SCRAPBOOK
Scrapbook PROFTTE IN TYING: CTTNTON ON JFK At a rare White House press conference last Wednesday, President Clinton, reminiscing about the late John F Kennedy Jr., recalled a tour of the...
...And Cone then thanked the mayor, possible rival to Hillary Rodham You-Know-Who in next year's Senate campaign, as follows: "Mr...
...No word yet on whether Hilliard will recommend his driver for the Transportation committee...
...The relief from the living expenses of herself and her subjects appealed to her thrifty instincts...
...she took sincere pleasure in the festivities that accompanied her visits, and they served a useful purpose in rousing the devotion of the people to herself and giving opportunities for the familiarity and courtesy with which she so well knew how to please those whom she wished to please...
...Faithful Scrapbook reader Margaret Morell thought so and tracked down this charming description of Queen Elizabeth's 17th-century "royal progresses," as described by Prof...
...Earl Hilliard of Alabama beefed to the congressional newspaper The Hill last week that there aren't enough black staffers working for congressional committees...
...It seems the First Fan showed up at the Rose Bowl late, forcing a greeting party of event organizers—and "scores" of ordinary spectators who'd paid $110 for tickets—to miss as much as 30 minutes of the U.S.-China title match...
...Most baseball analysts now say Cone—who already has three World Series rings and a .647 career winning percentage— should be a lock for the Hall of Fame...
...It must have been a bittersweet moment for Kennedy...
...It got worse...
...In fact, on February 3, 1971, President Richard Nixon hosted Jacqueline Onassis and President Kennedy's two children, Caroline and John, at dinner at the White House...
...And why had the chief executive been delayed in the first place...
...prejudice, discrimination, and outright racism," are the reasons, he said, but simply calling his colleagues racists, Hilliard knows, isn't going to turn things around...
...The new improved AP story read: "It was during Clinton's first term, in 1994, that Kennedy visited the White House for the first time as an adult, when Kennedy was serving on an advisory committee on schools, Clinton said" [emphasis added...
...EXPERIENCE REQUIRED Rep...
...And like many such claims, it turned out to be a falsehood—crafted no doubt on the spur of the moment to reflect flatteringly on Clinton's imagined superiority to his graceless predecessors...
...Please mail your resume to: Business Manager, The Weekly Standard, 1150 17th Street, NW Suite 505, Washington, DC 20036...
...Sonya Ross's initial AP stories duly repeated as fact Clinton's misty-eyed claim to be the first president to invite John Kennedy Jr...
...Seems Clinton had insisted on finishing a round of golf with his close adviser, Sylvester Stallone...
...In this case, with a lack of class astonishing even for this president, Clinton sent his spokesmen out to say that if he got his facts mixed up, it was only because he was repeating what JFK Jr...
...Hastily arranged Secret Service checkpoints kept fuming ticketholders wilting outside the stadium in the hundred-degree heat while the president breezed to his seat...
...Had Clinton phrased it as AP did for him, it would indeed have been true, in a very Clintonian sort of way...
...had said to him...
...I mean, there's a lot of politicians that say they're baseball fans and put on the cap and—" At this point, according to the New York Post, Cone's words were drowned out by cheers from an audience drawn exclusively, so far as The Scrapbook can tell, from the city's most honorable families...
...It was typical of Clinton to turn this into an anecdote as much about himself ("until I became president") as about Kennedy...
...Thus, the final (unbylined) AP dispatch on the subject: "It was during Clinton's first term, in 1994, that Kennedy visited the White House inner sanctum for the first time as an adult, Clinton said...
...Two years ago, Matthews told the story in his book about Jack Kennedy and Dick Nixon...
...Shortly thereafter, 10-year-old John wrote Nixon a note: "I can never thank you more for showing us the White House...
...Maybe AP should just start drafting the president's remarks for him...
...HELP WANTED The Weekly Standard has an entry-level opening for a staff assistant/receptionist...
...We see it...
...Once his prior visit to the Nixon White House had been reported elsewhere, AP amended its dispatch—not to report Clinton's whopper, however, but to help the White House press office obscure it...
...Plus ga change: The modern-day Queen Elizabeth, continuing the royal listening tradition, in Scotland earlier this month...
...Self-aggrandizing claims like these are very much our president's habit...
...Nope...
...Scrapbook PROFTTE IN TYING: CTTNTON ON JFK At a rare White House press conference last Wednesday, President Clinton, reminiscing about the late John F Kennedy Jr., recalled a tour of the presidential residence he'd once given his younger friend...
...But not so much on account of the perfect game...
...No he didn't say it that way, either...
...I believe that her knowledge of countries and geography has prepared her well to serve on the International Relations Committee," Hilliard wrote to the committee's ranking Democrat...
...What's more, JFK Jr...
...also visited the White House for a 1981 ceremony during which President Reagan honored his late uncle, Robert F. Kennedy...
...Talk about non-falsifiable...
...We're impressed, instead, by what Cone did last Tuesday, at a New York City Hall ceremony in his honor...
...Postscript: When did the Associated Press start doing free spin for the White House...
...Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave Cone a "Key to the City" award...
...But according to Soccer America, the sport's paper of record, "not everyone was so happy...
...PERFECT PITCH A week ago Sunday, New York Yankee ace David Cone threw just the 16th perfect game in major-league history...
...So he has recommended his travel agent for an open committee position...
...this paraphrase was a lawyerly evasion, courtesy of AP...
...Or fax (202) 293-4901...
...This 28-year-old incident is no secret...
...Even this new version failed to account for JFK Jr.'s visit, as an adult, to the Reagan White House in 1981...
...All the more so, according to Clinton, since "John Kennedy had actually not been back to the White House since his father was killed, until I became president...
...Baseball experts say it may well have been the most perfect game ever pitched: only 88 pitches, 68 for strikes, not a single three-ball count to any batter...
...Matters of national security...
...Three years ago, Kennedy talked about it with Christopher Matthews on CNBC's Hardball...
...Edward P. Cheyney in his 1904 tome, A Short History of England: These "progresses" were a series of visits which she made from time to time from one country house to another, or from one town to another, spending sometimes some months in this way...
...Duties include: answering phones, greeting visitors, sorting mail, and handling back-issue requests...
...As is, alas, also typical with Bill Clinton, his petty, bragging falsehood is nowhere near as interesting as his behavior after the falsehood is exposed...
...But Clinton said no such thing...
...Later in the afternoon, when Clinton's face was flashed on the giant Rose Bowl video screen, he was roundly booed...
...She has done a commendable job arranging travel for me around the world...
...AND IN OTHER SPORTS NEWS President Clinton surely had a great lot of fun at the women's World Cup soccer championship, what with post-game visits to both team's locker rooms—hubba, hubba...
...back to the White House...
...Mayor, I'd like to say, on behalf of all the Yankee players . . . how your sincerity as a Yankee fan really comes across...
...The Scrapbook is also prepared to endorse Cone for the Hall...
...ON THE ORIGINS OF THE "LISTENING TOUR" Was there something just the slightest bit royal about Hillary Clinton's "listening tour" in upstate New York...
Vol. 4 • August 1999 • No. 43
