Hillary Whacks Bill In The Crown Jewels

Here is an odd one [now probably solved in "A WINNER!", below]- in the course of bemoaning her heroic sacrifice in order to deliver a better America to the rest of us (hard to type while I'm tearing up), Hillary said this in a no-holds-barred interview with Tyra Banks:

Hillary Clinton likens White House to prison

Not that it's going to diminish her ambition to live there again, but Hillary Clinton says she views the White House as something of a prison.

She also thinks that when she gets there, she'll have to have some kind of national contest to decide what to call her husband because First Lady wouldn't be appropriate.

This and other minutiae Clinton shared with Tyra Banks during a Monday taping of her syndicated TV show that will be broadcast nationally Friday.

"Do you ever get lonely?" Banks asked the New York senator. "Do you ever sit in your room by yourself sometimes and just feel alone?"....

"I don't feel lonely," Clinton said. "But I do feel sometimes isolated. Because when you are in these positions that I have been in, it can be very isolating. It is one of the reasons I put on the dark glasses and the baseball cap and go out of the White House. President Harry Truman once said that the White House was like the crown jewel of the American penal system because you can feel confined."

That Harry Truman was such a wit, and its easy to see why any politician would like to wrap herself in his coattails.

But did Truman really say that?  The only source for that info seems to be a West Wing episode from 2003.  [But Truman frequently talked about "the great White jail"!  See A WINNER! below.]

Set against that is the fact that Bill Clinton used the line in this 1993 speech and then claimed credit for it in a subsequent chat with Don Imus:

Mr. Imus. Somebody said the White House is the crown jewel in our penal system. [Laughter]

The President. Yes, that was one of my better lines, did you think?

Mr. Imus. Oh, that was yours. Oh, okay.

The President. Yes. I said I couldn't figure out whether it was America's most beautiful public housing or the crown jewel of the penal system. [Laughter]

As to who is on board, Maureen Dowd, New York magazine, About, and the WaPo all credit Wild Bill with the line [as does this book on Presidential foibles and follies through history].  Support for Truman?  I can't find it, although I had a now-lost [now found] link to an article suggesting Hillary also made the Truman attribution in "Living Herstory History" (and while stumping in New Hampshire recently).

How to resolve this?  This is a job for the blogosphere!  Possible explanations include:

1.  Bill knew it was a Truman quote but lied.  What are the odds?

2.  Bill claimed credit erroneously - maybe a speech writer put it in a Truman quote without attribution but revealed the source in time for Hillary's book.  Good cover story, especially if true.

3.  Hillary knows darn well the quote came from Bill but would rather associate herself with Harry Truman, especially when the topic is "Presidents in Prison".  Possible!

4.  Hillary's researchers get all their best ideas from the West Wing.  Yikes.

We are tackling the tough ones here.  Someone get Hitchens on this - he can't wait to explore the quirks of the Clinton marriage again.

BONUS HECKLING:  I deplore Hillarity's continued use of racial code - her real message (obviously) is that there are too many black men in prison already and it would be a shame to send one more there.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR HARRY:  Human Events and the WaPo (Diamond Jim VandeHei  and Peter Baker) attribute the quip to Truman in articles that followed the West Wing episode and Hillary's book.

WHERE IS HIS CERTAINTY (OR MINE?):  Here is a cryptic quote from Bill Clinton at a DNC dinner in 2000:

One of the things that strikes me as strange is that some people who have been in this position--even people I very much admire--talk about what a terrible burden it is, and how the White House is the crown jewel of the Federal penal system, and how they can't wait to get out of there, and what a terrible pain it is. Frankly, most of those guys didn't have a tougher time than I've had there--[laughter]--and I don't know what in the heck they're talking about. [Laughter]

And an unsourced difference-splitter:from 2003 (shortly after the West Wing episode aired):

President Bill Clinton once gave political consultant Paul Begala a tour of the White House. As Begala stood in awe of the Oval Office, Clinton, quoting Harry S. Truman, murmured: "Don't let it get to you...This is the crown jewel of the Federal Penal System."

A WINNER!:  The Appalled Moderate splits the difference with this, following some research at the Truman Library:

Truman did refer to the White House incessantly as the "Great White Jail".

I'll toss in a cite:

"I told Ike," Truman records, "that if [MacArthur] did that he (Ike) should announce for the nomination for President on the Democratic ticket and that I'd be glad to be in second place, or Vice President. I like the Senate anyway. Ike & I could be elected and my family & myself would be happy outside this great white jail known as the White House. Ike won't quot[e] me & I won't quote him."  No record of the conversation was found among Eisenhower's papers at the Eisenhower Library.

In an entry for January 6, Truman writes about Presidential ghosts in the White House. "This great white jail is a hell of a place in which to be alone...

So there we go - looks like Bill, or a speechwriter, dressed up Truman's sentiment a bit and used it for a joke.

IF IT'S NOT OBVIOUS:  I love this game.

Comments

[kim]

First Dude.
======

[windansea]

Kim, nice to see you rattling cages at CA

to the general public...how could anyone support bald faced liars like the Clintons?

seriously, is there a troll in the house?

[Topsecretk9]

What is CA, wind?

[windansea]

Climate Audit

a really great science blog about global warming....

good to see you Tops

[Foo Bar]

Human Events ("leading the conservative movement since 1944") cites attributes the crown jewel quote to Truman.

[Foo Bar]

And so does the Washington Post (a less reputable publication than Human Events, I know, but maybe it counts for something...).

[SteveMG]

Tip 'o the hat to TM for this post.

Terrific. Funny as hell.

When Mac and I head to Washington, we'll give you a call.

[Cincinnatus]

King Henry may have disguised himself as a common man and gone for a walk.

Hillary though?

[Thomas Collins]

If it were just about anyone other than Bill Clinton, I would call the hubby of a woman POTUS First Gentleman. But if Hillary wins, folks will snicker every time
they say "First Gentleman" in reference to Bill. "First Rake" might actually be easier to say in this context. :-)))

In any event, if Hillary has any sense of humor, she will designate Bill her Roving Ambassador Without Portfolio as his job.

[MichelleO]

Mystery solved. Truman may have said the penal system statement first, but Clinton's quote was not plagiarized. He clearly said "penile system," or more accurately "penial system", making it a very different, not plagiarized, statement.

[Patrick Carroll]

Jeez! (Sir Edmund) Hillary! made up a quote?

Take me home, Lord! Take me home now!

[Jim C.]

FWIW This 2004 book also attributes it to Truman.

link

But it doesn't show up anywhere in the Proquest Chicago Tribune historical archives.

[Topsecretk9]

good to see you Tops---

You too Wind!

[hitnrun]

Not that it's going to diminish her ambition to live there again, but Hillary Clinton says she views the White House as something of a prison.

Yes, but it's a *glass* prison!

"Do you ever get lonely?" Banks asked the New York senator. "Do you ever sit in your room by yourself sometimes and just feel alone?"....

"I don't feel lonely," Clinton said. "But I do feel sometimes isolated. Because when you are in these positions that I have been in, it can be very isolating."

I assume Tyra was meaning to ask her about the loneliness of power, not her marriage; nobody's that funny on purpose.

[JM Hanes]

Well, since Hill will obviously be the first Hispanic brown President, Bill would logically be:

El Segundo Plátano

[M. Simon]

Bill meant penile system.

[M. Simon]

Darn Michelle,

Beat me too it.

Well no one is going to beat Bill too it.

He claims his wife eats more than he does. How does she stay so thin? Special after dinner mints?

[ed taylor]

for Bill Clinton ... how about "first turd"?

[kim]

Thank you windansea. The rattling you hear is my ignorance shivering up against the steel bars of maths inadequacy. Fortunately, those people are literate and conversing also in English.

There will be a psycho-social-political tragedy when the Titanic belief in our guilt for a warming world hits the mass of cold hard facts about climate change. Steve and crew at ClimateAudit.org are bellowing alarms, sending out SOS's and building lifeboats.
===========================

[fdcol63]

How about "First Philanderer"?

[kim]

Hillary's punchline: That was no First Lady, that was my first life.
========================================

[Jack is Back!]

How about "The First Black First Laddie"?

[quasimodo]

The citation by Human Events was occurred after the episode of West Wing and is made without any source whatsoever. This still strikes me like Washington's supposed "I cannot tell a lie," quote: a good story but without any historical support. I'm waiting for evidence.

[quasimodo]

pimf ... strike "was"

[quasimodo]

pimf ... strike "was"

[Appalled Moderate]

An IMus Transcript of a Bill Clinton Interview from 1994 has this:

Mr. Imus. Somebody said the White House is the crown jewel in our penal system. [Laughter]

The President. Yes, that was one of my better lines, did you think?

Mr. Imus. Oh, that was yours. Oh, okay.

The President. Yes. I said I couldn't figure out whether it was America's most beautiful public housing or the crown jewel of the penal system.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=49666

[Appalled Moderate]

Ah. Excuse me TM. See you found that IMus bit.

The internets tell me, though, that the penitentary quote is usually attributed to Clinton. (He uses it in a 1993 speech.) I searched the quote and variants in the Harry Truman library site and found nothing. Truman did refer to the White House incessaantly as the "Great White Jail".

[kim]

When reporters(no journalists back then) asked Mme. Truman why her husband couldn't say fertilizer instead of manure to describe what he put on his lawn in Independence, she replied that they had no idea how hard she had worked to get him to call it manure.
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[Tom Maguire]

Truman did refer to the White House incessaantly as the "Great White Jail".

That is excellent, thanks.

[kim]

Would that make Bill Moby Dick?
=====================

[Larry]

"That Harry Truman was such a wit..." Oh, I don't know. Wasn't Harry the one who said, "We all have to get together and pitch in one pot or we won't have a pot to pitch in."

"Would that make Bill Moby Dick?" Would have, but he got it cured with penicillin.

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