- published: 26 Nov 2007
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Todd Stanley Purdum is a national editor and political correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine.
Purdum is a son of Jerry S. Purdum, a Macomb, Illinois insurance broker, investor, and realtor, and Connie Purdum. He was graduated from St. Paul's School in 1978 and from Princeton University in 1982
Until late 2005, Todd Purdum was a reporter and the Los Angeles bureau chief for the New York Times. From 1994 to 1997, Purdum was a White House correspondent for the Times. Purdum is now the national editor for Vanity Fair magazine.
For the July 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, Purdum wrote a scathing article about former President of the United States Bill Clinton entitled "The Comeback Id." The article analyzes Clinton's post-presidency business dealings, behavior, and possible personal indiscretions, citing several anonymous current and former Clinton aides. When asked about the article by Huffington Post writer Mayhill Fowler, Clinton said (in reference to Purdum): "He's a really dishonest reporter...and I haven't read (the article). There's just five or six blatant lies in there. But he's a real slimy guy." When Fowler reminded Clinton that Purdum is married to his former press secretary, he responded: "That's all right - he's still a scumbag" and later added "He's just a dishonest guy - can't help it." Clinton went on to observe: "It's all politics. It's all about the bias of the media for Obama. Don't think anything about it. But I'm telling ya, all it's doing is driving her supporters further and further away - because they know exactly what it is - this has been the most rigged coverage in modern history - and the guy ought to be ashamed of himself. But he has no shame. It isn't the first dishonest piece he's written about me or her." The following day, Jay Carson - a spokesman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign - stated that Clinton regretted those remarks, though their factual content remains unchallenged.
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat. Many of his policies have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance.
Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton became both a student leader and a skilled musician. He is an alumnus of Georgetown University where he was Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has served as the United States Secretary of State since 2009 and was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons received law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.