BARBARA OLSON - 'Obscenely corrupt' Clintons savaged from beyond the gravegreenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News - Homefront Preparations : One Thread |
Times, UKOCTOBER 08 2001
'Obscenely corrupt' Clintons savaged from beyond grave FROM MARTIN FLETCHER IN WASHINGTON
ONE of Washington’s most prominent and outspoken conservatives is about to shatter the capital’s political truce with a book savaging Bill and Hillary Clinton for the way they left the White House.
Barbara Olson is utterly beyond reproach, however. She died on one of the hijacked aircraft on September 11.
Mrs Olson, 45, wife of Ted Olson, the US Solicitor-General, finished The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House just days before she boarded American Airlines Flight 77 to Los Angeles at Washington’s Dulles airport. She had delayed her departure overnight so that she could see her husband on his 61st birthday.
In the few minutes before the aircraft crashed into the Pentagon Mrs Olson twice managed to telephone her husband, making reverse charge calls. The first time she said the aircraft had been hijacked, the second that the passengers and crew had been herded to the back. “What can I tell the pilot?” she asked before being cut off a second time.
Her book claims to tell “the whole shocking story of a manic Clinton White House consumed with self-enrichment, gifts, pardons, federal land grabs and an orgy of spending and regulating. If the Clinton Administration was the most corrupt in American history, here was its most obscenely corrupt moment.”
It pulls no punches, which presented an obvious problem for Regnery, Mrs Olsen’s conservative publisher. Since September 11 the partisan sniping that is such a central feature of life in Washington has ended and Republicans and Democrats have put on an unprecedented show of unity.
The company suspended the printing and conferred with Mr Olson.
Finally it decided to proceed. “Barbara never shied away from controversy,” Alfred Regnery, its president, said. “Her family, friends and colleagues all thought she would be pleased to know that even terrorists could not keep her opinions from being known . . . She never would have countenanced the thought that terrorism could still her voice or cancel her work.”
In fact, Regnery not only decided to proceed with the printing, but increased the run to more than 100,000 copies. The book will not reach the shops until late this week, but has already reached number 36 on Amazon’s bestseller list on the basis of advance orders. The dedication reads: “To My Best Friend, Ted.” An envelope in each copy invites readers to donate to the Barbara Olson Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Mrs Olson worked as an investigator for Congressional Republicans during the Clinton scandals of the 1990s, wrote a caustic book on Hillary Clinton called Hell to Pay and became a combative television pundit. She named her two dogs Reagan and Maggie.
Her husband is an equally controversial figure. He led the legal team that blocked a recount of Florida’s presidential election votes, thereby ensuring George Bush’s victory, and Democratic senators believe that he was a pivotal figure in what Mrs Clinton once labelled a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to discredit her husband.
-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001
bump
-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001
Despite the horrific act of war perpetuated on USA soil on 9/11, it occurs to the old Greybear that we owe Ben Laden one small debt of gratitude.We owe him thanks for not committing these acts of war at an earlier time, say two years ago.
It is totally unthinkable that Slick and Slicker might have been in the White House when he decided to openly attack on USA soil.
Then again, maybe it was just a dumbass mistake on his part. For it was SHURLEY a mistake at ANY time, but especially on Dubyas watch.
- Greybear
-- Got grub?
-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001
OG....one of the things that "hit" me hardest when this whole fiasco began was when i heard that barbara olson was on one of the planes (maybe cause her's was the one "face" i could put to it all)
she was really a good egg always enjoyed her comments about just about anything!
greybear....
i agree completely! i shudder to think of either klintoon OR gore being at the helm right now
-- Anonymous, October 09, 2001
Yep, she was very effective too, wasn't she, mebs? Made her points with calm and class, not at all strident.
-- Anonymous, October 09, 2001