Shocking 1993 HillaryCare Memos: Gov't Gone Awry

Was Hillary Rodham Clinton's health-care plan really a proposal for broad, unprecedented, sweeping, centralized control over a sector of the economy as critics called it back in the 1990s?

The answer is yes, according to a June 18, 1993, internal memo from her own task force in which an anonymous staffer known only as P.S. writes: "I can think of parallels in wartime, but I have trouble coming up with a precedent in our peacetime history for such broad and centralized control over a sector of the economy. ... Is the public really ready for this? ... None of us know whether we can make it work well or at all. ..."

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released records obtained from the Clinton Presidential Library related to the National Taskforce on Health Care Reform, a “cabinet-level” task force chaired by former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Clinton administration. Specifically, these documents come from the White House Health Care Interdepartmental Working Group.

Among the highlights of the documents released by Judicial Watch:

• A June 18, 1993 internal Memorandum entitled, “A Critique of Our Plan,” authored by someone with the initials “P.S.,” makes the startling admission that critics of Hillary’s health care reform plan were correct: “I can think of parallels in wartime, but I have trouble coming up with a precedent in our peacetime history for such broad and centralized control over a sector of the economy…Is the public really ready for this?... none of us knows whether we can make it work well or at all…”

• A “Confidential” May 26, 1993 Memorandum from Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) to Hillary Clinton entitled, “Health Care Reform Communications,” which criticizes the Task Force as a “secret cabal of Washington policy ‘wonks’” that has engaged in “choking off information” from the public regarding health care reform. The memorandum suggests that Hillary Clinton “use classic opposition research” to attack those who were excluded by the Clinton Administration from Task Force deliberations and to “expose lifestyles, tactics and motives of lobbyists” in order to deflect criticism. Senator Rockefeller also suggested news organizations “are anxious and willing to receive guidance [from the Clinton Administration] on how to time and shape their [news] coverage.”

• A February 5, 1993 Draft Memorandum from Alexis Herman and Mike Lux detailing the Office of Public Liaison’s plan for the health care reform campaign. The memorandum notes the development of an “interest group data base” detailing whether or not organizations “support(ed) us in the election.” The database would also track personal information about interest group leaders, such as their home phone numbers, addresses, “biographies, analysis of credibility in the media, and known relationships with Congresspeople.”

These records released by Judicial Watch were obtained from the approximately 13,000 records made publicly available by the Clinton Library. The National Archives admits there may be an additional 3,022,030 textual records, 2,884 pages of electronic records, 1,021 photographs, 3 videotapes and 3 audiotapes related to the Task Force that are being withheld indefinitely from the public. On November 2, 2007 Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the National Archives to force the release of all the Task Force records.

“These documents paint a disturbing picture of how Hillary Clinton and the Clinton administration approached health care reform – secrecy, smears, and the misuse of government computers to track private and political information on citizens,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “There are millions more documents that the Library has yet to release. The Clintons continue to play games and pretend they have nothing to do with this delay. The Clintons should get out of the way and authorize the release of these records now.”

To read about Judicial Watch's pursuit of other Clinton era documents click here.

Related sources: WorldNetDaily

What Happens When... ?

A futile exercise in the hypothetical but not quite improbable:

What happens when Barack Obama doesn't win?

What happens when Hillary Clinton doesn't win?

What happens when the U.S. wins in Iraq?

What happens when the Democrats win but are still ineffectual and continue to blame Republicans?

What happens when terrorists attack the U.S. after Democrats win?

What happens when global warming doesn't end the world?

What happens when global warming supporters tax the U.S. economy into a depression?

What happens when Democrats win and energy prices skyrocket?

What happens when people realize the U.S. has plenty of oil but can't get to it because of liberal and Democrat policies?

What happens when people realize Democrats (and moderate Republicans) are all about managing the fall of America and not about promoting American exceptionalism?

What happens when... ?

(To be continued.)

An Oral History: The Monica Lewinsky Scandal 10 Years After

Ten years after a young intern nearly brought down a president, the players in the Monica Lewinsky scandal talk to the Times Online.

On the evening of Saturday January 17, 1998, the internet gossip merchant Matt Drudge posted a story that opened the most sensational scandal season in the history of the American presidency. He reported that Newsweek magazine had killed a story about President Clinton’s sexual relationship with a former intern. The next day he had her name: Monica Lewinsky.

The mainstream media were slow to catch up, but by the following Tuesday they were reporting that Clinton was being investigated for encouraging others to lie to cover up the affair.

For the next year the story dominated the headlines as Clinton was investigated, impeached and eventually found not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours in a Senate trial.

Ten years on we know what happened to Bill Clinton. He is campaigning tirelessly for his wife as she seeks to win the second Clinton presidency. It is a curious twist of fate, and an indication of how deep were the repercussions of the scandal, that her campaign might not be happening if it weren’t for Monica Lewinsky.

For it was in the wake of the scandal, in which Hillary was seen as the wronged wife, that she decided to run for the Senate from New York. Her shamed husband, anxious to try to make things up to her, eagerly threw his weight behind the move. A wave of sympathy helped to sweep her to victory. As soon as she was elected, talk began about her running for president.

Read it.

What Happens When Obama's Candidacy Fails?

Writing at The American Thinker, Marc Sheppard asks rather than relieving racial tensions, might an Obama candidacy instead intensify them?

When Obama's unprecedented coronation didn't materialize after for the New Hampshire primary, familiar allegations of possible racial bias did. This was only the first of many primaries and the failure of the only black candidate to emerge victorious already has elicited cries of foul. Ironically, while liberal guilt has historically been both the enabler of minority entitlement and exonerator of its many abuses, the accused bigots in this case were Democrats.

There lies untold danger in a citizenry that stoops to purely race-inspired voting. What's more, the divisions such behavior invariably sustains will themselves invariably breed suspicion. Will each Obama loss demand magnified investigation and explanation? Are Americans eternally to be assumed racists until proven otherwise?

What's more, should Obama prevail in the primaries, just what might we expect were he to lose the general election, particularly in a squeaker?

Creeping Liberalism has created a world wherein many believe that the only possible explanation for me not liking my black neighbor is surely the color of his skin, regardless of his measure as a man.

Given the spontaneous distrust already in evidence, might the true Obama believers and racial ambulance chasers witness his defeat any more rationally?

Considering the year-long cries of racial disenfranchisement we heard when even a minority-favored white candidate lost in the past two outings, it's better he loses to Hillary.

Perhaps the bad-blood his defeat would generate might even chip away at that black monolithic block the Democrats have so come to depend on.

Read it.