"Tacky, tacky, tacky" is the way First Lady Laura Bush views Hillary Clinton's decorating taste at the White House.
Laura Bush's take on tacky Hillary at the White House is included within the pages of Ronald Kessler's book, Laura Bush.
During her first Hillary-guided tour of the White House in December of 2000, Laura Bush got an eyeful of carpets and furnishings fraying and in disrepair in the West Wing and public areas. The Oval Office was done in loud colors–red, blue and gold to boot. and Kessler, a former investigative reporter for the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, tells all.
Loud colours, no matter how gaudy, can be changed with a coat of paint. Carpets and fraying furnishings can be repaired or replaced. It is the looting of the Clintons that should be remembered.
How soon we forget.
It was another author, not here to remind us, who documented the rip-off of White House valuables. Her name is Barbara Olson, the noted author and commentator, who was among those who died in the jet that struck the Pentagon.
In The Final Days: The Last, Desperate abuses of Power by the Clinton White House, Barbara Olson revealed how the Clintons absconded with furniture and White House property–some historic–valued in the tens of millions.
The Clintons, wrote Olson "shipped off 70 priceless museum pieces to arkansas".
Then "a yearlong investigation by the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee confirmed the account of former White House whistleblower Linda Tripp, who alleged that Bill and Hillary Clinton tried to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts they'd received, many of which were not reported as required by law." (NewsMax. Feb. 12, 2002).
When the booty was counted, gifts, which included china, furniture, electronics and art, totaled an estimated $190,000.
"Gifts were coming in from everywhere," Tripp said. "I was brought in, because of my institutional memory and my knowledge of procedure. I'm filling out the gift unit form…and they don't want any part of that.
"One room in the White House "was floor to ceiling stacked with gifts," she recalled. "In the Clinton White House…most of it didn't make it to the gift unit."
The Clintons subsequently announced that they would reimburse nearly half of the $190,000 in gifts received from 27 donors in 2000. Some of the gifts included $5,000 in china from director Steven Spielberg and his wife actress Kate Capshaw, and a $350 golf driver from actor Jack Nicholson.
The former president said in a statement that the payment was intended to prove that his and his wife's actions were not improper.
In the statement, Sen. Clinton said, "I believe the step we are taking today affirms that I am fully committed to being the best senator I can possibly be for the people of New York."
according to the New York Post, previously unknown gifts accepted by the Clintons included Ming Dynasty jewelry, Ferragamo silk ties, hundreds of cigars, expensive watches and "shares of a well-known company stock".
Meanwhile, you can always paint over tacky and tasteless colours, but you can't retrieve historic items lost forever to looting.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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