This woman belongs in a jail cell, not in the Senate...
Posted on 08/27/2002 5:08:27 AM PDT by MindBender26
Book: Hillary Used 'Etiquette Squads' to Bust Up Protests
A former advance man for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has confessed that her campaign used "etiquette squads" to drive hecklers away at rallies, raising new questions about a March 2000 incident where several reporters were assaulted while trying to cover then-candidate Clinton as crowds booed her during the St. Patrick's Day parade.
Patrick Halley's new book, "On the Road with Hillary," is a largely favorable portrait of the White House hopeful, seen through the eyes of the man whose job from 1992 to 2000 was to make sure Mrs. Clinton was viewed in the best light possible.
That meant that the Boston native was in charge of picking the right TV-friendly settings, the right props and the right photo-ops, according to an account of his book in Sunday's Boston Herald, which also noted:
"Things usually didn't get that dramatic for Halley, though he did help set up so-called 'etiquette squads' to help drive disrupters away from rallies."
During her 2000 bid for the Senate, Mrs. Clinton's campaign became notorious for the heavy-handed way it kept her shielded from reporters and protesters alike.
One particularly ugly altercation took place as she marched in New York City's St. Patrick's Day parade, where she was greeted by block after block of booing throngs.
As Mrs. Clinton pushed through the heckling crowd surrounded by her security and a phalanx of reporters, suddenly violence erupted. The scene was described during a live WABC radio report by Metro Network News reporter Glenn Schuck, who assumed that Secret Service were responsible for the thug-like tactics:
"Secret Service agents literally are pushing press to the ground. They just lost their minds, in my opinion," he told WABC's Sean Hannity.
"I mean they just started pushing and shoving; female camera people five feet tall were getting thrown to the ground, cameras flying. Myself, I was grabbed by the shoulder, I was thrown back over. I think somebody from Channel 11 landed on my back. From that point it really didn't get any better." (See: Hillary's Secret Service Agents Rough Up Reporters as St. Pat's Crowd Boos)
A few days later, a caller to WOR Radio's Bob Grant Show reported that she and her family were also accosted by Clinton's protest-busters along the parade route.
"Maureen" said that after her family had joined the crowd in jeering Mrs. Clinton, "they were surrounded by men in trench coats with radios." They told Maureen that since Mrs. Clinton was first lady that they "did not have the right" to heckle, she told Grant. "We think you should stop this now," the Clinton handlers ordered.
Were these incidents - and dozens of other similarly heavy-handed encounters with Hillary's handlers - the work of not the Secret Servicebut instead Clinton's protest-busting "etiquette squads"?
Author Halley could not be reached by press time to respond to that question.
I am truly in awe that they can get away with thuggery at a parade. It's one thing to remove a heckler from a hall where a candidate is making a speech, but to silence people at a parade is out of control. Who does Hillary really think she is? Hillary has her own private army, like it's any better that they wear trenchcoats and not brown shirts.
It was one of the strangest pictures I've seen. It looked like poster art from the Stalin era.
Gave me the creeps.
It's a repulsive thought. I tended to believe that they were HRCs/WJCs private security people.
You know, like the men-in-black that harassed Patrick Knowlton.
It's one thing to remove a heckler from a hall where a candidate is making a speech, but to silence people at a parade is out of control. Who does Hillary really think she is? Hillary has her own private army, like it's any better that they wear trenchcoats and not brown shirts.
Simple solution. Ask them for their idenification as United States Secret Service agents. If they are USSS, they are way out of line. If they are not, you are well within your rights to tell them shut the #$%& up and get out of your face. Videotape everything.
You could here the boos come down the canyon.....from blocks away and you knew she was approaching.....
Rudy on the other hand would walk up to the crowds and shake hands and mingle!
Was more than bizarre!
This woman belongs in a jail cell, not in the Senate...
A crowd of thousands, and a handful of operatives start busting heads? I think her operatives would be pissing in a bag and eating through a straw for the rest of their lives if they pulled that crap today.
Never heard no big press outrage over that either.
It gives her a better grip on the broomstick.....
As opposed to that great example of truth over at Democrat Underground right? Or Salon? Or do you just prefer to get your news straight from the source, CNN?
Get used to that quote - that's par for the course when it comes to the junior Senator from New York. Not only that, if she is able to wrest power from our hands with those grubby little paws of hers, you won't have the right to do a lot of things.
It'll be subtle at first; you'll never notice it. Then things will begin to creep up on you. And since she's a meglomaniac by trade, the first thing she'll do is take a look at FR and say, "Round up all the usual suspects..."
And from there, it begins...
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