Clinton: Scrutiny vs. transparency
Posted: Thursday, March 20, 2008 9:08 AM by Mark Murray
The Washington Post's Libby Copeland on the release of the Clinton schedules: "As a matter of fact, there's a difference between being transparent and being scrutinized. Clinton is one of the most studied figures in public life, but she's also one of the most opaque. This is why the release of these documents seems like much more of the same. Just paper. We know what she did on any particular day -- we might even know where she stood -- but not what she felt. Not what she said to her husband, the president. Not what she thought about it all.”
“All mechanics. On Dec. 19, 1998, the day Bill Clinton was impeached by the House, Hillary Clinton's schedule made no mention of the fact that she and her husband would take to the South Lawn to criticize the vote and to vow to stay in office. It noted that she visited the House Democratic Caucus in the morning but not that she told members there that she loved her husband."
The Los Angeles Times’ coverage of the schedules is headlined: "Hillary Clinton's schedules shed little light on work as first lady." The article notes this phenomenon: "Over time, Clinton's schedules offer less and less information. In 1993, her first year as first lady, the records include the names of people she met with. But federal archivists blotted out those names, citing privacy issues. In spring 1994, Clinton's schedulers appear to have stopped including names -- so her days are filled with one ‘private meeting’ after another, with no mention of whom she met with or why.”
“On Jan. 28, 1994, the names of the participants in a 10 a.m. meeting with her at Bally's in Las Vegas have been erased. Sometimes, even the names of people getting their pictures taken with Clinton were removed. So it is not known who had a photo op with her at 2:45 p.m. on March 10, 1994, in the White House Map Room. In later years, the records are even more spare. On June 25, 1997, for example, Clinton is shown as having taken part in three successive meetings in the White House residence, stretching from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. They are labeled simply ‘private meeting.’”
The New York Times: “The documents offer no support for her assertions on the campaign trail that she helped negotiate the Irish peace accords or facilitated the flow of refugees in the Balkans, but neither do they disprove them. There is no evidence to back up her assertion that she helped pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first legislation Mr. Clinton signed as president in February 1993. They provide no insight into her role in appointments to key administration posts or in courting donors for her political campaigns or her husband’s, nor in how she coped with revelations in 1998 of her husband’s sexual betrayal with a young White House intern.”
