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Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine

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Bill Clinton wrote a a bestseller titled My Life; over 1000 pages. Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine is in part about the missing chapters that deal with Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Sally Perdue, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Monica Lewinsky, and Juanita Broaddrick. It is, also, about being a liberal misogynist. Jackson defines "liberal misogynist" as a person who supports women's rights politically yet repeatedly mistreats women personally.

Candace Jackson is a libertarian feminist and an attorney. She graduated from Stanford and Pepperdine Law School and has worked for Judicial Watch. Jackson interviewed the seven women, and may have learned more than has been generally available in the press. Although, I have followed these women closely since there stories became public, I wasn't struck by too much that was new. The pattern in each case seemed to be denial of the woman's claim, trashing the woman's reputation, failing that, intimidation.

What did strike me as new, was her analysis of modern liberalism, which can help us all understand politics better. She has identified seven tenets of liberalism. Here are the first two and you can read the book for the next five:

1. In modern liberalism, political goals justify any political means to achieve them. You can think of gender equality and affirmative action. Which leads to the "greater good theory", namely if any harm "occurs in the pursuit of those two goals, it's worth the suffering...for the greater good."

2. Modern liberalism relies on intermediaries to take care of the unpleasant tasks of enforcing the means to their political ends.

Most liberals aren't outright socialists demanding government ownership of the economy, but they use legislation and regulation to establish nearly-plenary government control over the economy.
I think the fundamental lesson from the book is that any political philosophy, including liberalism, to the extent that it aligns itself with force to achieve its goals, is a danger to our free choice. It seems the press only wants to scare us about the Republicans and the Patriot Act.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Hillary Clinton could be the Democratic candidate for President and is more liberal than Bill Clinton. She is the one person who could have exercised restraint on Bill Clinton, but instead supported his misogyny, and she could turn out worse for us than he. Supporting Hillary Clinton, as much as you want a woman president, is a slap in the face to all women and the goal of gender equality.

(...)

Monica Lewinsky. Juanita Broaddrick. Paula Jones. Kathleen Willey. Gennifer Flowers. These are just a few of the names instantly recognizable to anyone who lived through the indignities of the Clinton years. These women, of course, represent the most notable marital indiscretions committed by our esteemed forty-second president of the United States, but there are many, many other names. Like Elizabeth Ward Gracen and Sally Perdue, two other women closely examined in Candice Jackson's devastating book "Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine." Forget about the financial wheeling and dealing behind the Whitewater fiasco. Forget about Hillary Clinton's jackpot in the cattle market. Forget about the bizarre Vince Foster imbroglio. You may even forget about Travelgate, Filegate, and the billion other scandals that plagued the Clinton regime from the moment these two walked through the White House's front door to the moment they stole anything they could get their hands on when leaving in January 2001. The scandalous behavior documented in this book is far worse. Not that these other issues don't matter. They do. But to truly understand the moral vacuity of Clinton and his wife, you've got to look at how they treated women. And here it is.

Jackson, an economics major at Stanford and a Pepperdine law graduate, wrote this book for several reasons. One, she experienced a situation not unlike that faced by Juanita Broaddrick's encounter with then Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton in a Little Rock hotel room in 1978. Two, the author wanted to show how liberal ideology influenced and reinforced Slick Willie's already well developed misogyny. And three, the book convincingly argues that the American public, confronted with serial infidelity by Bill Clinton, ought to think long and hard about sending Hillary to the White House. This is a woman, contends the author, who enabled her husband's scurrilous behavior, a self-proclaimed feminist whose lust for power overshadowed the very real concerns she should have expressed about Bill's behavior. Through a methodical examination of these seven women's stories, Jackson pulls few punches in describing the breathtaking abuse of power engaged in by the Clinton administration. The dissembling is here all right, those public statements disavowing any knowledge of these claims churned out by the hacks in the White House, but we also learn of more ominous machinations. Threats delivered to women over the telephone, investigations into their backgrounds, "sudden" IRS audits, and even goons hired by Clinton's cronies showing up in person to intimidate the accusers.

By far the most relevant sections of the book discuss how liberal ideology buttressed Clinton's shenanigans. Jackson is an admitted libertarian feminist--which means she supports extremely limited government, tolerance for other views, and the supreme sanctity of civil liberties--so it's not surprising that her political beliefs pop up quite frequently in the book. In fact, she often cites libertarian doctrine in order to pose a counterpoint to liberal cosmology. It's a good way to move into a critique of Clintonian depravity. For example, to a libertarian the individual is all-important, the fount of any nation and the unit from which all rights receive reinforcement. A liberal, on the other hand, believes that the group is the most important civic structure. Whether or not you fit naturally into a group is irrelevant to liberals; they aim all of their policies at groups and tend to ignore those who don't fit. Clinton thus could look at his conquests not as a violation of the group, in this case feminist women like NOW or other politically active bodies, but as single women entirely independent of these organizations. In other words, if they aren't associated with a group, their importance diminishes. They don't have to be treated in the same way. Scary, isn't it?

Here's another example. Jackson writes that libertarians support the idea of small, limited government that should devote itself to defense of the nation and not much else. She then explains that liberals--and by extension liberal dogma--promotes the theory of a lumbering, all-powerful government insinuating itself into every aspect of our lives, always by claiming it's taking action because it knows best but always using political force to achieve goals. Nothing new there, right? But how does this apply to Clinton's sordid activities? Easy. In the case of Juanita Broaddrick, the future president believed that forcing a woman to submit to his whims was entirely acceptable. Not only is the point above relevant, i.e. he saw Broaddrick as an individual and not as a member of a politically powerful group, but he also saw himself as a moral liberal entitled to use force to impose his will on others. Perhaps it's a bit difficult to make sense out of what Candice Jackson is trying to say based upon this review since I'm lifting my examples out of chronological order, but the central idea is that certain unmistakably recognizable traits of liberalism enabled, rather than inhibited, Clinton's horrific behavior with women.

We should stand up and applaud Candice Jackson's intelligence, wit, clarity, and even her bravery in writing such a charged book. She's certain to come under attack for her analysis, although the damage the media can inflict is much less than they were capable of ten years ago. I've read dozens of books about both Clintons, and this is by far one of the most insightful. It's incumbent on all of us, I think, to become more aware of what went on during the 1990s if we wish to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House. I don't think she'll win thanks to the detritus she's accumulated over the years, but one never knows. If we can keep books like Candice Jackson's in front of the public, the chances of a repeat of the Clinton years should remain where they belong: near zero.

Author Candice Jackson does not necessarily believe that Bill Clinton should have been impeached but, for the sake of history, she wants to clear the record about his abuse of women. Their were two types of abuse. First, in consensual affairs, such as Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky, the Clinton machine would trash and even intimidate women who went public about their affair. Secondly, there were the instances of actual harrassment, sexual attack and even rape. Of course the two types of abuse were not mutually exclusive since the Clinton machine used intimidation tactics on Kathleen Willey to keep her quiet about a sexual attack that took place near the Oval Office. It is well documented that Paula Jones, who alleged harassment when then governor Clinton exposed himself to her, was smeared as trailer trash. The worst case of physical abuse was when, as attorney general of Arkansas, Clinton actually raped Juanita Broaddrick. Jackson looks at the evidence and presents a compelling case that the allegations of rape are true.

This book contains an analysis of the political mindset of liberalism which could justify, or at least look the other way, when this abuse was going on. Jackson sees liberalism as more concerned with the group than with individuals. Therefore, if women's rights to abortions were being protected by Clinton, individual women who alleged that they were attacked or who went public with consensual affairs were expendable.

Jackson has no political ax to grind. She is a libertarian so, although she disagrees politically with some of the liberal policies of the Clinton admisnistration, she agrees with many other policies such as individual choice in abortion. However, her research revealed that Clinton is a misogynist and that while being a champion of women's rights politically, he abused women in his individual relations with them. All too often, the feminist movement were partners with Clinton since it viewed political gains as more important than his individual behavior towards women.

Again, Jackson is not on a high horse arguing that Clinton should have been impeached and convicted. Rather, she feels that he failed to fully discuss his relationship with women in his memoirs and that these issues need to be discussed. She also suggests that Hillary Clinton was something of an enabler and, therefore, we might want to take a serious look at the possibility of another Clinton presidency. I highly recommend this book

I would strongly recommend this book for people who would like to look beyond all of the political talk that came out of the Clinton scandals. There is something important to remember here, and that Candice Jackson is NOT writing from a political point of view. To put it another way, she is not writing this in order to win political points for Republicans, but to deal with a much deeper issue, that being how modern liberalism/leftism has become so authoritarian in nature that it cannot be salvaged.

Laws dealing with issues like "sexual harassment" and other feminist issues do not exist so much for the protection of women as individuals, but rather as an amorphous class of people whose only salvation is the authoritarian state. Thus, any challenge to politicians who wish to expand laws made under this point of view is automatically viewed as a challenge to women's rights.

For example, when Clinton was impeached, Alan Dershowitz, the well-known criminal attorney and Harvard professor declared that a vote in support of Clinton was a vote in support of women's rights, such as abortion on demand and the like. Feminist icons like Gloria Steinem made the same points.

None of these people were concerned about Kathleen Willey or Juanita Broaddrick as INDIVIDUALS. If they were people whose stories caused political embarrassment for Clinton, then those people had to be destoyed. I am glad, for one, that Candice Jackson has seen fit to champion the rights of individuals.

Ms. Jackson is consistent in her libertarian philosophy throughout the book, and it is a WORKABLE and NECESSARY philosophy, as far as I am concerned. I would much rather live in a society that respected the rights of individuals instead of the politicized jungle that exists now. Thank you, Candice Jackson, for pointing to a better way.

Why another Clinton book? Because the man who occupied the Oval Office for eight years was seriously disturbed when it came to women. It was not that he was a happy go lucky lothario who had a weakness, a sort of Charles II of the modern age. Rather, as this book documents, Bill Clinton has a darker relationship with women. He uses them as implements for his own selfish urges. When they objected, he used the power of the government he controlled to crush them. It was as if he were a medieval monarch and every woman who passed his line of sight was his by right. We may not see his like again--if we're really lucky.

--Mark R. Whittington (...)

Review Originally Published In Human Events, June 2, 2005

Ever since the 1992 election, books about President Bill Clinton have become a virtual cottage industry in conservative circles. With titles like High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Slick Willie, and Legacy, conservative writers have made the case for Clinton's impeachment, thoroughly researched his background and critiqued his presidency. Indeed, many would conclude that there would be scarcely enough room on the shelf for another title about Clinton.

However, with the paperback version of Clinton's memoirs set to hit bookstores in early June, World Ahead Publishing has unveiled Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine by Candice E. Jackson. Billed as the stories that Clinton left out of My Life, Jackson uncovers the trail of bribes, threats and intimidation that Clinton's inner circle leveled at the women who got in their way.

While Clinton's scandals and marital indiscretions have certainly been researched by other authors, Jackson offers the reader considerably more than another litany of allegations. Most coverage of scandals involving Clinton has mainly dealt with their political ramifications. However, Jackson looks beyond the politics to detail the pattern of threats and intimidation that all of these women faced.

Jackson secures interviews with both Kathleen Wiley and Juanita Broaddrick and details how the lives of many of these women continue to be adversely affected by their involvement with Clinton, even years after their story faded from the national spotlight. Furthermore, the fact that Jackson herself is a victim of sexual assault gives her some additional insights into the pain and trauma that many of these women suffered.

Indeed, Their Lives features chapters devoted to the often-painful stories of Clinton's most well known accusers, including Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Sally Purdue, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Willey and Broaddrick. The fact that the reader gets to hear these seven stories in succession is very powerful and lends a great deal of insight into Clinton's boorish behavior.

Taken individually, some of these stories could appear to be very serious, but isolated, lapses in judgment. However, by presenting these stories in succession, Jackson clearly demonstrates what a reckless, promiscuous, ruthless, self-interested figure Clinton really was. Indeed, if the general public had heard all the details of all of these scandals at the same time, it seems highly unlikely that Clinton would have been elected in 1992, much less re-elected in 1996.

Jackson, however, does considerably more than just relate stories. At the end of every chapter, she uses the experience of each woman to describe how a particular tenet of modern liberalism can either breed misogyny or at least remain tolerant of misogynous deeds in certain circumstances. Conservatives spilled considerable amounts of ink during the late 1990s, sharply chastising feminist groups for their near dogmatic support of Clinton. Jackson shows that support for Clinton was consistent with the liberal worldview of many of these groups.

For instance, Jackson argues that in modern liberalism, political goals justify any political means to achieve them. As such, liberal feminists supported Clinton since he would help them achieve their political goals, including easy access to abortion.

Similarly, Jackson argues that modern liberalism believes that the validity of the message is determined by the motives of the messenger. Consequently, claiming that Clinton's accusers are motivated by money or ideology is enough to discredit them, regardless of the accuracy of their story.

The stories that Jackson relates and her political commentary mesh nicely in the final chapter in the book, which deals with Hillary Clinton. This chapter is easily the most relevant to the current political scene due to Hillary Clinton's status as a likely presidential candidate in 2008. Throughout the book, Jackson describes herself as a libertarian feminist and admits that she is intrigued by the idea of electing a woman President.

Jackson concludes the book by insisting that Americans need to do better than Hillary Clinton. It is easy to see why. Hillary Clinton was a willing partner in her husband's attacks. She always defended her husband politically and never gave any of her husband's accusers a shred of sympathy or credibility. Jackson concludes that Hillary Clinton's preference for her own political career over the well-being of actual women makes her a poor choice for feminists, the Democratic Party or the American people. These are wise words to consider with the 2008 primaries rapidly approaching.

Candace obviously was upset with Bill Clinton's less than forthright portrayal in his book, "My Life", in re his sordid track record with women he abused sexually and otherwise. Anyone who knows Clinton knows he's a great guy at a party, but any number of women who ended up on the business end of his laser like sexual focus were not so charmed. Ms Jackson does an excellent job of relating the story of at least seven women who had the unpleasant experience of Bill's less than savory, larry-the-lounge-lizard, tactics, but none of this is new news if one has kept abreast of the entire Clintonian saga. But what is interesting is her revelation that Liberals, like Bill and Hill, aren't really interested in women as individuals. Candace could have gone further and said that in left wing politics "the issue is never the issue." For the uninitiated the entire Modus operandi of these people is to find ostensible victim groups and to demagogue them using the fallacy of inductive logic until they vote lockstep for the party of the collective. They're dead set against individual liberty and their attendant right to private property and a rule of law to protect such. In it's stead they seek to disrupt society to the point where the populi demand that the government come to the rescue to order to remand the ensuing anarchy. It is at this point that they can (hopefully for them) foment a socailist revolution which will be the end of said individual liberty, etc. The message is that Bill Clinton feels he can do whatever he wants which is exactly the point he made when asked why he did this with women. He said: "because I could." Well hello alpha chimp and goodbye democracy, eh!

Ms Jackson relates quite accurately how liberals gain their objectives by the force of greater government regulation, and increasing taxes which in the extreme lead to a police state. Thusly, she ties Clinton's psyche to that of he who argues in favor of women's rights, but who abuses whichever women he wishes to make a part of his "harem." (I can't help but think of "Frank 'I am the law' Hague from New Jersey politics in the early part of the 20th century.) She furthermore ties Hillary to this strategy by laying out in chapter and verse her complicity with Bill's sexual liasons (the book "Partners in Power" about the Clintons speaks to this subject rather well.)

Tammy Bruce, a former head of N.O.W. in Los Angeles became so upset with the N.O.W. national leadership about their lack of response to O.J. Simpson's slaughtering of his former wife and her friend Ron Goldman, that she quit the organization and moved toward the political middle. What Tammy, and by proxy Candace Jackson, should have seen, but didn't is that, again, "the issue is never the issue" with the political Left. It's all about an assault on capitalism thru constant disruption of every area of society. In the instant case it's about the blatant hypocrisy of the Clinton's with regard to women and their rights, behind a veneer of being a champion of women's rights to choice, etc.

The author is certainly not in favor of Hillary being elected to which I concur and add that "hell is the truth seen to late with disastor the final esthetic." This is a well done, factually correct book, but unfortunately it won''t get a hearing by the likes of Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters and Katie Couric, all of whom are still inhaling the vapors emited from the proponents of unending class struggle.

This book would be a triumph if it were only a well written recount of the more sensational extra-marital affairs of President William Clinton. It is written from such a compelling middle ground that it rings with credibility. However, Jackson has gone far beyond a mere expose. She has cleverly linked the tenets of modern liberal politics with the each sentinel affair to explain how his belief system contributed to his actions.

This is the kind of writing we'd expect from a journalist following The Watergate Scandal in the attempt to link Nixon's conservatism with his eventual political self destruction. The lack of righteous indignation in Jackson's book, however, separates it from even those pioneers, and makes her criticism all the more damming.

This book is a singular triumph in political criticism, and it's brilliant.

Excellant read - verifies much of what many with half a skull already knew or suspected - all the more reason to "Let Lying Dogs Sleep!!!"

It is a shame that someone who accomplished so much in his administration for the economy and world relations will mostly be remembered for his indiscretions and womanizing. Just like Nixon will be remembered for Watergate and not the important diplomatic strides that were made to begin the fall of Soviet Communism.

Though he was never convicted, there are just too many accusers to think that he is a "saint." Here is a man who let his libido get the better of a great political career. We all know about Paula Jones, but little has ever been said about the other women.

Well researched and provacative reading! Unfortunately, history will bury most of it.