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Adam Clymer (born April 27, 1937 in New York City) is an American journalist.

Career[link]

He was with The New York Times from 1977 until July, 2003, and served as its national political correspondent for the 1980 presidential election, polling editor from 1983 to 1990, political editor for George H. W. Bush's presidential campaign in 1988, and chief Washington correspondent from 1999 through 2003.

Clymer covered the 2000 presidential campaign for the Times and wrote at least one article that was considered unfavorable by the Bush campaign.^[1]

Clymer may be best known for an incident on September 4, 2000, when Bush and running mate Dick Cheney appeared at a campaign event at Naperville, Illinois. While on stage before the event, Bush said to Cheney, "There's Adam Clymer, major-league asshole from the New York Times." Cheney responded, "Oh yeah, he is, big time." The remarks were picked up by a live microphone, causing a minor campaign controversy. Bush later publicly stated "I regret that a private comment I made to the vice presidential candidate made it through the public airways. I regret everybody heard what I said."^[2]

While he never apologized for the comment itself, Bush made an attempt to smooth it over, making light of it at the next Washington Press Club Foundation Dinner by referring to Adam Clymer as a "major-league ass...et."^[3] For his part, Clymer noted that Bush sent him a nice letter of condolences when his mother died in 2001.^[4]

In 2004, Clymer became a visiting scholar at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as Political Director for the National Annenberg Election Survey.

In 1981, Clymer co-authored Reagan: The Man, the President with fellow New York Times journalists Hedrick Smith, Leonard Silk, Robert Lindsey, and Richard Burt. In 1999, he wrote Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography.

Personal life[link]

Born to children's book author Eleanor Clymer (née Lowenton) and Kinsey Clymer, Clymer attended Harvard College, receiving an A.B. in 1958. Clymer's journalism career began when he was in high school; he wrote for the school newspaper and collected sports scores for The New York Times. He did post-graduate work at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. In 1960, he joined The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, a job which he followed up with work at The Baltimore Sun and the New York Daily News.

Clymer has been married since 1961 to his wife, Ann. They had one daughter, Jane Emily Clymer, who was killed at the age of 18 by a drunken driver in September, 1985. The Clymers established a memorial scholarship at the University of Vermont in her name.^[5]

Awards[link]

• Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, 1993
• The Washington Monthly's Monthly Journalism Award, 2003, for his January 3, 2003 Times article, Government Openness at Issue as Bush Holds On to Records
• Carey McWilliams Award honoring a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics, American Political Science Association, 2003

Books[link]

• Smith, Hedrick; Clymer, Adam; et al. (1981). Reagan the Man, the President. Pergamon Pr. ISBN 0-08-027916-3.
• Clymer, Adam (1986). "The New York Times" Year in Review 1987. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-8129-1632-8.
• Clymer, Adam (2000). Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography. Perennial (HarperCollins). ISBN 0-06-095787-5.
• Clymer, Adam (2003). Journalism, Security and the Public Interest: Best practices for reporting in unpredictable times. Aspen Institute, Communications and Society Program. ISBN 0-89843-387-8.
• Clymer, Adam (2008). Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch. University of Kansas Press. ISBN 0-7006-1582-2

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Biography from the University of Vermont, on the occasion of his commencement address and honorary degree in 2005
• Interview with Adam Clymer about the "major-league asshole" comment with CNN's Reliable Sources, September 9, 2000
• A "major-league asshole", Salon.com, 4 September 2000
• Cartoon on Bush's obscenity, 3 September 2000
• Opinion piece in National Review by Tim Graham, 5 September 2000
• Better Campaign Reporting: A View From the Major Leagues, Clymer's address in 2002 at Wesleyan University
• National Annenberg Election Survey

Adam
Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, a fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Adam is the figure on the left, and God the figure on the right.

Adam (Hebrew: אָדָם‎, Arabic: آدم‎, Syriac: ܐܵܕ݂ܵܡ) is a figure in the Book of Genesis, the Qur'an and the Kitáb-i-Íqán. According to the creation myth^[1] of Abrahamic religions, he is the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by Yahweh-Elohim ("Yahweh-God", the god of Israel), though the term "adam" can refer to both the first individual person, as well as to the general creation of humankind. Christian churches differ on how they view Adam's subsequent behavior (often called the Fall of man), and to the consequences that those actions had on the rest of humanity. Christian and Jewish teachings sometimes hold Adam and Eve (the first woman) to a different level of responsibility for the Fall, though Islamic teaching holds both equally responsible. In addition, Islam holds that Adam was eventually forgiven, while Christianity holds that redemption occurred only later through the sacrifice of God's son, Jesus Christ. Bahá'í Faith, Islam and some Christian denominations consider Adam to be the first Prophet.

Etymology[link]

"Adam" (Hebrew אָדָם comes from the trilateral root אָדַם ( 'ADM ), meaning "red", "fair", "handsome".^[2] In the Book of Genesis, Adam occurs as a proper name in chapters 2-5. As a masculine noun, 'adam ^[3] means "man", "mankind" usually in a collective context as in humankind,^[2] and may also refer to the individual human.^[4] The noun 'adam is also the masculine form of the word adamah which means "ground" or "earth". It is related to the words: adom (red), admoni (ruddy), and dam (blood).^[5]

Genesis narrative[link]

In the first five chapters of Genesis the word אָדָם ( 'adam ) is used in all of its senses: collectively ("mankind"),^[1:27] individually (a "man"),^[2:7] gender nonspecific, ("man and woman")^[5:1,2] and male.^[2:23-24][6]

In Genesis 1:27 "adam" is used in the collective sense, whereby not only the individual Adam, but all humans, are created on the sixth day. The interplay between the individual "Adam" and the collective “humankind” is a main literary component to the events that occur in the Garden of Eden, the ambiguous meanings embedded throughout the moral, sexual, and spiritual terms of the narrative reflecting the complexity of the human condition.^[7] Genesis 2:7 is the first verse where "Adam" takes on the sense of an individual man (the first man): the context of sex and gender, prior to these verses, is absent. The gender distinction of "adam" is then reiterated in Genesis 5:1-2 by defining "male and female".^[8]

A recurring literary motif that occurs in Gen. 1-8, is the bond between Adam and the earth ("adamah"). Adam is made from the earth, and it is from this "adamah" that Adam gets his name. God's cursing of Adam also results in the earth being cursed,^[3:17] and Adam returns to the earth from which he was taken.^[3:19] This “earthly” aspect is a component of Adam’s identity, and Adam’s curse of estrangement from the earth seems to render humankind’s divided identity of being earthly yet separated from nature.^[8:21][9]

Creation[link]

And Elohim Created Adam
William Blake.

According to Genesis 1, God (Elohim) created human beings. "Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam..." (Genesis 5:2). Here "Adam" is a general term for "mankind" and refers to the whole of humankind. God blesses "mankind" to "be fruitful and multiply" and ordains that they should have "dominion" (but the exact meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain and disputed) "over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" (Genesis 1.26-27).

In Genesis 2 God forms "Adam" (this time meaning a single male human) out of "the dust of the ground" and then "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life", causing him to "become a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). God then placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, giving him the commandment that "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17).

God then noted that "It is not good that the man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18). He then brought every "beast of the field and every fowl of the air" (Genesis 2:19) before Adam and had Adam name all the animals. However, among all the animals, there was not found "a helper suitable for" Adam (Genesis 2:20), so God caused "a deep sleep to fall upon Adam" and took one of his ribs, and from that rib, formed a woman (Genesis 2:21-22), subsequently named Eve.

Fall of Man[link]

Adam and Eve were subsequently expelled from the Garden of Eden, were ceremonially separated from God, and lost their innocence after they broke God's law about not eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This occurred after the serpent (understood to be Satan in many Christian traditions) told Eve that eating of the tree would result not in death, but in Adam and Eve's eyes being opened, resulting in their being "as gods, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3.4-5). Convinced by the serpent's argument, Eve eats of the tree and has Adam do likewise (Gen. 3.6).

As a result, both immediately become aware of the fact that they are naked, and thus cover themselves with garments made of fig leaves (Gen. 3.7). Then, finding God walking in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve hide themselves from God's presence (Gen. 3.8). God calls to Adam "Where art thou?" (Gen. 3.9, KJV) and Adam responds "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself" (Gen. 3.10, KJV). When God then asks Adam if he had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam responds that his wife had told him to (Gen. 3.11-12).

As a result of their breaking God's law, the couple were removed from the garden (Gen. 3.23) (the Fall of Man according to Christian doctrine) and both receive a curse. Adam's curse is contained in Gen. 3.17-19: "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (KJV).

Post-expulsion[link]

After his expulsion from Eden, Adam was forced to work hard for his food for the first time. According to the Book of Genesis, he had three male children with Eve named Cain, Abel, and Seth. The Book of Jubilees, a second century BC text which is not considered canonical by most Abrahamic faiths, states that Adam also had two daughters, Azura and Awan, who married Seth and Cain, respectively, in incestuous unions.

According to the Genealogies of Genesis, Adam died at the age of 930. With such numbers, calculations such as those of Archbishop Ussher would suggest that Adam would have died only about 127 years before the birth of Noah, nine generations after Adam. In other words, Adam's lifespan would have overlapped that of Lamech (father of Noah), at least fifty years. Ussher and a group of theologians and scholars in 1630 performed calculations and created a study that reported the creation of Adam on October 23, 4004 BC at 9:00 am and lived until 3074 BC. There was controversy over the fact that Ussher believed the whole creation process occurred on that day.

Religious views[link]

Jewish traditions[link]

In rabbinic writings and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Adam is a perfect human before his exile from Eden, but is diminished in stature when exiled.^[9] A traditional Jewish belief is that after Adam died, he was buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron. The Book of Joshua mentions a "City of Adam" at the time that the Israelites crossed the Jordan River on entering Canaan, but doesn't suggest any relationship between this city and the "first man" of Genesis.

According to some Jewish mystical traditions, the original glory of Adam can be regained through mystical contemplation of God.^[9]

In Jewish folklore, Lilith is the name of Adam's first wife, who was created at the same time and from the same earth as Adam. She left Adam after she refused to become subservient to Adam and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she mated with archangel Samael.^[10] Her story was greatly developed, during the Middle Ages, in the tradition of Aggadic midrashim, the Zohar and Jewish mysticism.^[11] The resulting Lilith legend is still commonly used as source material in modern culture, literature, occultism, fantasy and horror.

Christian traditions[link]

Early Christian views[link]

In Augustine’s reinterpretation of Pauline theology, Adam’s sin is transmitted by sexual relations (specifically by semen) to each descending generation. This contrasts with Christ who was conceived without sin by immaculate conception.^[9]

Jehovah's Witnesses[link]

Jehovah's Witnesses view Adam and Eve as the ones who brought sin, and thus death, into the world by committing the original sin, by disobeying Jehovah's clear command not to eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.

Eve's sin is counted as deliberate disobedience, as she did know that Jehovah had commanded them not to eat, but she is held to have been deceived by the Serpent. (She was deceived only about the effect of their disobedience, not about the will of God on the matter.) Adam's sin is considered even more reproachable, as he had not been deceived. Rather, when confronted with his sin, he attempted to blame both his wife Eve, and Jehovah himself. Genesis 3:12 NWT - "The woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree and so I ate.".^[12] By his sin, he forfeited human perfection and was therefore unable to pass it on to his offspring.

Latter Day Saints[link]

The Latter Day Saint movement holds that Adam and Michael the archangel are the same individual.^[13] Michael the archangel fought against and cast out Lucifer (who became Satan) and his followers at the conclusion of the War of Heaven during the pre-mortal existence (see Book of Revelation 12:7-9). Michael was born into this mortal existence as the man "Adam, the father of all, the prince of all, the Ancient of Days" (see Doctrine and Covenants 27:11 and 107:54). Mormons also consider Adam to be the first among all the prophets on earth. Brigham Young and other early leaders spoke favorably about the Adam–God theory, the idea that Adam and God the Father were the same person, but it did not become church doctrine and has since been repudiated by the church.

The Latter Day Saints hold the belief that the "Fall" was not a tragedy, but a necessary part of God's plan. They believe that Adam and Eve had to partake of the forbidden fruit in order to fulfill God's will, and that it is good that they did so.^[14]

Seventh-day Adventists[link]

Seventh-day Adventist believe that the importance of the literal creation time-line is pivotal to the story of humanity, their relationship to God, and the plan of salvation and atonement for Adam and Eve’s transgression (fall), by which all their descendants are under subjugation. The Bible states, “Since by man (Adam) came death, by man (Jesus the Christ) came also the resurrection... (I Cor. 15:21).” To disavow a literal creation and our first parents (Adam and Eve) nearly 6,000 years ago negates a fundamental, orthodox doctrine and the supremacy of the Holy Bible that the sovereign, triune God --“Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth,” (Genesis 1:26 NASB)—according to His own purpose and counsel and for His own glory, created humanity in the Biblical/Torah account.^[15]

Islamic view[link]

In Islam, Adam (Adem; Arabic: آدم) is believed to have been the first human being and the first prophet. Adam's role as the father of the human race is looked upon by Muslims with reverence, who also venerate his wife, Eve, as the "mother of mankind".^[16] Muslims see Adam as the first Muslim, as the Qur'an promulgates that all the prophets preached the same faith of submission to God.^[17] According to Hadith, Abu Huraira reports Muhammad as having said, "God created Adam, making him 60 cubits tall" and, "Any person who will enter Paradise will resemble Adam (in appearance and figure). People have been decreasing in stature since Adam's creation."^[18]

Bahá'í view[link]

In the Bahá'í view, Adam was the first Manifestation of God in recorded history.^[19] He is believed by Bahá'ís to have started the Adamic cycle 6000 years ago, which has culminated with Bahá'u'lláh.^[20][21] The Biblical story of Adam and Eve, according to Bahá'í belief, is allegorical and is explained by `Abdu'l-Bahá in Some Answered Questions.^[21]

Druze belief[link]

In the Druze religion, Adam and Eve are seen as dualistic cosmic forces and are complementary to one another. Adam represents the universal mind and Eve, the universal soul.^[22]

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Adam

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Adam

• Adam and Eve
• Adam Kadmon
• Banu (Arabic)
• Paradise Lost
• Table of prophets of Abrahamic religions
• Y-chromosomal Adam
• Mahabad (prophet)

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Bahá'u'lláh (1862). Kitáb-i-Íqán: The Book of Certitude. Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. ISBN 1-931847-08-8. http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/KI/. 

• Hendel, Ronald S (2000). "Adam". In David Noel Freedman. Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Eerdmans. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=qRtUqxkB7wkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=eerdmans+dictionary+of+the+bible&hl=en&ei=Hu28TuaZA87nmAX22Z3MBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Adam&f=false. 

• Oxford annotated NRSV, editors, Michael D. Coogan, editor ; Marc Z. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, Pheme Perkins, associate (2007). The new Oxford annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books : New Revised Standard Version (Augm. 3rd ed. ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-528880-3. 
• Barker, Kenneth (Editor); John H. Stek, Mark L. Strauss, & Ronald F. Youngblood (2008). The NIV Study Bible. Genesus: Zondervan Publishing House. pp. 7. ISBN 978-0-310-93896-5. 

vep:Adam

Paul Findley (born June 23, 1921) is a former United States Representative from Illinois, representing its 20th District. A Republican, he was first elected in 1961. Findley lost his seat in 1982 to current United States Senator Dick Durbin. Findley attended Illinois College and is a member of Phi Alpha Literary Society. He is a cofounder of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington, DC advocacy group, and a board member of If Americans Knew.^[1] He resides in Jacksonville, Illinois.

Career[link]

Findley served 11 terms in Congress, but lost to Dick Durbin, in his bid for reelection in 1982.^[2] He was known in Congress as an advocate of the farmers of his district and as a strong proponent of the Palestinians and the Palestine Liberation Organization.^[2]

According to the New York Times, in 1982 Findley narrowly lost his bid for re-election for a number of reasons: "a competent opponent, redistricting, the economic recession, and pro-Israel groups support to his challenger," which allowed Findley's challenger to match him in spending.^[2] During the campaign, "a former AIPAC president called him 'a dangerous enemy of Israel.'"^[3] Findley confirmed that his 1982 campaign raised "almost exactly the same sum" as that of his opponent.^[4]

United States foreign policy[link]

A year after September 11, Findley published an article saying that this attack would never have occurred were it not for the United States' uncritical support of Israel.^[5] In that same article, he wrote that "U.S. policy on the Mideast is made in Israel, not in Washington," and that "once beloved worldwide, the U.S. government finds itself reviled in most countries because it provides unconditional support of Israeli violations of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the precepts of all major religious faiths."

Findley has claimed that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was launched primarily to benefit Israel, at the behest of the Israel lobby in the United States.^[6]

Criticism of US-Israel Relations[link]

Findley is a frequent critic of U.S. foreign policy regarding Israel. In 1985, Findley wrote the best selling book^[7] "They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby" in which he states that the pro-Israel lobby, notably AIPAC, has vast undue influence over the United States Congress. He refers to the lobby as "the 700-pound gorilla in Washington".^[8] He closes his book with this plea:

The government of the United States must assert, at long last, its own national interests in the Middle East. ... The world views our nation - accurately - as Israel's essential partner in its military adventurism and its suppression of human rights. America must clear its good name of this complicity. ... The next logical U.S. steps: declare that the people in occupied territories have the right to self-determination and, if they choose, independent statehood; demand that Israeli forces cease the detention of Palestinians without due process, as well as halt the beatings of Palestinians, the destruction of their homes and the use of plastic bullets and other lethal weapons against them; demand that new Israeli settlements in the occupied territories be prohibited. The United States has ample leverage with which to force compliance with these demands. At some point - the sooner the better - the United States must issue a clear ultimatum: notify the Jewish state that all U.S. aid will cease unless Israel, in exchange for border guarantees, withdraws its forces from Arab territories."^[9]

The Washington Post reviewing They Dare to Speak Out said: "Stripped of all the maudlin martyrdom, former congressman Paul Findley's message is straightforward and valid: Israeli influence in the United States, including in the inner sanctums of government, is very strong." ^[10] The New York Times review by Adam Clymer, described the book as "an angry, one-sided book that seems often to be little more than a stringing together of stray incidents ... [it] does not really accept the idea that people of any political point of view are entitled to organize, support their friends and try to defeat the people they think are their enemies".^[11]

Findley lists the Israeli lobby as one of the factors contributing to his narrow defeat in 1982, alongside the serious national recession of 1982 and the substantial change of his district's boundaries after the 1980 census. "In seeking gains for Israel, they rigorously stifled dissent and intimidated the entire Congress. They still do. They defeat legislators who criticize Israel. Senators Adlai Stevenson III and Charles H. Percy, and Representatives Pete McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, Earl F. Hilliard, and myself were defeated at the polls by candidates heavily financed by pro-Israel forces. McKinney alone was able to regain her seat in Congress."^[12] (McKinney lost her seat again two years later.)

Findley spoke to NPR about the publication of Mearsheimer and Walt's controversial 2006 working paper, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy : "You can't imagine how pleased I was [...] I think I can pose as a foremost expert on the lobby for Israel, because I was the target the last three years I was in Congress."^[13]

Support of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)[link]

Findley has supported the efforts of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to improve the image of Muslims in America.^[14] In a conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Findley said that "the cancer of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiments was spreading in American society and requires corrective measures to stamp out this malaise."^[14] In May 2006 Findley led a CAIR delegation to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), resulting in a UAE proposal to build a property in the United States to serve as an endowment for CAIR. This proposal amounted to tens of millions of dollars in UAE donations.^[15]

Criticism[link]

The Anti-Defamation League has criticized the Council for the National Interest, of which Findley is a founder, as an "anti-Israel organization" that "disseminates demonizing propaganda about Israel to academics, politicians, and other audiences."^[16] The Anti-Defamation League alleges that as a member of the Council for the National Interest that they have disseminated cartoons with anti-Semitic based themes by Khalil Bendib. Additionally, the Anti-Defamation League has quoted Paul Findley from an article in 2003 as blaming Israel for the September 11 Attacks: "Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society." Paul Findley continued in the same article stating that "America suffered 9/11 and its aftermath and may soon be at war with Iraq, mainly because U.S. policy in the Middle East is made in Israel, not in Washington." A number of columnists have pointed out that Israeli government policy was and continues to be that the Iranian government is the primary threat and Iraq under Saddam Hussein was only tertiary and largely unimportant.^[17]

Bibliography[link]

• "The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel" (Foreword). 2008. Ihs Press. ISBN 978-1-932528-17-6
• "Silent No More: Confronting America's False Images of Islam". 2001. Amana Publications. ISBN 1-59008-001-7
• "They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby." 1985, 1989, 2003 editions. Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 1-55652-482-X
• "Deliberate Deceptions: Facing the Facts About the U.S.-Israeli Relationship" 1993, 1995 editions. Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 1-55652-239-8
• "Abraham Lincoln: The Crucible of Congress." 1979, 2004 editions. Crown. ISBN 978-1-885852-41-0
• "The Federal Farm Fable.", 1968. Arlington House. ASIN B001UCDQQW

See also[link]

• American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC
• Council for the National Interest

References[link]

External links[link]

• Paul Findley at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Council for the National Interest (CNI), Paul Findley is the Founding Chairman.
• Rep. Paul Findley Dares to Speak Out Paul Findley discusses the Israeli lobby in the US.

Ben Clymer
Born	(1978-04-11) April 11, 1978 (age 34) Bloomington, MN, USA
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Weight	199 lb (90 kg; 14 st 3 lb)
Position	Defense
Shot	Right
Played for	Tampa Bay Lightning Washington Capitals HC Dinamo Minsk ERC Ingolstadt
National team	United States
NHL Draft	27th overall, 1997 Boston Bruins
Playing career	1999–2010

Benjamin Andrew Clymer (born April 11, 1978) is a retired American professional ice hockey defenseman who played in the National Hockey League with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Washington Capitals.

Playing career[link]

Clymer was drafted 27th overall in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft by the Boston Bruins.He attended and played hockey for Bloomington Jefferson High School and the University of Minnesota.

Clymer made his NHL debut with the Tampa Bay Lightning and was part of the 2004 Stanley Cup Championship team. During the NHL lockout, Clymer played with Swiss team EHC Biel in the second Swiss division.

Clymer returned to the NHL, signing with the Washington Capitals on August 8, 2005. The following year he was re-signed to a two-year contract, however due to a dip in form spent the final year of his contract in the AHL with the Hershey Bears.^[1]

For the 2008–09 season, Clymer left the NHL and signed with the Belorussian entry into the KHL, HC Dinamo Minsk. After one season he moved to Germany and signed with ERC Ingolstadt.

An integral part of Ingolstadt's defense during the 2009–10 season, Clymer scored 32 points in 37 games before he was again on the move within Europe, signing with HC Lugano of the Swiss Nationalliga A.

Clymer, failed to appear for Lugano in a NLA after suffering a season ending knee injury in training camp. He then returned to Ingolstadt on a one-year contract on May 14, 2011.^[2] However, unable to satisfactorily recover from his lingering knee injury, Clymer announced his retirement just over a month later on June 30, 2011.^[3]

Career statistics[link]

Regular season and playoffs[link]

International[link]

Personal Life[link]

Ben Clymer is going back to school full-time. ^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ben Clymer's career stats at The Internet Hockey Database
• Ben Clymer's NHL player profile

This biographical article relating to an American ice hockey defenceman is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Chris Redfern (born 1964, South Bend, Indiana) is the current chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. He won election to the chairmanship of the Ohio Democratic Party in December 2005 and reelection in 2008. He was previously a Democratic State Representative for Ohio House District 80 and had been a member of the Ohio House since 1999.

Before becoming party chairman, he was the Minority Leader in the Ohio House of Representatives.^[1] During Mr. Redfern's term as Minority Leader, he was the first Democratic Leader to oversee multiple gains in the Ohio House of Representatives (during the 2004 election) since former Speaker of the Ohio House Vern Riffe.[1] Mr. Redfern was also an Ottawa County commissioner from 1993 to 1999 - the youngest in the state when his term began in 1993.

Central to Chairman Redfern’s success has been the “88-County Strategy” which recognizes that Democrats win by competing for votes in every area of Ohio, metropolitan or micropolitan, industrial or agricultural, urban or rural.

The strategy bore fruit immediately in 2006 with the election of Governor Ted Strickland and Senator Sherrod Brown, whose victories proved that Democrats could compete in any region of the state. Chris Redfern led the Ohio Democratic Party into key municipal elections, capturing the Canton mayor’s office for the first time in sixteen years and helping to elect the first African American mayor in the history of Mansfield, Ohio.

In 2008, Chairman Redfern set the party’s sights on the general election and began constructing the largest field operation ever envisioned by a state political party. Together, the Campaign for Change and the Ohio Democratic Party registered 105,862 new Ohio voters and engaged in 3,552,486 conversations with Ohioans at their doors or on the phone. Fueling these record-breaking figures were the efforts of more than 60,000 committed volunteers from neighborhoods across Ohio.

On Election Day, Ohio Democrats delivered a decisive victory for Barack Obama and picked up three new congressional seats. Democrats also captured the Ohio House on a legislative map drawn by state Republicans, a feat never before seen in Ohio history.

Chairman Redfern attended Bowling Green State University where he earned both a Bachelor’s Degree and then his Master’s Degree in state and local government. He received the BGSU Accomplished Graduate Award in 2004.

Controversy[link]

At a September 20, 2010 Democratic Party event hosted by the United Steelworkers, Redfern was caught on a WTOV-TV camera using a derogatory term in referring to opponents of the health care law saying, "It's in the very base terms we win these arguments. Every time one of these fuckers says, excuse my language..." Redfern later remarked that he thought the camera was off. "The reporter was working her BlackBerry and the photographer was standing away from his camera, but I guess it was on."^[2][3]

Notes[link]