What Hulu’s Hillary-love documentary—and the “star” herself—won’t tell you about

Ten years ago, the radio waves in Seattle was briefly “defiled” by that rarity of rarities: an actual “progressive” talk station. It only remained on air for a year or two before it was replaced by another sports station. I was a devoted listener day and night during its brief run, and even attended an appearance by many of the hosts at the ShoWare Center in Kent. One of these shows was hosted by Thom Hartmann, whose show was self-styled as the “number one” progressive talk radio program. Every Friday Sen. Bernie Sanders would take the time to call in to discuss the issues of the day from his particular viewpoint; it was a refreshing change of pace to hear a politician who spoke his mind in support of progressive issues, and seemed to know what he was talking about. Today, Hillary Clinton is doing interviews claiming that “no one” liked Sanders during her time in the U.S. Senate. Well of course, they wouldn’t; Sanders kept exposing everyone—but mostly Democrats, including Clinton—as power-hungry hypocrites beholden more to corporate money than working people. It’s the simple fact.  Nobody “likes” someone who makes them look “bad.” It was in their interest to sideline and silence Sanders. As for voters in Vermont, Sanders out-polled his Republican challenger by a 40 percent margin in 2018; so much for people not “liking” him.

But Hillary Clinton’s “story” is far more interesting than Sanders’, at least in what has not been discussed by the media and that which runs contrary to yet another glorified portrait of Clinton, this time Hulu’s four-part “documentary” entitled simply “Hillary.” This is yet another example of how Clinton’s gender has helped her far more than it has hurt her. Clinton’s long history of pathological lying, as well as unethical, unsavory and probably criminal behavior, would have sunk most campaigns before their ship even left port. But not for Hillary, whose arrogance, conceits and megalomania was perfectly suited to spin a gender victim narrative while at the same time giving gender advocates “hope” that she was “strong” enough to bulldoze through any reservations about her fitness to be president.

What should we not expect to see aired in “Hillary”? In 1964 Clinton was dancing around in a cheerleader outfit as a “Goldwater Girl” around the time Sanders was being arrested by Chicago police for taking part in a civil rights protest. Clinton’s decision to switch parties appears to have been based solely on her belief that the Democratic party offered her a better chance to fulfill her ambitions. That her party switch was solely opportunistic was plainly revealed by her racist “super-predator” defense of the Clinton crime bill which had the effect of increasing the incarceration of minorities for petty, nonviolent crimes, and sometimes for life under the “three strikes rule”; interestingly enough, the law was repealed during the Trump administration, something we may doubt would have occurred under a Clinton administration out of “principle”—or embarrassment. What it does tell us is that Clinton was certainly capable of embracing a Republican far-right agenda if it had suited her ambitions.

In 1974 Clinton was a staffer on the Watergate investigation team. There is a lot of heavy-handed denials that she was fired by Jerry Ziefman, the former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, for “unethical” behavior, apparently in regard to whether or not she was part of a cabal to deny Richard Nixon the benefit of defense counsel, including authoring a brief to that effect. The problem with all the denials is that they solely focus on whether Clinton was “fired” or not, not that she didn’t engage in unethical behavior that was intended to delay or prevent Nixon’s removal from office in order to make a Ted Kennedy run for president more palatable for voters. What the Hillary defenders have not been able to deny is that Ziefman never backtracked on his claim that he thought Clinton was “unethical” and a “liar,” and that he stated that if he had the power to terminate Clinton’s employment, he would have done so. Ziefman also stated that Clinton along with other staffers were laid-off after Nixon’s resignation, but he had refused Clinton’s request that he write her a recommendation, based on his reservations about her ethics. Hillary’s defenders also used semantic legerdemain in interpreting his 2008 statement that “My own reaction was of regret, when I terminated her employment on the Nixon impeachment staff, I had not reported her unethical practices to the appropriate bar associations.” His use of the term “terminate” does not necessarily mean “fired,” but regardless of what he “meant” it is clear that Clinton defenders focus on it was to avoid discussing his claims of her lying and unethical behavior.

While in DC, Clinton took the District’s bar examination, which was apparently more rigorous than in other locations, and failed it; she concealed this fact until 2003. She did not retake that examination, but instead went to Arkansas where she decided to marry Bill after all, because the Arkansas bar exam was reportedly easier, and why would she choose to “hang out” in that “redneck” state populated by people that she despised unless she felt that Bill Clinton might be her meal ticket to bigger things?

Then there was “Cattlegate.” There is certainly no doubt Hillary liked money and lots of it, and her salary and Bill’s certainly was not agreeable to her. In a 10 month time frame, Clinton invested $1,000 in cattle futures that ballooned to $100,000 before she cashed out. But in between there were some bizarre goings on. Bill Clinton had just been elected governor, and Hillary’s “gambling” was assisted by two individuals tied to Tyson Foods. During those 10 months the investment went way up or way down, at one point Clinton a remarkable $100,000 in debt, but one of those “friends,” Robert Bone of the brokerage firm Refco, declined to make a margin call, which would have required Clinton to cover the losses immediately. Yet within months, with the help of the other friend and market “expert,” James Blair, that $100,000 in losses suddenly became $100,000 in profit—all based on that measly $1,000 initial “bet.” An Auburn University analysis suggested the odds of this happening was one-in-31 trillion. Yet again, despite the probability of illegal dealings, Clinton was “saved” by some very favorable inaction; for most people, they would likely have found themselves in prison.

Then there was Whitewater, which involved the Clintons, seeking an easy source of income, and their friends the McDougals, to purchase 230 acres of land in the Ozarks and use it to build expensive vacations homes. Unfortunately it turned out to be a money loser in recessionary times. The Whitewater investment scheme turned out to be a sideshow event, with the real scandal involving the McDougals’ scheme to find illegal funding for a construction project called Castle Grande, and a $300,000 loan that Bill Clinton allegedly pressured an Arkansas businessman, David Hale, to make to Susan McDougal, who along with her husband were the proprietors of a savings and loan called Madison Guaranty, and it was suspected that among other things that money was loaned or laundered illegally through it to assist in Clinton's gubernatorial campaign. The Clintons were eventually “exonerated” from wrong-doing, but it took two years to “find” the pertinent financial records taken from Vince Foster’s office in the Clintons’ personal residence; if the records were altered, or the ones “found” were forgeries is a matter to mull over. Susan McDougal, the beneficiary of the $300,000 forced loan, chose to serve time in jail for contempt rather than testify against the Clintons. It is interesting to note that at least eight of the 15 defendants convicted in the Whitewater investigation had direct ties to the Clintons (including his Lt. Governor and successor at the time, Jim Guy Tucker); four of them were pardoned by Bill Clinton, including Susan McDougal—presumably for her “loyalty.”

The Vince Foster suicide is another swept-under-the-rug case by Hillary defenders. Foster apparently did not want to join the Clintons in the White House, but was “compelled” to do so, and to bring with him potentially incriminating documents concerning the Clinton’s financial dealings along with him. Foster worked closely with Hillary at the Rose Law Firm, where she provided legal advice for the Castle Grande scheme. It is likely that the Clintons wanted to keep Foster close; Hillary Clinton seemed to respect Foster (who it was rumored she may have had a personal “relationship” with) as an Atticus Finch-type, and thus there was perhaps the fear that his moral and ethical misgivings about what was going on with the Clintons might get the better of him. It is safe to say that Foster’s misgivings about his “role” in the Clinton administration gave him much personal grief. Leaving conspiracy theories aside, the facts are these: Foster never wrote a suicide note “explaining” why he would take his own life; the torn-up “suicide note” found in his briefcase was determined by the FBI to be a forgery. Who put it there? White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum’s palm print was the only physical evidence of its handling. Why were DC police and the FBI prevented from discovering evidence of a crime in his office, while Clinton operatives went over it with a fine-tooth comb? Likely to prevent them from discovering “incriminating” evidence of the Clintons doings. It was during this search that those financial documents were first found and then “lost” and then “found” again. What all this means is a matter of conjecture, but it doesn’t look good for the Clintons, especially Hillary, who worked closely with Foster during their time at Rose.

Of course these cases involved the non-political aspect of Hillary’s career, and the Hillary-love documentary is also unlikely to discuss her despicable and even mentally-unbalanced (i.e. the RFK claim) words and actions during the 2008 campaign, which I have talked about many times before. For all the talk about “Bernie Bros,” there was Harriet Christian, who broke into a meeting to decide the apportionment of Florida delegates and declared that Barack Obama was an “inadequate black male”—a belief no doubt shared by many other Hillary disciples—and feminist commentator Bonnie Erbe, who implored Obama to step down because “white people won’t vote for you,” and the fact that polling showed that more Sanders voters voted for Clinton than Clinton voters voted for Obama in 2008. There was Clinton playing the race card in 2008 when it suited her purposes, and playing the gender card in 2016 when it suited her purposes—both times unsuccessfully. Did Clinton's known personal dislike of Libyan ambassador J. Christopher Stevens have anything to do with her slowness to allow the  fortification of the Benghazi mission? I'm just asking the question. And then there was the email leak that showed in 2015 that a “broke” DNC made a deal with the Clinton campaign that in exchange for funding, the DNC would openly work to derail the Sanders campaign. And all that lying which she continues to do to this very minute, in a constant state of denial of the true facts of her failures.

There was also a book entitled Crisis of Character written by a former secret service agent, Gary Byrne, who was tasked to the Clinton White House. His description of Hillary's behavior, including a volcanic temper, terrifying the staff, abusing and demeaning anyone who didn't "please" her or didn't immediately carry out sometimes unlawful actions, and even the probability that a black-and-blue patch under Bill Clinton's eye one day was the result of a connection with Hillary's fist, is also unlikely to make it to Hulu's documentary.

Like, dislike, whatever. One thing is for certain: despite what her media supporters would like you to believe, there is much to dislike about Hillary Clinton.