During Bill Clinton's first year in office a minor incident occurred, one buried by the news media, but common knowledge inside the Beltway (even though it's denied by the White House). It was in one sense trivial, a fleeting vignette on the First Family portrait; but in another sense, it was powerfully revealing and terribly significant.
The occasion was the departure for a state function, a routing operation repeated many times. Vehicles were lined up outside the White House, ready to transport the First Family and their entourage to the important event. Young Chelsea Clinton, like everyone else on such occasions, was assigned a specific sedan in which to ride. The driver held the door open for her, but as she got part of the way into the car she abruptly backed out as if she had seen a rattlesnake in the back seat. She then turned and proclaimed to all within sound of her voice, "I won't ride in this car! There's a military man in here, and I don't ride with military men!"
The "military man" already seated in her sedan happened to be a senior officer. Being a gentleman, he said quietly that there was no problem, calmly got out of the sedan and found another vehicle in which to ride.
In a separate, similar incident, also common knowledge (but denied by the White House and unreported by the protective media), young Chelsea asked the Marine who was escorting her to school to wear civilian clothes in the future, not his uniform, and explained, "My family doesn't like military people."
Think about this for a moment; think of what it means, I suggest to you that this innocent little girl didn't learn to despise "military men" at Sunday School or in the Brownie Scouts.
I suggest that she would not have committed such acts of flagrant rudeness and presumption had she known that her parents would disapprove and punish her for it; nor would she have so ingenuously expressed herself. No, it seems apparent that she learned this at home from her mother and father, and she learned it well.
In a similar incident that was actually reported briefly by the media (and then buried), highly decorated Lt. General Barry R. McCaffrey, was summoned to the White House early one morning. As he was leaving he encountered a young woman, a member of the White House staff, who had just arrived for work. Being a gentleman, the general smiled, saluted informally and pleasantly said, "Good morning." She snapped back, her voice harsh and cold, "I don't speak to the military," stuck up her nose and stomped by.
No White House staffer would dare commit such an act of deliberate rudeness if it were not understood that such behavior is in keeping with White House values. There is no record that she was ever repirmanded, and the incident vanished suddenly and permanently from the news.
As despicable as the Clinton's are, I really wonder about his association with them.