Posted on 03/29/2002 6:38:56 AM PST by Richard Poe
"THIS WILL BE our first lady president of the United States!" cried fight promoter Don King at a recent dinner in Washington.
He was talking about fellow diner Hillary Clinton.
Not long ago, only "conspiracy theorists" like me dared suggest that Hillary might harbor presidential ambitions – a charge that I made in an April 12, 2000 column entitled "The Hillary Conspiracy."
Now the secret is out. Everyone knows that Hillary will run in 2004. With a little help from her media allies, she just might win.
Why should we fear a Hillary presidency? Ask the heroes of 9-11 – the cops and firemen who risked their lives at Ground Zero. They seem to have grasped the problem with greater clarity than most Americans.
When Hillary visited Ground Zero on September 14, many cops and firemen reportedly refused to shake her hand.
Six days later, they booed her off the stage at Paul McCartney’s Madison Square Garden benefit for the fallen heroes of 9-11.
The Garden was charged with grief, pride and patriotism. Cops and firemen filled the hall. Bereaved relatives held up photos of the dead.
As Hillary mounted the stage, the audience exploded in boos, jeers and catcalls, clearly audible on the live TV broadcast that I watched that night.
One eyewitness reported that "90 percent" of the crowd had joined in the booing. Another said that Hillary "was booed so loudly, she had to yell into the mike to be heard."
"Get off the stage! We don’t want you here!" shouted one cop only a few feet from the podium.
Hillary fled the stage after less than 20 seconds.
Fireman Michael Moran – whose brother, Battalion Chief John Moran, perished in the 9-11 attack – later tried to explain the revulsion he and his uniformed comrades displayed toward the former First Lady that night.
"She doesn’t believe the things she says," said Moran. "…I don’t think there has ever been a sincere word that has ever come out of her mouth."
One attendee e-mailed The Drudge Report, "The firemen sitting near me said she shows up for photo session events but was not to be seen when a fireman or policeman were killed pre-September 11. They know her for what she is!"
Even after 9-11, Hillary avoided funerals for the victims and heroes – making a pointed exception for the media-saturated burial of Father Mychal Judge. Journalist Betty Harpaz, who chronicled Hillary’s Senate campaign, explains that Hillary fears being booed by mourners.
And well she should.
Cops and Hillary just don’t mix. As a Yale law student, Hillary helped edit a radical journal that exalted the Black Panthers, ran cartoons depicting police officers as pigs and seemed to encourage cop-killing.
Even today, Hillary’s inner circle views cops as enemies. After the booing incident at Madison Square Garden, one Hillary confidante remarked, "These are cops and firemen who listen to right-wing talk radio. They still think she killed Vince Foster, for Christ’s sake!"
In fact, New York City police don’t need talk radio to tell them where Hillary stands. They have experienced her anti-cop philosophy first-hand.
During her race-baiting Senate campaign, Hillary cozied up to Al Sharpton, bashed Giuliani, vilified the NYPD and declared the accidental shooting of Amadou Diallou a "murder." She inflamed racial tensions to a fever pitch.
After years of peace, we suddenly had rioters in Brooklyn hurling bricks and urine-filled bottles at police. We had the Justice Department threatening a federal takeover of the NYPD.
All this, at a time when shootings by New York City police officers had plummeted to a 30-year low.
America’s oldest and largest police union – the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) – finally took action on September 8, 2000, by endorsing George W. Bush for president. It had previously endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.
Why the switch?
FOP national president Gilbert G. Gallegos cited federal harassment and Justice Department lawsuits against police departments, as well as the Clintons’ offer of pardons to sixteen unrepentant Puerto Rican terrorists – a move apparently calculated to win Hispanic votes for Hillary.
One would think that Hillary’s anti-cop record would hurt her in these patriotic times. But the media have covered her tracks well.
Big Media blacked out the FOP endorsement of George W. Bush. The boos and catcalls at Madison Square Garden were digitally erased from VH1’s Christmas broadcast of the concert.
America fell in love with its cops and firemen on 9-11. But, when it comes to Hillary, we are still not listening to their voices.
Wow, was Condi Rice there too?
"THIS WILL BE our first lady president of the United States!"
The Nazis also used to arrange "love fests" for public relations purposes. For instance, they maintained a model concentration camp at Theriesenstadt to which they would bring foreign journalists, in order to demonstrate how humanely their camps were being run, and what a "love fest" their captives were having with their SS guards.
So what does that prove about actual living conditions in Nazi death camps? Obviously nothing.
Hillary needed to arrange a PR stunt to counteract her increasingly obvious estrangement from the heroes of 9-11. So she pulled some strings and arranged one.
So what?
One doesn't need to be psychic to predict that Hillary will arrange many more such events, as election day draws nearer.
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