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Christopher Hitchens on how we haven't seen the back of the Clintons yet
mirror.co.uk ^ | 5/06/2008 | Christopher Hitchens

Posted on 06/05/2008 8:15:54 AM PDT by neverdem

I have detested the Clintons ever since I covered the New Hampshire primary in 1992. The man I saw was not the silver-tongued charmer who seems to have bewitched so many people.

Up close, he seemed like a red-cheeked, piggy-eyed bully with a mean streak a mile wide.

And when he lied - which he more or less did for a living - he had a hard-faced little spouse to step into the TV studios to cover up for him.

This woman put up with A LOT from Bill over the years but could always tell herself it was worth it because in the long run the experience would give her the presidency she so obviously deserved.

Advertisement Over the years I watched this gruesome drama - the Clintons using and abusing the democratic process as marital therapy - until, the morning after this year's Iowa caucuses, it finally seemed to be over.

A good friend of mine wrote an exultant article saying Barack Obama had done us the huge favour of moving America into a "post-Clinton" era.

No more would the happy couple be able to inflict themselves on us. We were free from Lanny Davis and Harold Ickes and Howard Wolfson and Hillary's ghastly brothers and all the easy money riff-raff who had benefited from Clinton's last minute pardons.

As I read it I was hit with the queasy realisation I didn't believe a word of it. My friend Congressman Steve Cohen was forced to apologise the other day for comparing the former First Lady to Glenn Close rising from the bathtub in Fatal Attraction.

It's actually been more like a movie about an unkillable swamp creature or lagoon dweller.

And the morning after the last two primaries Lanny Davis was circulating a petition in the Democratic party to attach her to the Obama ticket.

"Good grief," I found myself muttering. "Is there no end to this woman and her overweening ambition?"

Well, THAT was a dumb question and no mistake.

Her performance in New York on Tuesday night was positively flabbergasting. Having won South Dakota, she congratulated that state on having "the last word"- while Montana's results were still being counted.

She congratulated Mr Obama all right but not for having won by securing the majority of delegates.

She let it be known that she would accept the vice presidential nomination without ceasing to count herself a candidate for the Presidential one.

And she demanded - wait for it - "respect" for the 18 million people who had voted for her. In other words, unless she gets a great deal of care and feeding and pampering, 18 million Americans will have been dissed.

The nerve. The nerve is really quite something.

In Washington yesterday, at the same pro-Israel podium at which Mr Obama spoke earlier, Mrs Clinton spoke of the man who has un precedentedly won the nomination as if he was just another Senator, like her, just another friend of Israel, like her.

There was a time one might have expected a Jewish audience to be asked to applaud the choice of the first black American nominee but Mrs Clinton couldn't find it in herself to be quite that gracious.

Indeed, if any one thing has exposed the hollowness and rottenness of the Clintons it is the almost casual way they have ignored their old black friends and allies to pursue a Clintonian version of a white backlash "southern strategy". Nothing is excluded if it serves the cause of the great entitlement.

From 16 years of polemics against this dynasty, I had acquired a huge shelf of anti-Clinton books and even written one myself in an effort to get the poison out of my system. For about 10 seconds after Iowa I thought of tossing them out. But now I think I'll have to hold on to my arsenal. I shall be needing it again.

Perhaps it's a Jaws-type movie I'm trying to think of. Like a Great White Shark, Mrs Clinton will never stop her relentless predations until the very end.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; hitchens; theclintons
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The Mirror is somewhat weird. That's the real title.
1 posted on 06/05/2008 8:15:54 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

wow!


2 posted on 06/05/2008 8:20:02 AM PDT by nikos1121 (Thank you, Jimmy Carter for all you've done to make the world a safer place.)
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To: neverdem
"piggy-eyed bully"

THAT'S the Bill I remember!
3 posted on 06/05/2008 8:20:32 AM PDT by NewCenturions (I've got a posthumous crush on Dave Guard)
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To: neverdem

I agree completely. She’s not gone until she’s 6 feet under, and even them I’m not so sure. I always said she would not get the nomination, but that doesn’t mean she’ll go quietly. Hell no.


4 posted on 06/05/2008 8:23:09 AM PDT by Huck ("Real" conservatives support OBAMA in 08 (that's how you know Im not a real conservative))
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To: neverdem
Whoa....

Hitchens needs to watch his back now.

I must admit I enjoyed reading that.

5 posted on 06/05/2008 8:23:55 AM PDT by Allegra (If you lived here, you'd be home by now.)
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To: neverdem

“The nerve. The nerve is really quite something.

“We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul.”

Michael Goodwin

This insight should have been the silver bullet.


6 posted on 06/05/2008 8:24:05 AM PDT by y6162
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To: NewCenturions

You should read RON BROWN’S BODY...

in that book you will find the real Clintons.


7 posted on 06/05/2008 8:25:16 AM PDT by kjo
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To: Allegra

I enjoyed reading it too. And I have a feeling that Mr. Hitchins enjoyed writing it as well.


8 posted on 06/05/2008 8:26:00 AM PDT by EggsAckley
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To: neverdem
Great post, neverdem.

Hitchens "gets" the Clintons...really "gets" them.

9 posted on 06/05/2008 8:26:06 AM PDT by GOPJ ( World Series - it's how many games are won, not total runs. Same for Hillary's "total vote" crap.)
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To: neverdem
Lanny Davis was circulating a petition in the Democratic party to attach her to the Obama ticket.

Imus said this morning that Lanny Davis called wanting to get on and push HRCas VP. Imus said "Lanny, don't call, ever!"

10 posted on 06/05/2008 8:26:23 AM PDT by AU72
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To: neverdem

i love CH for this!


11 posted on 06/05/2008 8:26:45 AM PDT by Aria (NO RAPIST ENABLER FOR PRESIDENT!!!)
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To: neverdem

For those who remember the Clinton presidency, the gall is all too familiar. They always go just a bit farther than we expect from even the Clintons. When she referenced Obama, the words sounded very much to me as though she were praising him for a failing effort. Much the way the victor might congratulate the runner-up for a job well done. That speech was simply stunning.


12 posted on 06/05/2008 8:28:49 AM PDT by Types_with_Fist (I'm on FReep so often that when I read an article at another site I scroll down for the comments.)
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To: neverdem
Christopher Hitchens on how we haven't seen the back of the Clintons yet


13 posted on 06/05/2008 8:28:56 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
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To: neverdem

bump


14 posted on 06/05/2008 8:29:50 AM PDT by paul51 (11 September 2001 - Never forget)
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To: neverdem
Seeing the back of, chiefly Brit, seeing the last of.
15 posted on 06/05/2008 8:31:33 AM PDT by dighton
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To: AU72

Where are you listening to Imus on the radio?


16 posted on 06/05/2008 8:31:37 AM PDT by Ceoman
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To: NewCenturions

PIGGY-EYED BULLY
17 posted on 06/05/2008 8:32:10 AM PDT by Spunky (You are free to make choices, but not free from the consequences)
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To: neverdem
TRUST ME. LIKE A BAD COLD SORE, SHE’LL BE BACK!
Photobucket

18 posted on 06/05/2008 8:32:59 AM PDT by Dick Bachert (RAT)
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To: neverdem

Wow! He seems to hate the Clintons as much as he hates Christians.


19 posted on 06/05/2008 8:33:17 AM PDT by JZelle
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To: neverdem
...using and abusing the democratic process as marital therapy

lol... Sums them up nicely. Someone needs to tell that dysfunctional "family" unit that it is rich enough now to pay for its own private therapy. The American people (and the world) have shared their misery far too long, and are done throwing good money after bad paying for it.

20 posted on 06/05/2008 8:33:52 AM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: neverdem

http://mediamatters.org/items/200803050006

SCARBOROUGH: Are you calling — are you calling Obama a shallow and flaky candidate? Do you —

HITCHENS: I’ve repeatedly called him a shallow and flaky candidate, and — though I thought he was an incredibly successful shallow and flaky candidate. I would add other things that are going to now get a second look that they’ve long deserved: this dumb, nasty, ethnic, rock ‘n’ roll, racist church that he goes to in Chicago, that’s going to — he won’t be able to walk away from that anymore. The crummy associates he’s got in Illinois, going on trial for corruption with their Iraqi friends. None of this is going to get the free ride from the press that it was getting until about this time yesterday morning.

SCARBOROUGH: Wow.


21 posted on 06/05/2008 8:33:56 AM PDT by iowamark
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To: Ceoman
Where are you listening to Imus on the radio?

Imus has his show based out of WABC. In Boston its on 96.9. It's also on the RFD cable channel.

22 posted on 06/05/2008 8:34:04 AM PDT by AU72
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To: Aria
She won't be gone until a wooden stake is driven completely through her, impaling her six feet below drainage.
23 posted on 06/05/2008 8:35:27 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: neverdem
Ah, the Hitch is at it again. One of the few Liberals, along with Lieberman, that I can stomach...Christopher was uncharacteristically kind not to remind us that Chelsea is looming just over the horizon. The Clinton family, all three of them, will indeed be on the make, indefinitely.
24 posted on 06/05/2008 8:37:08 AM PDT by PerConPat (A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.-- Mencken)
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To: Allegra

News Flash to the MSM:75% of Americans don’t like the
Clintons.


25 posted on 06/05/2008 8:37:19 AM PDT by Dr. Ursus (( commander of the simian host))
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To: NewCenturions

And NOW the Bill Clinton we’re treated to is a white haired prematurely open-mouthed and doddering youngish old fool,who seems on the verge on losing his bodily functions, and whose only function left is to act on his wife’s behalf, and his own,just like one of his slavish spin doctors/hit men did 15 years ago. Interestingly, if it weren’t for what we already know about HER character, she has seemed to be getting younger, more congenial, more “viable”, than her tired and jaded husband. It may be too late for her, but I doubt it. I too, like Hitchens, think she’ll be back, and has never really left, and won’t.
I still think she will secure the nomination....somehow....


26 posted on 06/05/2008 8:38:24 AM PDT by supremedoctrine ("Time is the school in which we learn that time is the fire in which we burn" --Delmore Schwartz)
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To: Spunky; cardinal4

This brings to mind that old adage: “Be careful of what you wish for....” We all wanted very badly to see the end of the Clinton era and that appears - APPEARS - to be in sight. And look what we have in her place: the most inexperienced, ineffectual nobody that could conceivably be our next CinC. What Hath God Wrought?


27 posted on 06/05/2008 8:39:01 AM PDT by Ax (Obama: the Potawatomi Pantload)
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To: neverdem

bump


28 posted on 06/05/2008 8:40:07 AM PDT by Christian4Bush ("In Israel, the President hit the nail on the head. The nails are complaining loudly." - John Bolton)
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To: NewCenturions
"piggy-eyed bully"

THAT'S the Bill I remember!

Photobucket

29 posted on 06/05/2008 8:40:37 AM PDT by Cobra64 (www.BulletBras.net)
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To: StarFan; Dutchy; alisasny; BobFromNJ; BUNNY2003; Cacique; Clemenza; Coleus; cyborg; DKNY; ...

ping!


30 posted on 06/05/2008 8:40:48 AM PDT by nutmeg (Imagine Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama)
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To: Spunky

That is a picture of a sociopath, if not a psychopath. I realized it the first time I laid eyes on Clinton in 1992, and have known so since. The so-called MSM that foisted the Clintons on America just did again with Obama.


31 posted on 06/05/2008 8:43:27 AM PDT by astounded (The Democrat Party is a Clear and Present Danger to the USA)
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To: supremedoctrine

think she’ll be back, and has never really left, and won’t.
I still think she will secure the nomination....somehow....

she didn’t concede..she suspended and is simply now waiting in the wings for something to happen which may or may not be planned..

IMHO, she ain’t out of it, and won’t be out until the convention..at the earliest..


32 posted on 06/05/2008 8:45:34 AM PDT by GeorgiaDawg32 (www.liberallunacy.bravehost.com..I'm a Patriot Guard Rider. www.patriotguard.org for info.)
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To: Dr. Ursus

“News Flash to the MSM:75% of Americans don’t like the
Clintons.”

I want to give credit to the MSM for inflicting the Clintons on us. Now they are trying to inflict Obama on us.


33 posted on 06/05/2008 8:46:26 AM PDT by popdonnelly (Does Obama know ANYONE who likes America, capitalism, or white people?)
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To: neverdem

34 posted on 06/05/2008 8:48:23 AM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: JZelle

“Wow! He seems to hate the Clintons as much as he hates Christians”

True. A guy who hates the Clintons and Mother Theresa does have range.


35 posted on 06/05/2008 8:48:43 AM PDT by y6162
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To: supremedoctrine

All those millions he made making speeches has come to an end. That’s one reason he is pissed.


36 posted on 06/05/2008 8:51:12 AM PDT by kempo (c)
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To: neverdem

He is spot on and I’ll never understand the overwhelming support she has received from conservatives with short memories. She and Bill are without a doubt the greater of the two evils. I don’t think Obama is the boogy man everyone would like to think he is. He’s got a lot of prominent backers putting it on the ilne for him and that makes him controllable. The Clintons would have absolute power and total free reign.


37 posted on 06/05/2008 8:53:40 AM PDT by jersey117
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To: iowamark

“SCARBOROUGH: Are you calling — are you calling Obama a shallow and flaky candidate? Do you —

HITCHENS: I’ve repeatedly called him a shallow and flaky candidate, and — though I thought he was an incredibly successful shallow and flaky candidate. I would add other things that are going to now get a second look that they’ve long deserved: this dumb, nasty, ethnic, rock ‘n’ roll, racist church that he goes to in Chicago, that’s going to — he won’t be able to walk away from that anymore. The crummy associates he’s got in Illinois, going on trial for corruption with their Iraqi friends. None of this is going to get the free ride from the press that it was getting until about this time yesterday morning.

SCARBOROUGH: Wow.”

Chris had better watch his 6. He has put himself in danger by speaking the truth about two very dangerous families.


38 posted on 06/05/2008 8:54:36 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (Hussein ObamaMessiaHamas's Vanilla Ice Priest, Pfleger,“America is the greatest sin against God!")
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To: Ax
Don't blame God for this Obama-nation, man has a free will and we get what we ask for! The fact that this liberal twit, actually sees the light in regards to the Clintons is the real miracle.
39 posted on 06/05/2008 8:55:26 AM PDT by Dr. I. C. Spots
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To: neverdem

Oh darn, does this now mean that there will be books on ‘inside the crooked Clinton Presidency’ written by those in his cabinet. /sarc


40 posted on 06/05/2008 8:58:05 AM PDT by Dustbunny (Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. The Gipper)
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To: neverdem
I feel sorry for both of them. They never expected the media to turn rabid on them like this, after all these years. Bill looked like a piggy-eyed bully when Hitchens was bowing and sucking up to him at the WH too. Hitchens is just proof of the unfaithfulness of the left: the adoring crowd crowd cheering you today may well become the angry mod demanding your head tomorrow. The article is nothing but playground jeering from the safety of Mommy's skirts.

How will the drive-byes balance the anti-Bush administration tirades with the anti-Clinton tirades? They rely on constant repetition in order to drum the message into the numbed mind of the collective. It may become interesting to watch.

41 posted on 06/05/2008 8:58:13 AM PDT by cake_crumb (Obama = Bumbling Tyrant who loves America's enemies)
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To: neverdem

I want to recommend another book to you all: “Dereliction of DUTY” by Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson, USAF (Ret.). This book spells out the Clinton’s hypocrisies and power hungry ways pretty well. (It’s written by an Air Force officer stationed in the White House during the Clinton years.)


42 posted on 06/05/2008 9:00:36 AM PDT by aggie21
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To: neverdem

“She let it be known that she would accept the vice presidential nomination without ceasing to count herself a candidate for the Presidential one.”

The anti-Christ hits the nail on the head right there.


43 posted on 06/05/2008 9:01:44 AM PDT by bigcat32
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To: neverdem

Yes, the Dems have traded the Arkansas machine for the Chicago machine. Congrats to them. They got rid of the liar and his harpy wife and replaced them with... a liar with a harpy wife.


44 posted on 06/05/2008 9:02:11 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: neverdem

Seems to me they’re going to need the jaws of life to get this sorry creature out of the race.


45 posted on 06/05/2008 9:02:27 AM PDT by Carley
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To: neverdem
Lest we celebrate too soon - "the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." She's still the junior Senator from New York. She still wields considerable influence in government. She will be absolutely necessary to have onboard if Obama is to get his legislation packages through the Senate, especially with Teddy Kennedy on the wane. And she's Hillary, so it's going to cost and it's going to cost a lot.

She isn't done with health care, for example. She has constituencies demanding action on feminist issues such as a Title IX for science curricula and gay issues such as marriage sanction and open membership in the military. She will push gun control because there's political capital in it.

All this will be true whether or not Obama is elected, but especially damaging if he is. And either way she will be driving for the 2012 nomination, even if it means wrecking a Democratic incumbent to get there. Bet on it. She's a long, long way from done.

46 posted on 06/05/2008 9:03:20 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Huck

Come on.

Any other presidential contender would have been conceding the night of that last primary, you know it and I know it.

Remember Mike Huckabee?

Instead she tells us that she will make no decision tonight and now, heh, we are to wait until this Saturday, when it is alleged she shall concede and embrace Obama in fine fashion.

I got a bridge, super cheap and getting renovated soon, to sell real cheap if you believe that.

I see a groundswell of the American public rising up very soon against this duo.

And I can’t stand Obama, that zero in a suit and tie. But I think the Clintons have done real well in this country and since they are not gracious enough to exit with class, we will probably have to kick them to the curb.


47 posted on 06/05/2008 9:03:29 AM PDT by Fishtalk
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To: jersey117

I don’t support Hillary, but Obama will be a total disaster. If he wins, I really do think he will be the second coming of that other JC - Jimmy Carter.


48 posted on 06/05/2008 9:03:47 AM PDT by Cecily
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To: iowamark
"HITCHENS: I’ve repeatedly called him a shallow and flaky candidate, and — though I thought he was an incredibly successful shallow and flaky candidate. I would add other things that are going to now get a second look that they’ve long deserved: this dumb, nasty, ethnic, rock ‘n’ roll, racist church that he goes to in Chicago, that’s going to — he won’t be able to walk away from that anymore. The crummy associates he’s got in Illinois, going on trial for corruption with their Iraqi friends. None of this is going to get the free ride from the press that it was getting until about this time yesterday morning."

I agree with Scarboro: "WOW".

Hitchens hit the nail on the head and drove it right out of the park there.

I may revise my opinion of him.

49 posted on 06/05/2008 9:04:53 AM PDT by cake_crumb (Obama = Bumbling Tyrant who loves America's enemies)
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To: cake_crumb
Bill looked like a piggy-eyed bully when Hitchens was bowing and sucking up to him at the WH too. Hitchens is just proof of the unfaithfulness of the left…

You’re out of your mind. I drank scotch with Hitchens at the Freeper “Treason is the Reason” rally/dinner back in 1998 or so where he was a featured speaker. He gave a scathing speech reflecting on the never-ending disgrace that was the Clinton administration.

After each example of their corruption and dishonesty he cited, he would rhetorically ask the crowd, “Can you eat enough to vomit enough?”

He HATED them since he first laid eyes on them and has never failed to shout it drunkenly from the rooftops.

50 posted on 06/05/2008 9:05:00 AM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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