There comes a time in life when you have to take the loss and admit defeat when you fail, unless you are Hillary Clinton and the media powerhouse that supported her, that is. Yes, the never-ending pity party continued as Clinton appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show Wednesday as part of a tour to promote her and her daughter’s new book, Gutsy Women.
Prior to Clinton stepping foot on the set, Maddow was shaking with anticipation and elation at the upcoming interview with her favorite gal: “I am very pleased to say that Hillary Clinton is here in studio tonight for the interview. Yes, that Hillary Clinton. I have been looking forward to this interview with her ever since we learned it was even a possibility that she could come in.”
After that glowing introduction, the line of questioning to Clinton was predictably soft and hypocritical. Without irony, Maddow sought Clinton’s judgement on what sorts of government documents should be made publicly viewable:
One of the revelations brought to light by this Impeachment scandal is that members of the President's administration, White House lawyers, appear to have directed an effort to hide transcripts of the President's phone calls with foreign leaders, including the Zelenskiy call in question, including reportedly calls with Putin, calls with the leader of Saudi Arabia, and others…I'm troubled by these reports that there is an effort in the White House involving lawyers in particular trying to hide this stuff in places where it doesn't belong. But how do you see this in terms of what sorts of communications should be shown to the public?...
Ahh, yes. Everyone is aware of Clinton’s ability to responsibly handle sensitive material (sarcasm intended). Clinton brazenly answered; “You don't have to have the exact wording, but what happened here from the report of the call itself that came out of the White House, plus the whistle-blower complaint, is there was nothing classified. There was nothing that should have been kept from the rest of the government.”
Some may argue it is nearly impossible to exhibit a greater degree of bias. However, the next question from Maddow proved to be equally ludicrous:
If there were White House lawyers or other White House officials who directed that kind of effort, an "Oh, my god, what did he say, we need to hide this" kind of effort, which is what the whistle-blower is indicating, the way it seems at least from the outside, should those officials bear some consequences for that? What should -- I mean, I don't know that what they did is illegal, but certainly it seems improper.
Covering up illicit government activity is an area Clinton is well versed in. As to be expected though, she was afforded the opportunity to make her widely hypocritical statement unchecked: “Well, it certainly deserves questioning. And that's what's going on with this impeachment inquiry. You know, ironically, I was on the staff of the 1974 impeachment inquiry, and you should follow every thread to see where it leads. And you should look at anything that could amount to abuse of power or obstruction of justice or contempt of Congress.”
Throughout the course of the interview, the purpose for Clinton’s presence, her new book, was only mentioned in passing.
The discussion then proceeded onward covering their collective obsession, President Trump. Maddow went to great lengths to highlight Clinton’s involvement in the Watergate scandal, then pressed her guest to give advice to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, regarding the proper behavior to exhibit:
Right now, it seems like both the vice president and the attorney general and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, your successor at the State Department, may themselves have been at least aware, if not participants in what the president is going to be impeached for here. As a former cabinet secretary, do you have advice on the right way to comport yourself in this situation? I mean, they do all seem like they're up to their necks.
The rose-colored glasses worn by Maddow and her peers in the liberal press regarding Democrats have led to blindness as a result of overuse.
Transcript below:
Help fight back against the media's impeachment crusade.
MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show
10/02/19
9:33 p.m. EasternRACHEL MADDOW: One of the revelations brought to light by this impeachment scandal is that members of the president’s administration, White House lawyers, appear to have directed an effort to hide transcripts of the president’s phone calls with foreign leaders, including the Zelenskiy call in question, including reportedly calls with Putin, calls with the leader of Saudi Arabia, and others. For me it raises this interesting question, because I feel like as a civilian watching these things, just as an American who tries to follow these matters, I’m not sure how much of that we should ever expect to see. And so I’m troubled by these reports that there is an effort in the White House involving lawyers in particular trying to hide this stuff in places where it doesn’t belong. But how do you see this in terms of what sorts of communications should be shown to the public? You said you’d like to see transcripts of his calls with Vladimir Putin. What of those things should we see and what should be kept secret?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, the understanding I have of this particular call -- and the way calls operate is, you know, pretty elaborate. If you’re going to have a call between our president and a president, leader of another country, there is a whole process before that call is placed. People are prepping and briefing. They’re trying to figure out what is the goal of the call, maybe what does the foreign leader want, what do we want in return, what are we talking about?
So the President is given talking points, and people are in the room usually, whatever appropriate personnel from the White House or maybe other agencies. So the call is placed. The call is made. And the call is usually listened to, or, at the very least, quickly reported out. Now, this is part of the transparency that we should expect. Maybe not the exact words, but the fact that our president spoke to Vladimir Putin or spoke to, you know, the president of Ukraine. That’s part of the information that the rest of the government, that the Congress, the American public, and press deserve to see.
You don’t have to have the exact wording, but what happened here from the report of the call itself that came out of the White House, plus the whistle-blower complaint, is there was nothing classified. There was nothing that should have been kept from the rest of the government. This was embarrassing and potentially impeachable because of the way the president was pressuring the president of Ukraine. And, of course, there can be very serious calls that never see the light of day until 30, 40 years from now, but this was not one of those. This was hidden by the White House lawyers because somebody in that room who was observing the call or hearing the president’s end of the call went, oh, what are we going to do? What did he just say? We can’t let anybody see that.
So instead of circulating the call, because, you know, there are a lot of people working in the Defense Department about the military aid. There are people in the State Department who want to know what’s happening with Ukraine. "We’d better deep-six this, so put it on the most classified system," the place where you would keep information about the raid on Osama bin Laden in the prior administration, and don’t let anybody see it. That, I think, as much as the call itself is what bothered the whistle- blower, because if you read the complaint, he spends, or she, whoever it is, spends time saying, look, here is the substance, which bothered me, but then here’s what they did with it. So, yeah, some calls you’re not going to see, certainly not in any contemporaneous way. But other calls, they should be shared with the people working on these problems in the rest of the government.
MADDOW: If there were White House lawyers or other White House officials who directed that kind of effort, an "oh, my god, what did he say, we need to hide this" kind of effort, which is what the whistle-blower is indicating, the way it seems at least from the outside, should those officials bear some consequences for that? What should -- I mean, I don’t know that what they did is illegal, but certainly it seems improper.
CLINTON: Well, it certainly deserves questioning. And that’s what’s going on with this impeachment inquiry. You know, ironically, I was on the staff of the 1974 impeachment inquiry, and you should follow every thread to see where it leads. And you should look at anything that could amount to abuse of power or obstruction of justice or contempt of Congress. And if people were a part of that, as they were in the Nixon administration, then, yes, they should be held accountable.
(….)
MADDOW: Went to prison himself. Other cabinet officials were implicated. Right now, it seems like both the vice president and the attorney general and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, your successor at the State Department, may themselves have been at least aware, if not participants in what the president is going to be impeached for here. As a former cabinet secretary, do you have advice on the right way to comport yourself in this situation? I mean, they do all seem like they’re up to their necks. CLINTON: Well, I think what many in the Nixon White House and administration concluded was the right thing to do was tell the truth. Tell the truth. And that would be advice that should be given to anybody caught up in this, because it’s clear that the president has made a series of decisions to benefit himself and his political fortune at the expense of other matters in our government.
And the people you point to are certainly aware of that. Think of all the people who have left. And one of the people who left early on, someone who was on the National Security Council -- Mr. Bossert, I think -- he basically said, look, we tried to convince the president not to buy into all these wild conspiracy theories that people like Giuliani and others were pushing at him. And he bought it. He bought all of the conspiracy theories, all of the crazy, wacky ideas about all of the, you know, things that were being done to him, and now he’s on this pursuit of trying to prove that Russia’s systematic and sweeping influence in our election didn’t happen because people who he wants to have around him now have totally free reign. You know, others who were trying to pull him back, trying to say, no, Mr. President, there’s no evidence of that, they’re gone. So those who are left -- and I hope some of the Republicans in the House, and particularly in the Senate, need to start thinking about putting country over party.
We have Margaret Chase Smith in this book. Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican woman senator from Maine, who was the only member of her party to take a public stand against Joe McCarthy from the very beginning. She eventually brought a few of her Republican colleagues with her. But she not only attacked McCarthy and his tactics of smear and destroy, but she attacked her own party and said, why are we doing this? Stop it. Don’t be preying on people. Don’t be leading with fear. We need some Republicans to step up. And for the life of me, I don’t understand it. I know some of these people. I served with some of these people. And the fact that they’re letting this man run roughshod over our Constitution, over separation of powers, over checks and balances, over the rule of law -- absolutely makes no sense to me. So the way that many Republicans are protesting or showing their opposition is deciding not to run again, but they don’t say anything. They just say, I’m not going to run again.
