22 days. That’s the answer to the question of how long it would take for Bill Clinton to embroil himself in a controversy since his wife was confirmed as Secretary of State. Yesterday, we told you how a group of union leaders and gay rights activists were urging the former President not to violate an ongoing boycott against San Diego’s Manchester Grand Hyatt, whose owner Doug Manchester contributed $125,000 to the Yes on 8 campaign and today a Clinton spokesperson said Clinton would go ahead with his planned, paid speech on Sunday, because he wants to keep his commitment to the International Franchise Association– and you know, nab a fee likely to be in excess of $100,000.
Clinton’s legacy among gays and lesbians is dubious at best. While the former President enjoys a lot of popular support in the gay & lesbian community, as President, he was responsible for enacting two of the most damaging policies against the LGBT community, namely, Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell and The Defense of Marriage Act. He’s defended those decisions as being necessary compromises, but no matter how he or his spokespeople try to parse it, his decision to violate the Manchester Hyatt boycott reeks of opportunism and greed.
The San Diego Tribune gets the reactions from angry labor leaders and gay activists:
“It’s shameful and hypocritical that President Clinton wouldn’t stand by his principles and honor two groups that he’s historically supported – labor groups and gay rights,” said Brigette Browning, president of Unite Here Local No. 30, who co-signed the letter.
“I’m very surprised that he would put his corporate sponsors over basic human dignity,” she said…
Cleve Jones, a longtime gay-rights activist who founded the NAMES Project/AIDS Memorial Quilt, said he welcomed Clinton’s help fighting Proposition 8 but was skeptical of the president’s position.
“The boycott has been in effect and very well publicized since July,” said Jones, who also signed the letter. “He’s had ample foreknowledge of the situation.”…
Rick Jacobs of the Courage Campaign, a Los Angeles organization that promotes progressive political issues, said it’s ironic Clinton would be involved in the debate over same-sex marriage, because Proposition 8 is being defended in court in part by Kenneth Starr, who 10 years ago built the case for impeachment against Clinton.
“Bill Clinton has done a lot of good,” said Jacobs, who also signed the open letter. But “there’s a really big irony in this.”
Ironic? More like self-serving and calculated, but then again, since when has Clinton been anything less? Enjoy that picket line, Mr. President.
Bill Perdue
Will Clinton back down? Will he honor the demands of unions and GLBT groups? With his record who really gives a damn?
Clinton was behind NAFTA, welfare cuts and deregulation. He’s an open enemy of working people. Hillary Clinton served on the Board at Wal-mart for years. Clinton championed DOMA and boasted about supporting it on redneck radio stations. DADT, the codification of military bigotry, is his baby. He says that same sex marriage is the ‘kiss of death’ for Democrats and Obama seems to believe him. After all Clinton is the model Obama was cloned from.
That’s why Obama destroyed our chances to win in California when he told an audience of southern baptists at Warren’s bigotfest that his sky pixie friend ‘god’s in the mix.” Then the Warren baptists, mormons and catholics repeated that millions of times and emboldened the largely EuroAmerican hordes of bigots who clobbered us November 4th.
It was the Democrats who killed the hate crimes bill and who let Barney Frank and his Republican friends rape ENDA. It was those same Democrats, like Biden and Mikulski, who voted for DOMA and refuse to repeal it and DADT, largely because they’re Democratic (sic) laws to begin with.
flightoftheseabird
Just think, he could’ve been the first gentleman and crossing the picket line. Wouldn’t that be nice? I read a report over the summer that Clinton singed DOMA and DADT, eagerly and without hesitation. I am beginning to see a picture here. Douche.
andy
BILL CLINTON MAKES ME SICK!
tallskin
Well boys and girls, what you do, you buy half a dozen eggs each and you all pile down to the venue and throw them at Willy Boy as he enters.
If there are enough of you then at least a few eggs should land and shatter upon his suit, hair, shoes etc etc.
S’easy.
He also must have a website so zap that.
Deluge his office with letters of complaint about his scab behaviour.
Call up his office 24/7 to complain, leave ansafone messages – ie blocking his normal business activites so his office cannot function
You get the picture
Eric
Just hit them where it hurts. Stop all donations to places he pops up. And some eggs would hurt too…cover EVERY entrance.
rigs
please why would it just be about the fee? He can get another fee in a second, i do think he wants to keep his commiment since the org doesnt have anything to do with the hotel’s owners… We need to stop whining everytime someone has ANYTHING to do with someone who donate, even the smallest connections… that’s my opinion. And some historical referece on the state of the congress would be helpful on DADT and DOMA, which I hate CLinton for signing, but neglecting the congress he was working with is at best revisionist history…
Mark
Clinton’s record shows that he does not give a shit about gay people when they stand between him and personal gain.
Bill Perdue
@rigs: absolutely right rigs.
The congress was just as homophobic as Clinton. When DADT came to a vote it was the brainchild of Democrat Sam Nunn and Colin Powell, both key Obama advisors. Congress was controlled by Democrats. DADT passed 273 to 135 in the house and 77-22 in the Senate.
By the time DOMA rolled around the Congress was narrowly controlled by Republicans and Bill Clinton was up for reelection. He championed DOMA, signed it the very day it passed and immediately proceeded to boast about it on redneck religious radio stations. Democrats were just as homophobic when it came to DOMA. Biden voted for it as did Senator Barbara Mikulski, who people keep claiming is one of us. DOMA, like DADT, passed with the overwhelming support of both parties. It was 85-14 in the Senate and a bone crushing triumph for bigots in the House 342-67! Clintons bigot ads appeared within a couple of days.
If your point is that the Democrats are just as bigoted as the Republicans you’re right. But if you’re trying to use that to exonerate Clinton you missed the whole point.
Bill Perdue
@Mark: Obama is a Clinton clone.
Mark
@Bill Perdue: I’m reserving my judgment on that until the first time he actively rolls back LGBT rights, or if he’s taken no action at all until the end of his term.
I do expect that we will get thrown under the bus if things get too rough for Obama, but I hope to be proven wrong.
Bill Perdue
@Mark: That’s ok. I made up my mind to treat him like a bigot when he torpedoed our right to marry in California by appearing at Warrens bigotfest and claiming that god’s a bigot too – “god’s in the mix”.
Obama’s words were used to galvanize and encourage the EuroAmerican bigots to vote Yes on 8 and they clobbered us.
Here comes that damn bus again.
Leisa
What a hypocrite! Last year Bill Clinton was supposed to speak at our Commencement Ceremony but since UCLA workers were striking he wouldn’t cross the picket line! 08 Grads ended up having no commencement speaker as a result!
Leland Frances
Clinton is making a mistake, but it’s a blip compared to Warrengate, and more than made up for by the fact that he recorded a NO On Prop 8 robocall that went to millions of California voters while OBAMA’s voice was only heard, exploited, in Yes On 8 robocalls replaying a recording of his “…marriage is between one man & one woman….God is in the mix” statement.
Many great things came out of the 2008 primaries. But one of the worst was revisionism of Bill/Hillary as a two-headed AntiChrist.
“the most damaging policies”? Sorry, Japhy, once again you’re proving the adage a little knowledge is a [stupid] thing.
FACT: The ONLY thing that DADT and DOMA changed was that they inculcated EXISTING practices into explicit legistlation.
Were out gays allowed in the military BEFORE DADT? Sorry, Mary: No.
Were gay couples given ANY federal benefits BEFORE DOMA? Again, sorry, Mary, but NO!
States could still do what they wanted, e.g., legalize MARRIAGE in Masschusetts.
Neither actions were good things, but to equate them to the gay equivalents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is willful invincible ignorance.
Famous gay Friend of Bill David Mixner knows more about what went on than ANY OF YOU [and me] combined. He’s certainly flamed both Clintons when he felt it necessary, but this was what he told “MetroWeekly” just five years ago:
“Bill Clinton will go down in history as one of the greatest presidents for this community, ever. Ever, ever, ever, ever. For the scope and the breadth of the changes he made in the agencies and the State Department. It was against the law for us to openly serve in the State department before he came in. People seem to forget that. Against the law. We could not work in the State Department. He made historical changes across the board. But he was far from perfect—DOMA, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. …
[His overall legacy] is extraordinary. The executive order banning discrimination against our community in every agency except the military but including the civilian defense department. Allowing us to serve in the Peace Corps. Allowing us to serve in the Job Corps. Opening up appointments — I think there were something like a hundred appointments [serving in his administration]. I mean, come on. In 1988, the [Democratic] Caucus wouldn’t even accept our money. That’s a sea change where I come from. Perfect? No.” – David Mixner.
Bruno
In the 90’s, I was so blissfully happy that we had a Democratic president. I guess bliss stems from ignorance.
Bill Perdue
@Leland Frances: “David Mixner knows more about what went on than ANY OF YOU”. If all Mixner “knows” is that a few token appointments make up for Clintons open bigotry in promoting and signing bigoted laws DOMA and DADT then Mixner is little better than a ticket seller for the bus that runs us over from time to time.
This rigmarole about “I know secret stuff you don’t know.” is bull. Clinton used it to justify the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children when he embargoed food and medical/sanitary supplies.” He claimed he killed them to prevent Saddam from using his WMDs?!? His secretary of state Madeline Albright admitted as much to Lesley Stahl of Sixty Minutes who asked “ We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”. To which Clintons Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”
That’s the same bullshit line Bush repeated (with the strong support of Biden and Hillary Clinton) when he ordered the ongoing illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was the same crap we heard from LBJ about Vietnam and from Bush 1 when he invaded Panama.
People who claim to know “Secret Stuff That You Don’t Know” are always charlatans and con artists, whether they’re bishops, politicians or daytime TV psychobabblers.
DADT and DOMA codified bigotry and made it law. That’s not revisionism, its fact. Clinton boasted about signing it on redneck religious radio. Fact, not revisionism, and certainly nothing to be proud of, unless you’re still pushing the tired old lies that DADT and DOMA were actually favors Clinton did for us.
Clinton pushed NAFTA and other union busting legislation through, ramped up the racist police attack on Black and Latino communities, made draconian cuts in welfare and was primarily responsible for the deregulation of banks and financial companies that allowed the rich to loot the economy and left us teetering on the edge of a depression. Not so surprising considering that Hillary Clinton served for five or six years on
the Board of Wal-Mart. That’s fact, not revisionism.
The facts speak for themselves.
Leland Frances
Yes, fortunately, the facts do speak for themselves…and can’t be washed away by simply screaming louder, longest, or dishonestly trying to prove an unsupportable claim [Clinton is a homohating monster] by smothering it in supportable claims [the deaths from the embargo].
1. I never said, and Mixner never said, that the things Clinton did right make up for the things he did wrong. Characterizing them as “open bigotry” is OPINION not fact.
2. Please, get a grip on your paranoia. I never referenced, nor did Mixner, any “secret” information. In addition to his publicly available book, “Stranger Among Friends,” in which he chronicles the Clinton Admin years—good AND bad, he has been interviewed countless times by gay and mainstream media about that time and since, in print and on television. No Clinton apologist, he was arrested outside the White House [no, eager morons, NOT at the directions of Bill Clinton] protesting DADT. He endorsed Obama over Hillary in the primaries. He’s flaming Bill on his blog today for choosing to cross the picket line.
3. DADT and DOMA would have become law without Clinton’s signature. There were far more than enough votes to override his vetos. I think he SHOULD have vetoed them, however symbolically, but they codified the bigotry of the people in Congress who introduced and voted for them not Clinton’s. It could be said that trying to open the military to gays hurt him more than it did us [in terms of creating a war with Congress before he was even sworn in] given that, again, gay were being kicked out of the military BEFORE BILL CLINTON WAS BORN.
4. The real goal here is not to fairly judge Clinton but to condemn yet again ANY Democrat [“Obama is a Clinton clone.”]
Bill Perdue
@Leland Frances: Same sold Leland Francis/Michael Bedford/?/? we’ve come to know and um… know.
michael
People, you live in the most spiritually and morally bankrupt country in the, and I say laughing, free world. America is going down the drain. All the money that is being handed out, all Obama’s attempts to save your drunken country are going to fail, mark my words. The outer world reflects the inner world, and unless America has some great awakening then its over. Most do not awaken till everything around them is destroyed. So stop worrying about what Bill Clinton doe as, he has always been a narcissistic, self centered, creep. Charismatic, charming, yes, but he is an addict and conducts himself like one, and Hillary is nothing but the co-dependant who hangs around because of the cash and prizes, she’s a whore.
There is a spiritual concept that is called “allow”. It basically means just get out of somethings way and let it run its course. The sooner it does the sooner something new and better can be built. The U.S. is imploding and Hallelujah! Maybe something new can be built, a country who is built on a foundation of moral integrity, altruism and truth. Not a country built upon Human Rights violations, corrupt and unethical business and economic policies, and advances itself at the expense of the rest of the planet and its inhabitants. But you can keep holding on, keep trying to save it, but you will only delay what is already set in motion and drag out the pain of it all. For those of you who think I am negative, you are wrong, I am only pointing out that the negative is moving away to make room for the positive.
Leland Frances
@ Michael
Gee, I thought no one did acid anymore…..
Distingué Traces
Oh no! The man who signed DOMA is failing to supporting equal marriage rights!
Can it really be that his fee for a speaking engagement is a greater motivator to him than the democratic principle of equal treatment under the law?
Roy Pyatt
Well the right must be excited, once again some Queerty readers get off the subject and attack each other instead of the real problem way to go guys and girls.
Bill Perdue
So Roy, do you prefer the silence of Guantanamo to vigorous debate?
We’re in a fight for our lives and we have a lot to work out, and we can’t do it by zipping up the discussion.
Who cares what the right wing thinks? They’re the enemy. They don’t approve of anything we do. So why worry?
Alfredo Munoz
Bill Clinton Working for You:
An upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to former President Bill
Clinton’s foundation in November 2004, around the same time that Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance
for the businessman’s mall project.
Mrs. Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert J.
Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds to help finance the construction of the
Destiny USA entertainment and shopping complex, an expansion of the Carousel
Center in Syracuse.
Mrs. Clinton also helped secure a provision in a highway bill that set aside
$5 million for Destiny USA roadway construction.
Why should anyone doubt, then, that in small matters as well as in large ones,
the old slogan from the 1992 election still holds true? As Bill so touchingly
put it that year, if you voted for him, you got “two for one.” What the
country—and the world—has since learned is a slight variation on that, which I
would crudely phrase as “buy one, get one free.”
The deal struck by the wide-eyed incoming Obama administration is that the list
of donors to the Clinton Foundation will be reviewed once every year and that
only the new donations from foreign states—which already include an
extraordinarily large number from Gulf sheikdoms—will be scrutinized by
administration lawyers. How would we react if we read that this was the rule for
the Vladimir Putin government, say, or former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s
regime in Germany? Before me, for example, is the report of a pledge of $100
million to the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth
Initiative by a set of companies based in Vancouver and known as the Lundin
Group. The ostensible purpose of this mind-boggling contribution is stated in
the usual vacuous terms of “sustainable local economies,” chiefly in Africa. All
I know for sure about the Lundin Group is that it does quite a lot of business
in Sudan. And all I can think to ask—as perhaps some senator might think to
ask—is why such a big corporate interest doesn’t just donate the money directly,
rather than distributing it through the offices of an outfit run by a seasoned
ex-presidential influence-peddler. What do they and the other donors suppose
they are getting for their money? A good feeling?
==========CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN===============================
Mister C
Miss MoFo Leaflet Frightful,
Don’t defend your Master Daddy now. We love Bill but the MOFO is dead wrong on this one my dear….Just shut up and admit it.
HE F^CKED UP!
michael
@Leland Frances: Maybe you should try some, t at least you could taste something outside of that dark, dense and tiny little world that lies between your ears.
Leland Frances
Sorry, Michael, ever hear of “projection”? It’s when someone who has his head up his ass attributes his own characteristics to others.
The shorthand: my facts don’t support your opinions; you don’t like the message so you attempt, however feebly, to shoot the messenger.
Leland Frances
PS: And Japhy’s hysterical introduction remains what it is regardless of Clinton’s stupidity in attending the event—historical revisionism held aloft by the overheated gas of the Clinton = Hitler party line, a dunce’s corner in which he has painted himself with his own blog broadbrush.
Brian Miller
Watching Democrats spin Bill Clinton into some hero is as funny as watching Republicans present John McCain as a queer hero.
mwbsf
Frankly I put this man in the garbage can when he signed DOMA. Then he got my “low-life” 10 rating for his South Carolina race card performance. Now this. Gee what a surprise.
Ezekiel
@Brian Miller: In my estimation there are few, if any, queer heroes in the American political spectrum. I’ll start considering people heroes when they do things like come out publicly and then support positive initiatives.
JJ
Clinton is such a two-faced ass, apparently. We seriously need to fix this country up and change these prejudiced or ignorant actions and laws.
Wang
Speaking of Bill Clinton:
It is opined that Bill Clinton committed racist hate crimes, and I am not free to say anything further about it.
Respectfully Submitted by Andrew Y. Wang, J.D. Candidate
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
(I can type 90 words per minute, and there are probably thousands of copies on the Internet indicating the content of this post.)
_________________
“If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memories so they never got stale and faded.” Off the top of my head—it came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.