Hillary Gets Overshadowed By Bush

December 3, 2003

I have to tell you, I'm about fed up with the double standard.   Everywhere I turned Thanksgiving day and several days after pundits were accusing President Bush of creating a photo op when he visited, spontaneously, the troops in Iraq.   Not 24 hours later Hillary “Rob ‘em” Clinton was doing the same thing only this time it was a compassionate display of support.   Give me a break!

 

They still haven't stopped talking about Bush's landing on that aircraft carrier and strutting across the flight deck with his helmet under his arm.   They said it would be used in a campaign commercial and, by golly, they were right.   It was recently used in a Democrat campaign commercial against the president!   But let's get back to the troop-visiting issue.

 

Look at the juxtaposition between the visit by President Bush and Senator Clinton.   The president made a surprise visit to an ecstatic audience.   After a few brief words of support, he made his way behind the mess line to serve up Thanksgiving dinner for the troops.   He stayed a total of about two hours and never fed his own face, instead choosing to serve the troops.   Hillary, on the other hand, showed up with her entourage about an hour late.   Instead of serving the troops they bumped ahead of everyone in line, forcing the troops who had been standing in line to wait about another hour.

 

Trying to put a good face on the visit, the military brass tried to round up troops from New York to visit with the senator.   NewsMax reports that they were turned down left and right.   One source said, “ People were actually telling the reporters, 'You don't want to print what I think about her and her visit.'”   And no wonder.   Here's what she told the troops: “Americans are wholeheartedly proud of what you are doing, but there are many questions at home about the administration's policies.   We have to exert all of our efforts militarily, but the outcome is not assured.”   Wow.   There's a rah-rah, stoke-up-the-troops speech if I ever heard one.

 

Once back from Iraq, Clinton suddenly turned into a military expert.   She said the president had the wrong “troop mix” to get the job done in Iraq.   I'm sure the Joint Chiefs are slapping their foreheads saying, “Doggone, that's the problem.”   Then she went on to say, “The hard part started on May 1," referring to when the president declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq.   Then she chuckled and said, “The easy part, if you look at it, was the military part.”

 

Now, hold the phone.   Weren't all the naysayers opposed to the war telling us we would be bogged down in our efforts to take Baghdad for months if not years?   What did it take?   Six weeks?   Now Hillary is an instant expert on the military.

 

Bottom line, folks - and I've told you this before – Hillary's running.   She's the one staging the photo ops.   Images of her mingling with the troops are sure to surface in campaign commercials.   While the other hopeless Democrat candidates bloody each other to a pulp, Hillary waits in the wings for the perfect opportunity to take the stage and save the party.   Meanwhile, she goes about the task of amassing sound bites and warm and fuzzy footage that will be used to remake her image.

 

The amazing transformation of the Ice Queen is already in the works.   Carville-like strategists are hard at work devising other ways to erase the image of the lamp-throwing, wicked-tongued witch of the West Wing.   They figure the desert heat of Iraq might melt that image.   Let me tell you, it's going to take a lot of heat.