"I loved being home,and I love this country.I'll be here for thick and thin.But I know the average American's focus is often blurry,their attention span short,their memory so short-term that it's scandalous.But we always somehow do.
And because I was there--in the spotlight,in the crosshairs--I realize better than most Americans that we have pretty much forgotten what an amateur-night, three-ring circus the Clinton White House was.
But I haven't forgotten.
I remember Monica,sure.But I remember Hillary too:the shortcuts she took,the methods she employed, the yelling,the screaming,her disdain for "the little people,"Bill's black eye--the country's black eye.
You want to know something? I wanted to forget it all myself. I needed to forget it all.I'd had enough of the whole damned mess--the sleepless nightsa,the Protective Privilege bulklshit,the lawyers,C-SPAN...the cuddling up with a loaded pistol just in case.
Satchel Page said:"Don't look back,something might be gaining on you."I didn't want to look back.I wanted to move forward,to shut the door on the Clintons and their whole sordid operation.
To never look back.
But there's another saying:"It ain't over till it's over,"and now it's 2016,and Hillary's running for president again.I faced a choice in 1998:Would I keep silent?Or tell the truth about what I knew,what I saw?
I spoke up.I testified truthfully.
Not everybody did.Some people's memories got really faulty. Maybe you can't blame them.They got scared.They had mortgages and careers.They had kids.
People who swore an oath to the Constitution and the law,people who pledged to lay down their lives for principle,people who strapped iron on their hips..got scared.
And they conveniently forgot things.
That was almost two decades ago,and yes,a lot of people have now forgotten what a Clinton White House was like.Millennials were too young to watch it firsthand.Their parents had to make them leave the room.
Their parents had to make them leave the room.Think about that.
Our collective amnesia about the Clinton White House is dangerous because it could happen again--maybe with a different Clinton dealing the cards,but with the same stacked deck.
So I had to answer the same question I faced in 1998:What am I going to do about it?I asked the question. I have to speak up about Hillary --and a mess of other things as well."
---Gary J. Byrne
"Crisis of Character"
And because I was there--in the spotlight,in the crosshairs--I realize better than most Americans that we have pretty much forgotten what an amateur-night, three-ring circus the Clinton White House was.
But I haven't forgotten.
I remember Monica,sure.But I remember Hillary too:the shortcuts she took,the methods she employed, the yelling,the screaming,her disdain for "the little people,"Bill's black eye--the country's black eye.
You want to know something? I wanted to forget it all myself. I needed to forget it all.I'd had enough of the whole damned mess--the sleepless nightsa,the Protective Privilege bulklshit,the lawyers,C-SPAN...the cuddling up with a loaded pistol just in case.
Satchel Page said:"Don't look back,something might be gaining on you."I didn't want to look back.I wanted to move forward,to shut the door on the Clintons and their whole sordid operation.
To never look back.
But there's another saying:"It ain't over till it's over,"and now it's 2016,and Hillary's running for president again.I faced a choice in 1998:Would I keep silent?Or tell the truth about what I knew,what I saw?
I spoke up.I testified truthfully.
Not everybody did.Some people's memories got really faulty. Maybe you can't blame them.They got scared.They had mortgages and careers.They had kids.
People who swore an oath to the Constitution and the law,people who pledged to lay down their lives for principle,people who strapped iron on their hips..got scared.
And they conveniently forgot things.
That was almost two decades ago,and yes,a lot of people have now forgotten what a Clinton White House was like.Millennials were too young to watch it firsthand.Their parents had to make them leave the room.
Their parents had to make them leave the room.Think about that.
Our collective amnesia about the Clinton White House is dangerous because it could happen again--maybe with a different Clinton dealing the cards,but with the same stacked deck.
So I had to answer the same question I faced in 1998:What am I going to do about it?I asked the question. I have to speak up about Hillary --and a mess of other things as well."
---Gary J. Byrne
"Crisis of Character"