Above & Beyond With Bill 
Some details of Bill Clinton’s Library disclosure deal became public Saturday, a selfless offering to the nation his handlers were careful to get out.
The path to announcing Hillary Clinton’s odd role as Barack Obama’s Secretary of State Monday will be smoothed by Bill releasing the names of his heretofore secret Library and Clinton Foundation donors, “beyond the requirements of law” as someone thoughtfully told the New York Times.
And they did it for the Sunday paper, for the sake of discretion.
“The disclosure of Mr. Clinton’s full agreement on a Saturday night might have the effect of drawing less attention to it while keeping the focus Monday on Mrs. Clinton.”
There is at least one catch. Senator Clinton has to get past the Senate, and then the information pours forth. “Most” of the disclosure “will become effective once Mrs. Clinton is confirmed.”
The Obama camp may get advanced word, but the rest of us have to wait until she’s in her new office. Then the nation and the media who enjoyed matching Senator Clinton’s White House schedule with Bill’s blowjobs will have at it.
Until then… 
Dare, Double Dare Ya! 
The Bush Administration looks headed for a clean getaway, with a final bit of brazenness to top off their many scams.
It now appears Bush will deny us even the pleasure of outrage against his much anticipated torture ‘n wiretapping pardons. Â He’ll leave town and essentially dare the Democrats to pursue him.
The Wall Street Journal says the Bushies are inclined to brazen it out, and besides
“Some former Bush administration officials have argued against a blanket pardon for post-9/11 activities, saying it would be tantamount to an admission that the Bush policies weren’t legal.“
We’ve already heard from the President Elect that he’s inclined to let sleeping rocks lie, and his illustrious Democratic predecessor has hosted one of the legal architects of torture at his library in Little Rock, so it looks like a safe bet.
Enjoy Getting Things Done!
America’s Next Great Presidential Library? 
Chicago photographer/architecture writer Lee Bey has nominated a great South-Side Chicago location for the inevitable Barack Obama Presidential Library: the remaints of the Pullman railroad works.
Pullman was the scene of an epic 1894 battle 
for workers right to organize, crushed by federal troops dispatched by Grover Cleveland.
With the additional benefit of being near where Obama got his start as a community organizer.
Pullman was built as a model company town, but when the workers struck to oppose a wage cut a violent strike spread across the country as workers boycotted Pullman-built railroad cars.
Future Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs  
rose to prominence as the strike leader 
of the American Railway Union.  He was jailed after the strike, read Marx, and emerged a socialist.
What’s left of the works is owned by the state of Illinois.
Pullman In Happier Times 
Good Luck With That! 
Clinton representatives continue negotiations with the Barack Obama transition, trying to cut a deal allowing the disinfectant of democracy to shine upon the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Library, and Bill himself, reflecting their glory back upon America’s hoped for champion abroad, Hillary Clinton.
From press accounts it seems all rather murky.
What’s at stake is what Bill Clinton has, where he got it, and what he discloses. He’s not giving up without a fight, according to the Wall Street Journal’s sources:
“Mr. Clinton’s willingness to disclose future charitable and profitable ventures is consistent with his pledge during his wife’s presidential campaign. While he refused to release past donations and payments, these people say, he said he would disclose information going forward if Sen. Clinton became president. His pledge now to reveal some prior donations is a concession to the Obama team.”
And if anyone makes a fuss, he did it for the children:
“Mr. Clinton wouldn’t return any money already collected from foreign political and business leaders, even if it has stirred controversy, according to one person close to the talks, largely because those funds have been spent on programs such as campaigns to alleviate AIDS and hunger.”
The Hillary Clinton people appear to be giving themselves a defense in advance against any Bill Clinton money blow-back:
“One Democrat who advised her campaign said few of her senior strategists knew anything about the former president’s business arrangements and whether they would hold up under scrutiny if she won the nomination.”
And besides, so’s your old man:
“One Clinton adviser noted that former President George H.W. Bush has given paid speeches and participated in international business ventures since his son, George W. Bush, has been president — without stirring public complaints or controversy about a possible conflict of interest. “
The best part of the Journal story is that the Clinton negotiating team includes Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s dickish assistant.
Band’s comic stylings enlivened Senator Clinton’s sinking Presidential campaign, when writing as “The Office of Former President Clinton” he unleashed a weird and meandering complaint about a Todd Purdam’s Vanity Fair story saying Bill Clinton had lost it.
Part of Purdam’s offense to all things decent and Clinton was a claim that Band’s handbag magnate wife was insulted in the piece, apparently by the mention of handbags.
Lincoln As She Never Saw Him  
As the nation enjoys Barack Obama’s ham-handed efforts to resurrect Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lincolnesque “Cabinet Of Rivals,” actual Lincoln historians try to spoil the party with facts.
Dickinson College Civil War historian Matthew Pinsker challenges the renowned plagiarist, pointing out that Lincoln angered his supporters by taking in his opponents, who largely failed him.
“Lincoln’s Cabinet was no team. His rivals proved to be uneven as subordinates. Some were capable despite their personal disloyalty, yet others were simply disastrous…Lincoln was a political genius, but his model for Cabinet-building should stand more as a cautionary tale than as a leadership manual.”
