Newly Released Clinton Doc: White House Aide Blasts Bill Clinton and Al Gore for “F***ing Stupid” Move

Richard Ellis/ZUMAPRESS.com

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Among the trove of Clinton-era documents released Friday afternoon by the former president’s library is an email from an angry White House aide who blasts President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore for not attending the funeral of Oklahoma Democrat Carl Albert. Known as the “Little Giant from Little Dixie,” Albert, who stood five feet four-and-a-half inches tall, served as speaker of the House of Representatives from 1971 to 1976.

Albert died on February 4, 2000, and many Democratic politicians attended his funeral five days later. But Clinton and Gore skipped the event. In an email, Tim Emrich, who worked on the White House’s scheduling team, said “it’s fucking stupid” that Clinton and Gore didn’t attend. Emrich elaborated: “It’s stupid that neither BC nor AG is attending this funeral. ESPECIALLY AG, it’s such an easy home run in the largest democratic part of the state.”

Here’s the email:

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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