Hillary is the Republicans’ best hope for 2008

J. Michael Sharman

            The Republicans’ best hope for 2008 just officially announced her presidential candidacy.

            On Hillary Rodham Clinton’s announcement tour, she said her candidacy should be viewed in the context of her total life experience. Whoever gave her that political advice must be on the Republican payroll.

In her spring 1995 tour of South Asia, First Lady Hillary Clinton met Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest, and told him that she was named for him.[1]

            The problem with her claim, however, is that Hillary Rodham was born on October 26, 1947. Before his epic climb on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary was an unpublicized  beekeeper in Papakura, New Zealand.[2] It is very, very unlikely that Mother Rodham would have named her daughter after a New Zealand beekeeper with the foreknowledge that six years later he would somehow make the name “Hillary” famous.

Then, when First Lady Hillary Clinton visited Saudi Arabia on March 11, 1996, the U.S. Embassy videotaped her telling her Islamic audience: “I, myself, have become an eager student of Islam in recent years, thanks in part to my daughter, who took a course on Islamic history.”[3]

She was serious.

In February of 1996, eager Islamic student Hillary Clinton hosted about 150 Muslims to celebrate the end of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month. It was the first time Muslims had been invited to the White House to celebrate an Islamic holy day. [4]

First Lady Clinton called the occasion “historic and overdue”. Her husband, President Clinton, sent his Ramadan greetings which said, “Each year, Ramadan brings a promise of renewal and hope for the world. I pray that, as the new moon rises, we will witness the beginning of a new era of tolerance around the globe.”[5]

When First Lady Clinton spoke to Muslim women on the Gaza Strip in 1998, she proclaimed her friendship with Yasser Arafat’s wife, and said, “I have also seen in the leadership of Chairman [Yassar] Arafat and in the commitment of the people who live in Gaza, determination, courage and ultimately hope that you will live in peace and prosperity in the twenty-first century.”[6]

She said she was also in Palestine to distribute money: “I am pleased to make two new announcements today. …[T]he United States government will contribute seventy three million dollars [to Palestinian refugees] this year, an increase of 4.3 percent. And I am pleased to have two members of our Congress with us today, Congressman Hastings and Congressman Gaveson, and I would like to thank them for supporting the United Nations.” [7] (Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.) was a federal judge in Florida until he was impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury and bribery. [8])

Another of Ms. Clinton’s life experiences was  she was at Yale Law School in 1970, and co-founded the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. She was the associate editor for the issue it devoted to the murder trial of Black Panther, Lonnie McLucas, accused of killing a suspected informer. His trial was the prelude to the murder trial of Bobby Seale and seven other Black Panthers.

A Black Panther speaker at Yale in April 1970 said: “The brother is charged with four counts of attempted murder of four pigs. And I don’t think that’s wrong. Because everybody knows that pigs are depraved traducers that violate the lives of human beings and that there ain’t nothing wrong with taking the life of a pig.”

            Hillary Rodham’s Yale Review of Law and Social Action adopted that same ideology and language, containing a cartoon of a bloodied, bullet-ridden uniformed pig with the caption: “What is a pig?” The text next to the cartoon reads: “A low natured beast that has no regard for law, justice, or the rights of the people; a creature that bites the hand that feeds it; a foul depraved traducer usually found masquerading as the victim of an unprovoked attack.” [9]

            The Republicans have yet to settle on their presidential candidate for 2008, but that really won’t matter as long as the Democrats choose Hillary to be theirs.

By J. Michael Sharman Click here for bio and archived articles