Former First Daughter Writes First Person Account of Sept. 11...(Barf Alert)

The Oregonian ^ | 11/8/01 | The Associate Press

[Lucky2]

Former first daughter writes first-person account of Sept. 11 for magazine The Associated Press 11/8/01 3:08 PM NEW YORK (AP) -- Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, who was 12 blocks away from the World Trade Center when it collapsed, has written an account of that day for Talk magazine.

"Before Sept. 11 I wouldn't have believed I had many innocences left," begins the four-page story in the December issue of the magazine. "I had seen people who had lost everything and everyone they loved to war, famine, and natural disasters. ... Despite all that, I woke up that Tuesday morning feeling good about where I was in my life and happy about where I was going."

Clinton was near Union Square, at the apartment of longtime friend Nicole Davison, when the first hijacked airliner hit Tower One. Davison, who had left for work, called Clinton and told her to stay where she was. Like many Americans that day, Clinton turned on the television and watched as the second plane hit.

"I tried to call my mother, but after I said hello to her assistant the line went dead," Clinton wrote. She ventured outside to find a working telephone, and ended up walking downtown -- toward the towers.

"I remember very little about how I got so far downtown. ... I don't know whether I was on the corner or in the middle of the block," she wrote. "I do remember standing in line at a phone somewhere and hearing a deafening rumble."

The noise Clinton heard was the collapse of Tower Two.

Clinton later found Davison and another friend, and the three spent the day working their way uptown. Clinton wrote that a "somewhat irrational medley of thoughts" was running through her head, including concerns about President Bush's tax cut.

"I worried that with the tax cut we wouldn't have enough money to repair New York and D.C. and to help the families of the thousands I knew must have died," she wrote.

At one point, she stopped to pray and thank God that her mother was a senator representing New York and that the city was led by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani -- a leader Clinton wrote she "had been criticizing just the day before for some insensitivity or other."

When Clinton finally got through to her mother, who was in Washington, she burst into tears of relief. She later spoke with her father, who was in Australia.

"The next night I saw my mother, and early Thursday morning I saw my dad in Chappaqua," Clinton wrote. "It was only after I had seen them both that I finally felt secure again in my own skin."

Now studying in Oxford, England, Clinton says she is frustrated to be away from America. She says she encounters anti-American sentiments every day.

"For more than 21 years I lived with the assumption that I was safe, with a sense of security so profound I didn't even know I had it," Clinton wrote. "Today I find myself shocked into a new awareness of how much I loved the country I grew up in."

[07055]

Can someone do a search of "innocences" on Lexis? I can't believe that anyone has ever used this word before.

You can only lose your innocence ONCE. Just like you can only lose your virginity once.

[Capt_Hank]

I have to give credit to my late father for that statement and it was directed towards a woman in NYC. I was in tears all the way down the NJ turnpike. I'm laughing now.

[NYC GOP Chick]

That reminds me: On my forced march from Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall to 93rd St. I passed a number of ATM's and public phones. There was a huge line for all of them. So the public phones south of 14th St definitely were working after the second tower fell. No need to wander further downtown.

You *walked* all that way??? Shoot, I found what was probably the last cab in lower Manhattan, right before the Williamsburg Bridge, and he took me up to 50th and First -- ahead of most of the marching refugees.

I hit an ATM at some deli on Water Street minutes after the south tower was hit. I figured that a couple hundred in cash and a few credit cards could get me anywhere I wanted that day. Little did I know...

My understanding is that most public phones were working -- at least for calls within the city -- for at *least* most of the day. Some *may* have gone out when WTC #7 hit the Verizon building as it collapsed, but that was late afternoon.

Funny, I didn't see Chelsea waiting on line at any of those phones.

Funny, I didn't see Chelsea in lower Manhattan that morning.

[MAWG]

Yes she did. We all are innocent, except for Bill And Hillary. They are the devils spawn without a doubt, born of hatred and arrogance so pure that only the devil can instruct them to lie and be able to sleep at night and digest food fit for humans! They are evil incarnate and can only die by divine intervention. I PRAY for that day and hope that I live to see it for vengeance may be the lords, and I believe that with all my heart, but, I will throw such a party.

[Brad’s Gramma]

She says she encounters anti-American sentiments every day.

What, she doesn't like what she sees in the mirror each morning????? I haven't even gotten around to reading the thread...none of your replies, but what a bunch of hooey. Like father, like daughter. Ick.

[Oschisms]

I was trapped on the 4 train when they fell- Didn't see an empty cab the entire way. Never got ahead of the refugees. With the marathon training, the distance wasn't a bother at all. The heavy bag was a bummer, though. Luck was truly a lady to me: My boss will never again hear complaints about working 10 to 7.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Hey, anybody want to have more fun tonight & post this on Hillary.com????? Along with some loving accolades of course. Heheee

[Terry Mross]

This girl writes like a fifth grader and she has a degree from Stanford? Proves she never went to class and proves someone else wrote her thesis. Or, more than likely, it didn't matter because she was simply handed a degree. I'll bet Bill and Hillary are both extremely ashamed. And her daddy Web is even more ashamed. In fact, Bill probably read this and screamed at Hillary, "There's no way that kid came from my loins!"

[MistyCA]

Ya!!! So am I!!!!! ROFLMAO

[NYC GOP Chick]

Yikes! Being trapped in the subway must have sucked something fierce! A friend of mine was on the 2 train and had made it (from Brooklyn) up to Park Place when they actually *announced* that there were terrorist attacks above ground and they were heading back to Clark Street, in Brooklyn.

[Irma]

So, BOTH of her parents' stories, which didn't jive, were lies.............ROFLMAO.

ROFL...apparently so!

I bet Dateline feels "pretty" right now about their exclusive Hillary interview...LOL   Here are  Hillary's lying  words......

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to Dateline NBC's Jane Pauley about how New Yorkers are faring in the wake of the recent attack. Attack hit close to home: daughter Chelsea was jogging in the area at the time of the attack. Sept. 17— The tragedy reverberates on so many levels now — the families in which thousands of children are now motherless or fatherless or both. The extent of the disaster in dollars— $20 billion — she calls just the “first installment.”

But even for a United States Senator, it began on a very, very personal level. Dateline NBC’s Jane Pauley sat down with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to talk about the tragic events of the last week.

ON TUESDAY MORNING Sen. Hillary Clintons’ first thought when the second plane hit was “terrorists.” Her next thought was “Chelsea,” who was not only in New York, but staying downtown.

“She’d gone on what she thought would be just a great jog,” says Sen. Clinton. “She was going to go down Battery Park. She was going to go around the Towers. She went to get a cup of coffee and that’s when the plane hit.”

Chelsea was close enough to hear the rumble? “She did hear it,” says Clinton. “She did.”

And to see the smoke in person, not on television? “That’s right,” she says.

Source
 

[NYCVirago]

What I don't get is why she went from a safe location directly toward the danger, especially when so many thousands of people were running and screaming *away* from it. Unless I see some details in that "article," I don't believe that she even went down there.

The only reason this would make sense is if Bill or Hillary told her "Run down there! Get yourself on TV! Feel somebody's pain!"

What was the old TV show slogan about there being 7,000,000 stories in the Naked City? Well, 6,999,999 are more believable and interesting than Chelsea's!

[NYCVirago]

You can only lose your innocence ONCE. Just like you can only lose your virginity once.

But these are the Clintons. Normal rules of decency and grammar don't apply to them!

[NYCVirago]

Irma, you know that Hillary's story will be conveniently forgotten by the media (their collective memory is about five minutes when it comes to the Clintons!) So what if Chelsea saw the smoke in person -- everybody in Staten Island and Jersey could see the smoke in person as well! Doesn't mean you were close to any danger.

[Oschisms]

It's kinda strange, but I had no reaction to this as it was happening. Someone on the train said that a plane crashed into the Twin Towers. After we went through 14th, they announced it and added that the train would be taken out of service at Brooklyn Bridge. We were stuck about a half hour, and I did entertain thoughts of leaving the train and hitting the tunnels. Because of my ignorance of the Towers collapse, tardiness was my concern. Upon evacuation, some of us tried to go to work, but cops would turn us away on every street. Little did I know my coworkers were trapped in the data center till the dust settled. The A/C units used to protect the servers also protected them.

Walking uptown, the people huddled in front of every TV and listening to every radio told me something big was happening, but I just wanted to get to my aunt's house. The knowledge would come eventually, no need to know right now. Got to my aunt's, watched it happen thirty times over for an hour before I really realized they were down. That's when the enormity of it all sank in. A foreign attack on our homeland, martial law in NYC, a sickening massacre, cheating death by a half hour- and then came the sadness and the anger.

[Alabama_Wild_Man]

"...I wouldn't have believed I had many innocences left...",
============================================

There's scary thought/image....wonder how much she spent.....?

[NatureGirl]

Re: Your post #82 -

Hysterical! I'll be giggling for days!

[Irma]

Irma, you know that Hillary's story will be conveniently forgotten by the media

You are, of course, correct. Hillary's story WILL be conveniently forgotten, especially by Dateline NBC!

LOL!

[NYCVirago]

The genesis of this whole story began after Chuck Schumer talked about worrying about his daughter, who was in class at Stuyvesant High (which is only a few blocks away from the towers) when the WTC was attacked. His speech before Congress was so moving that both the Post and Daily News ran it as an op-ed piece. Of course, after that, Hillary! had to get in on the action, so she started talking not knowing for hours if Chelsea was safe (which was a lie -- even Chelsea said that she called her mother after the second plane hit, spoke to her assistant, then got disconnected) and spinning all the various drinking latte-while-jogging stories.

Can this latest Chelsea story be any more banal? She heard the tower collape -- so did people on Staten Island! She couldn't find a phone (so she heads DOWNTOWN!)? She lectured her friends about Bush's tax cut? She lost her "innocences"? Why would anybody pay money for this article, unless it's a payoff to the Clintons?