There’s no doubt that Barack Obama gives a damn fine speech when he’s had time to thoroughly prepare his remarks. But the biggest reason why he’s defeating a more experienced, more capable Hillary Clinton is that Americans believe Mrs. Clinton is a perpetual liar. Now the Washington Times, with some accidental help from the Library of Congress, backs that gut reaction up.
…the estate of Sam Dash, a lifelong Democrat who served as the ethics adviser to Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, donated his documents from the infamous 1990s investigation to the Library of Congress after his 2004 death
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the papers say prosecutors thought Mrs. Clinton first concealed her legal representation of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association — and the money she made doing it — during the 1992 presidential campaign when she and her husband, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, came under fire in a questionable Arkansas real estate project known as Whitewater.
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In April 1998, Whitewater prosecutors, divided over Mrs. Clinton’s truthfulness, argued over whether to indict her on charges of lying under oath about her legal work for Madison. Lawyers and others close to the probe said a draft indictment of the first lady became "a work in progress" after Mrs. Clinton’s January 1996 grand jury appearance in U.S. District Court in Washington.
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No indictment was sought, but Whitewater prosecutors noted at the time, according to the Dash documents, that sworn statements by Mrs. Clinton were contradictory and misleading and that her involvement with Madison"s failed real estate project known as Castle Grande project was only fully detailed with the discovery of her Rose firm billing record summaries in the White House living quarters in January 1996 — two years after they had been subpoenaed.
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In a report titled "Hubbell Hush Money Summary," Whitewater investigators said that a day before Mr. Hubbell quit, Mrs. Clinton and other top administration officials met privately at the White House to arrange for him to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees at a time his cooperation in the Whitewater probe could have resulted in charges against the then-first lady.
The records said Mrs. Clinton took an active role in White House efforts to "take care of" Mr. Hubbell financially, helping to locate campaign supporters who divvied up more than $450,000 over the next nine months mostly for consulting work he never did.
Running against a less-charismatic, less eloquent candidate – i.e., anyone else the Dems have to offer – Mrs. Clinton would probably have swept into the presidential election like a queen waltzing her way to a grand, inevitable coronation.
But not against Barack Obama, whose squeakly-clean media image has yet to be substantially muddied despite links to Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, and Bill Ayers. The last straw for undecided voters, I would say, was Hillary’s bald-faced lie about facing sniper fire in Bosnia. Had she checked herself from telling that little white lie, the Jeremiah Wright debacle would have made for a sharper contrast between herself and Mr. Obama. Instead, Mrs. Clinton made herself look exactly like what the Times says she is.