Hillary Brokers Peace Between Conan O’Brien and Newark Mayor Booker.

(In case you missed it. . .)

Those of us who have known Hillary for a long time are not surprised that she can pull off such a deadpan swipe at Conan and Mayor Booker.

Thank goodness she means this in a nice way. I would hate to be on the receiving end if she were really pissed off.

Know what I mean, Bill?

Should Iowa, Wyoming Determine Health Care Policy for 300 Million Americans?

From The Village Blog today, a great post asking why we should let those two small states — and their reactionary senators, Grassley and Enzi — have such a major role in health care reform.

Mike Enzi, Republican senator from Wyoming, Pop 510,000 (2005)

Charles Grassley, Republican senator from Iowa, Pop 3 million (2008)

It sounds as if the Obama Administration is finally coming to its senses and is ready to dump the anti-reform tag-team of Grassley and Enzi in favor of health care policies that actually help 300 million Americans, especially the 47+ million uninsured.

After so many years of listening to all the reasons why my home state of New Hampshire and that corn-field known as Iowa should not have the first primary and caucuses for president, it is astonishing that two Republican senators from states with a total population of about 3.5 million should be allowed to have such a major impact on health care policy for the rest of the country.

How David Axelrod and Company could have missed the major lesson of the Clinton reform effort is equally astonishing. It was not that Hillary held “secret meetings,” or that the reform plan was too complicated, or that it was “socialistic,” or that she did not include enough politicians in her deliberations (she did). It failed because the Republicans wanted it to fail. And they wanted it to fail because they do not believe that the poor deserve health care. In other words, like most Republicans, they were greedy and did not want to pay for someone else’s health insurance.

They still don’t. Nothing has changed folks. The GOP is still the party of the rich, the entitled, the haves. And they will do everything they can to keep their stash as safe as possible, the rest of the country be damned.

Grassley and Enzi?

Let ‘em go home and shuck corn and shovel cow shit. That’s where they belong.

Exclusive Photo! Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Tipper Gore in Boston, 1993.

My co-editor at the Hillary Clinton Quarterly, Frank Marafiote, has just posted a long-forgotten photo we had of Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Tipper Gore at a health care forum held at Bunker Hill Community College in 1993.

Thanks for the reminder, Frank!

When we heard about the event, we assigned a photographer to cover it. Here’s one of several photos we have — they certainly seem to be enjoying themselves.

Enjoy!

Tipper Gore, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Kennedy at a Health Care Forum, Boston, 1993.

Hillary Clinton’s First Speech About Health Care Reform.

On June 18, 1993, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed a panel of governors at the Woodstock Town Hall in Woodstock, Vermont, as part of the Democratic Governors’ Association annual issues conference. The Hillary Clinton Quarterly attended the meeting and brought along its tape recorder.

Read the complete transcript of her address.

Hillary Welcomed at State Department with Thunderous Applause

Here’s the story from CNN.