Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

September 22, 2009

More from the Clinton Tapes

David Corn gets an early copy of The Clinton Tapes by Taylor Branch and notes several interesting passages, including the following:

In 1994, after Bob Woodward's book on the budget battles of Clinton's first year in office, The Agenda, came out, Clinton suspected that the major inside sources for Woodward were George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, and Alan Greenspan.

After the 1998 congressional elections, Clinton bemoaned the fact that Rep. Jim Bunning (R-KY) had narrowly won a Senate race in Kentucky. "He said Bunning, a former baseball player, was so mean-spirited that he repulsed even his fellow know-nothings. 'I tried to work with him a couple times and he just sent shivers up my spine... I know you're a baseball fan and everything, and you don't like to hear it, but this guy is beyond the pale.'"

In 1995, Clinton predicted that Colin Powell would challenge him in 1996, while Hillary and Gore contended that the retired general would not. After Powell declared he would not run the president did not call Powell, fearing this would "advertise his relief." Clinton's "mistaken prediction about Powell seemed to gnaw at Clinton."

In 1996, Hillary Clinton blamed Washington author Sally Quinn for "invented gossip" including "one juicy affair between Hillary and a female veterinarian attending Socks, the Clinton family cat, with tales about how somebody discovered them in flagrante on a bedroom floor in the White House."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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