, the Geffen-Obama forces put a big hurt on the presidential aspirations of the former First Lady.

This brouhaha blossomed when Geffen, the left-wing media mogul, told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd that “Everybody in politics lies, but [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling.” He said a lot more that was derogatory specifically to Hillary Clinton, but that’s the key statement since Geffen is obviously referring to both Clintons. After all, it was Hillary who enabled Bill’s lies time and again. Now, America is being told -- and by a former Clinton benefactor no less -- that there’s more where that came from.

Geffen’s shot across the bow, with its huge media echo chamber, reminds folks what it was like when the Clintons were in the White House. Geffen has single-handedly pried the lid off the rusty old can of Clinton lies, reminding voters of what will happen if this truth-challenged couple ever returns to the Oval Office.

Does the American electorate want to go through this all over again? Have we forgotten the lies?

Go Google the simple phrase “Bill Clinton lies.” When I do so, this is what I quickly turn up (and from various sources):

-- Clinton lied under oath to a Federal Grand Jury. (That’s perjury, of course, and perjury remains a felony.)

-- Clinton continues to lie about his 12-year affair with Gennifer Flowers.

-- Clinton still denies he sexually harassed Paula Jones. (Even though he paid her $850,000 in hush money.)

-- Clinton persists in dismissing the Whitewater scandal as a “land deal where I lost money.” (Despite the fact that a dozen of his close associates landed in jail over the matter.)

-- Clinton illegally obtained FBI files on his political opponents, and lied about that, too.

-- On the golf course, Clinton has an incredibly difficult time playing his ball where it lies. According to close observers (Tiger Woods among them), Clinton exhibits questionable math when he tallies his scorecard.

-- And according to Washington Post reporter John Harris, Clinton was so upset about his inability to lose weight in 2000, that following his annual physical he instructed aides to release a bogus number that made him five pounds lighter.

...

The Clinton culture of deceit has had a lasting effect in other perverse ways. The left actually defended lying as the proper thing to do when practiced by Clinton. They then turned this perversity around and falsely accused President Bush of lying to get us into the Iraq war which they have been desperate to lose. Bush never lied about Iraq's WMD's. At best, he relied on intelligence that may have been in error, but we don't even know that for sure. It was Saddam's responsibility to account for all his WMD and he could never meet that responsibility which put him in violation of his cease fire agreement and several UN resolutions. When the US sought to find the WMD it could not account for all of it either. That should be considered a real problem rather than a political opportunity.