THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
COMMENTARY
Hillary's Smear Campaign
By  MICHAEL ZELDIN
January 31, 2008; Page A17

Beginning with the South Carolina debate, and continuing as an applause  line 
in many stump speeches thereafter, Hillary Clinton has accused Barack Obama  
of representing an inner-city slum lord while practicing law in Chicago. Of 
all  people, Sen. Clinton should know better.
During the Whitewater investigation,  Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr 
investigated the legal work performed by Mrs.  Clinton, then a partner in the Rose 
law firm, on behalf of Jim McDougal and his  bank, Madison Guaranty. Mr. Starr 
believed that Mrs. Clinton helped orchestrate  the fraudulent land deal known 
as Castle Grande. He subpoenaed her billing  records, hauled her before a 
grand jury, and relentlessly pursued her.

In her defense, Mrs. Clinton and her attorneys asserted that her  involvement 
in the matter was de minimus. As one of independent counsels who  preceded 
Mr. Starr, I was interviewed repeatedly on the subject. I  wholeheartedly 
defended Mrs. Clinton.

I believed that the evidence revealed that Mrs. Clinton, who spent a total  
of only 60 hours of work on the case over a 15-month period, was not  
substantially involved in the matter and did nothing improper in her work on  behalf of 
Madison Guaranty. In the end, no charges were brought against Mrs.  Clinton 
because there was insufficient evidence to prove that she knowingly  assisted 
anyone in the perpetration of a fraud.

Yet, when an opportunity presented itself in the debate, Mrs. Clinton,  
without so much as a blink of an eye or the slightest blush, denounced Sen.  Obama 
for representing "Tony Rezko in his slum landlord business in inner-city  
Chicago." Her accusation invites scrutiny. Not so much for the truth of the  
accusation (the facts are quite straightforward and completely benign) but as a  
window into Mrs. Clinton's character and as a lens with which to see whether a  
Clinton presidency will be a vehicle for change.

The facts are well documented: Upon graduation from Harvard Law School in  
1991, Mr. Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law review, 
 could have named his job at any law firm or corporate legal department in  
America. Instead, he selected a boutique civil rights law firm, Miner Barnhill  
& Galland, where he represented community organizers, discrimination victims  
and black voters trying to force a redrawing of city ward boundaries.

During his tenure at Miner Barnhill, the firm accepted the representation  of 
the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., a nonprofit group that  
redeveloped a run-down property on Chicago's South Side. Mr. Rezko, not the  client 
of the firm, was assisting Woodland with City housing redevelopment  
projects. As a junior associate, Mr. Obama was asked by his supervising  attorney, 
William Miceli, to do about five hours of basic due diligence and  document 
review. That began and ended his involvement in the case.
No one who  has ever practiced law, let alone Mrs. Clinton, could argue, with 
a clear  conscience, that these five hours on behalf of a church group that 
partnered  with a man who at a later point in time would be alleged to be a 
scoundrel  equated to knowingly representing a Chicago slumlord. Yet she could 
not resist  leveling the accusation.

I suggest that this provides a window into Mrs. Clinton's character because  
notwithstanding the enormous suffering she had to endure when accused of  
wrongful conduct in her representation of Madison Guaranty -- a representation  
that appears to have been no more than a routine business transaction -- she is  
willing to behave no differently than did her Whitewater accusers if she can  
gain politically. She appears to have learned no lessons from the Starr  
investigation.

Mrs. Clinton's willingness to ignore the truth for short-term political  
advantage is exactly what breeds the partisanship that's paralyzed Washington  for 
too many years, and the cynicism felt by so many Americans, especially the  
young. Getting ahead by any means possible is the strategy. Once elected, the  
candidate falsely believes that he or she will be able to set things right and 
 govern differently. All that was said in the campaign is rationalized -- it 
will  be forgiven and forgotten as part of the hyperbole of the election  
process.
Sadly, it just isn't so. No one forgets and no one forgives in  Washington. 
(Ask John Kerry if he has gotten over the Swift boat smear  campaign.) How you 
get elected defines who you will be once in power. Mrs.  Clinton has shown us 
with this one simple, baseless accusation why it will be  hard for her 
candidacy to represent a change. She appears too comfortable with  the politics of 
personal destruction if she can gain a political  advantage.

Mr. Zeldin is a former independent counsel and federal prosecutor in  
Washington, D.C. He has volunteered for Barack Obama in the Democratic primary  
campaign.
 



**************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music.     
(http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025
48)

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤