Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

statute that an independent counsel conduct an investigation “in a prompt, responsible, and cost-effective manner,”

Starr never set a timetable or showed any sense of urgency, in contrast to Fiske, who intended to wrap up the investigation by the end of 1994. It appeared from the beginning that Starr’s goal was to keep the issue alive at least through the 1996 election.

Given these troubling conflicts of interest and early warning signs, it was clear that Starr was replacing Fiske not to continue an independent investigation, but for partisan purposes. I knew immediately what we were facing, but I also knew there was nothing I could do about it. I had to trust our justice system and hope for the best. I did, however, remind Lloyd Cutler of his hat-eating offer and suggest he might choose a small one made of natural fibers.

Partisan politicking was nothing new in Washington; it came with the territory. But it was the politics of personal destruction―visceral, meanspirited campaigns to ruin the lives of public figures―that I found disheartening and bad for the country.

All spring and summer, rightwing radio hosts with national audiences stirred up their listeners with terrifying tales from Washington. Rush Limbaugh routinely told his 20 million radio listeners that “Whitewater is about health care.” And I finally understood that, yes, it was. The ongoing Whitewater investigation, despite Fiske’s findings, was about undermining the progressive agenda by any means. Limbaugh and others rarely criticized the contents of the Health Security Act or any other policy the Democrats introduced. If you believed everything you heard on the airwaves in 1994, you would conclude that your President was a Communist, that the First Lady was a murderess and that together they had hatched a plot to take away your guns and force you to give up your family doctor (if you had one) for a Socialist health care system.

One afternoon in Seattle at the end of July, I pulled into town as part of the Health Security Express. Inspired by the Freedom Riders who traveled by bus across the South in the early sixties to spread the message of desegregation, health reform advocates organized this nationwide bus tour in the summer of 1994. The idea was to spread the word about the health care plan at the grassroots level and generate crowds from the West Coast to Washington, showing Congress that there was support for the bill.

We started in Portland, Oregon, where I sent off the first troop of riders. It was a lively event, despite the record-breaking heat and the vocal protesters who surrounded the site. As the buses pulled out, a small plane dragged a banner across the sky that read: “Beware the Phony Express.” Not an inexpensive stunt.

Local and national radio hosts had been inciting protesters all week. One of them had urged listeners to come down and “show Hillary” what they thought of me. The call to arms attracted hundreds of hardcore right-wingers: militia supporters, tax protesters, clinic blockaders. At least half of the 4,500 people who came to my speech in Seattle were protesters.

The Secret Service warned me that we might run into trouble. For once, I agreed to wear a bulletproof vest. By then I had become accustomed to the constant presence of security, to having intimate conversations within earshot of Secret Service men and women who I sometimes thought knew more about me and my family than did my closest friends. They had urged me before to avoid certain places or to wear protective clothing; now, for the first time, I heeded their warning. It was one of the few times I felt in real physical danger. During the rally, I could hardly hear my own voice over the booing and heckling. After the speech ended and we were driving away from the stage, hundreds of protesters swarmed around the limousine. What I could see from the car was a crowd of men who seemed to be in their twenties and thirties. I’ll never forget the look in their eyes and their twisted mouths as they screamed at me while the agents pushed them away. The Secret Service made several arrests that day, and they confiscated two guns and a knife hidden in the crowd.

Neither random nor spontaneous, this protest was part of a well-organized campaign to disrupt the health care reform bus caravan and neutralize its message, according to journalists David Broder and Haynes Johnson. Everywhere the buses stopped, they were met with demonstrators. The protests were openly sponsored by a benign-sounding political interest group called Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). Reporters eventually discovered and disclosed the fact that CSE worked in concert with Newt Gingrich’s Washington office. And, as Broder and Johnson wrote in their book, The System, the generous sponsor behind the group was none other than the reclusive but increasingly active Richard Mellon Scaife, the rightwing billionaire who was also financing the Arkansas Project.

When we returned to Washington after the bus trip, we continued to try to work for a compromise with Republicans in Congress on various aspects of reform. I admired Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island for his principled stands and decent manner; he had been an early supporter of reform and an advocate for universal coverage. Senator Chafee had worked with his Republican colleagues to develop his own thoughtful proposal and hoped that, by melding his plan with ours, he would garner enough bipartisan support to pass a bill. Chafee made heroic efforts to bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats, keeping up his effort until he was the lone Republican still fighting for reform.

Finally, he, too, abandoned his cause. Without a single Republican supporter, health care reform was like a patient on life support being given last rites.

Even so, we made a last-ditch effort to bring the Republicans to some sort of compromise.

Senator Kennedy pressed Chafee one more time, to no avail. At a heated meeting in the White House, some of Bill’s advisers argued that he should publicly address the