Tom
/ dave / wrote:
> Ventura spends the night in the White House
>
> Andrew Donohue
> Star Tribune
> Saturday, October 7, 2000
>
> WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gov. Jesse Ventura said Friday that he spent the night at the White
> House, drinking beers and smoking cigars with President Clinton until the early morning hours.
>
> "I slept in the White House last night -- the Lincoln Bedroom -- and it didn't cost me a
> dime," he said, a reference to allegations that the Clintons exchange overnights in the
> Lincoln Bedroom for campaign donations. "I didn't contribute anything, just had great
> conversation with the president until 4 in the morning."
>
> White House spokesman Jason Schector confirmed that Ventura was a guest but declined to
> provide any details, calling it "private time."
>
> Ventura made his remarks during a special Washington broadcast of his weekly radio show,
> "Lunch with the Governor." He broadcast the show from a restaurant near the campus of
> Georgetown University, where he had delivered a speech to students a night earlier.
>
> The governor said he was planning a quiet evening at his hotel Thursday night when he got a
> call from a White House aide inviting him to spend the night at the presidential residence.
>
> Ventura described the beauty of the White House, then added: "You know, I could live there,
> I really could. I could hang out there for a year or two or three or four."
>
> He said he and the president talked until the early morning hours about the third-party
> movement and other issues, trading cigars and putting back four or five beers. But he said
> conversation didn't really pick up until about "the second shot of Bombay Sapphire."
>
> Ventura called the president a night owl and a real "go-getter," but said if he were to move
> into the home on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., " I would cut back on hours a little."
>
> Ventura said that Clinton told him that he still wants to remain involved in world and
> national affairs as former President Jimmy Carter has done.
>
> Ventura said Clinton also told him he would not criticize the next president, whoever he is.
> Ventura noted that the same rule used to apply to governors in Minnesota, but added:
> "Apparently that doesn't apply anymore; that's been tossed aside" -- a veiled jab at former
> Gov. Arne Carlson. Carlson has been an outspoken critic of some of Ventura's behavior.
>
> Asked what he thought about while staying in the Lincoln Bedroom, Ventura replied that he
> thought mostly about how he and Lincoln were the same height: 6 feet, 4 inches. "It's a long
> bed," he said.
>
> Clinton had challenged Ventura to a golf game during the governor's trip to Washington, but
> Ventura said he declined because his schedule was packed and he wanted to be back in
> Minnesota to coach the Champlin High School football team on Friday night.
>
> The governor's two-day trip to Washington included testifying before a Senate subcommittee
> on international trade and meeting with a U.S. trade representative.
>
> Before his radio show, Ventura met with U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher. In August,
> Satcher asked Ventura to represent the nation's governors on a committee examining racial
> and ethnic disparities in health care. The committee signed a pledge Friday to eliminate the
> disparities in the United States.
>
> Ventura noted that while Minnesota ranks among the healthiest state in the nation, pregnancy
> rates among blacks and diabetes cases among American Indians are extremely high when
> compared with the rest of the state's population.
>
> [end]
>
> http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?template=natworld_a_cache&slug=jess07
>
> --
>
> / dave /
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