WASHINGTON — The New York Times has perpetuated a myth that,
whaddayaknow, helps Al “I’m My Own Man” Gore distance himself from that
cad, Bill Clinton. The myth goes like this: Gore and Clinton ain’t buds
and never
really were.
Now it can be told: That backslapping, football-tossing fun that Bill
and Al had during their 1992 bus tour? All staged, if you believe the
Times.
“The idea that the two men were ever personal friends seems to have
been mostly hype to begin with,” the newspaper of record writes. “What
bonding there was almost certainly centered on public policy.”
Yep, just two policy wonks who bumped into each other one day at the
Progressive Policy Institute and decided to make a run for the White
House.
Gimme a break.
Even political neophytes could see that something was suspiciously
homogeneous about the Bubba ticket. It broke all the rules for
attracting voters in a national election. If you’re from a state in the
South, you’re not supposed to pick a running-mate from another Dixie
state, let alone a neighboring one with few electoral votes. If you’re a
Baptist, you reach out to a Catholic, or at least a Presbyterian, not
another Baptist. If you’re in your 40s, you recruit someone older and
wiser, not another baby boomer.
But instead of diversifying, Clinton practically cloned himself,
offering the electorate a couple of Southern white frat boys. It didn’t
make sense. Apparently it still doesn’t make sense to the Times and
other White House spin-puppets.
But it’s not that hard to understand now that we know about Clinton’s
ties to the Dixie mafia in Arkansas and Gore’s ties to Tennessee’s
hillbilly mafia — and both their ties to Communist China through shady
bagmen. No spur-of-the-moment pick, this essentially was a well-planned
merger of criminal enterprise zones, one centered in Carthage and the
other in nearby Little Rock.
The relationship between Gore and Clinton is closer than they or
their media friends let on.
For starters, they share a common old friend in Beijing bagman John
Huang, who brokered overseas loans for banks in Tennessee and then
Arkansas in the 1980s.
Huang escorted Clinton on a tour of Asia in 1985. Four years later he
took Gore on the same trip.
Huang went on to raise millions of dollars in donations, much of it
from illegal foreign sources, for Clinton and Gore. All the while, he
enjoyed top-secret clearance to CIA trade and military data.
What a coincidence.
The Times article also suggests Clinton and Gore were virtual
strangers before 1992, brought together by campaign strategists like
James Carville in some kind of arranged political marriage.
Beyond the obvious — that no savvy political consultant would have
suggested such a monochromatic ticket, lacking in both geographic and
biographic diversity — the notion ignores Gore’s cousin, “Ark.”
Thomas Archimedes Monroe III was then-Gov. Clinton’s state insurance
commissioner. A Lincoln Bedroom guest, cousin “Ark” is now one of Gore’s
top fund-raisers in Arkansas.
But Clinton and Gore didn’t run in the same circles, huh?
Don’t be fooled. Gore isn’t some wide-eyed country boy who fell under
the spell of a fast operator from Hot Springs. Clinton didn’t hook Gore
up with Chinese money-launderers or teach him how to lie without shame.
He didn’t have to: Gore brought that experience to the job. In fact, it
probably was a prerequisite.
