Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The Clintons and the Bushes

By Robert Parry
October 3, 2007

Editor's Note: Given Hillary Clinton’s emergence as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, a Consortiumnews.com reader asked that we post the entire first chapter of Robert Parry’s 2004 book, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.

The book opens with a scene early in the second year of Bill Clinton’s presidency with him explaining to White House guests why he didn’t pursue geopolitical scandals that had implicated George H.W. Bush in gross abuses of power and arguably criminal acts.

Read on.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Perhaps President Bill Clinton's reluctance to investigate the Reagan/Bush scandals goes deeper than bad judgement or lack of foresight.
Maybe he was afraid to probe too deeply into the world of arms dealing, money laundering, drug dealing, assasinations, covert CIA activities, etc.
The Iran-Contra caper and other events of 1981-1993 may have been only the tip of the iceberg.
For example, when Senator Kerry was investigating BCCI, he was warned to cool it by Jimmy Carter, who had been a front for them. Carter got money for his causes by pretending not to know how the money was obtained and tainted.
Not even Presidents are immune from the backlashes of 'asking too many questions or saying too much'.

Littlepaws said...

After reading Woodward's book, The Agenda, I am inclined to think that President Clinton was completely taken up with the job and probably his reasons were exactly as stated in your excerpt from your book, Secrecy and Privelege.... But, I fail to see that it has any bearing on Hillary Clinton's run for the office. Seeing how long it took to investigate the Plame scandal, these folks apparently have the best cover on the planet for their underhanded doings. My God, can you imagine the fallout if these scandals were ever completely investigated. It would take years!

TravelerDiogenes said...

The short answer to why Clinton didn't pursue these is this: Skull & Bones.

They protect their own, to the demise of a nation, even.

In his answer to Sender, Clinton put forth a cover story. Certainly several were possible, and all would have sufficed to divert in the context of a wedding at the White House.

Underlying all diversions was that Clinton would not go after a fellow Bonesman, and would even actively - if in position to do so - impede any such actions by others.

All reasons given other than that are simply smoke screen.