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December 27, 2007

Gray Lady Busts Former First Lady's Mantra

Lee Cary
The New York Times' Patrick Healy busted Hillary Clinton's experience mantra in his December 26 piece entitled "The Resume Factor: Those 8 Years as First Lady."

Back in the October 30, 2007 Democratic Debate, Senator Clinton recited her experience mantra twice.  It involved these elements:

  • § 35 years as an advocate for children, women and family rights
  • § Fought for education and health reform in Arkansas
  • § Helped bring heath care to six million children "while in the White House," as opposed to "while I was First Lady"
  • § Opposed privatization of Social Security
  • § Opposed Bush's "veto of children's health"
The mantra has since been compressed to the flat claim of 35 years experience dealing with whatever major issue is being discussed at the time the 35 years of experience is claimed.  History proves that the more often a specious claim is made by a public figure, the more inherent credibility it gains -- a phenomenon that brings no credit to human intelligence.   

Clinton's mantra had gone largely unchallenged by the MSM until Healy's piece  in the NYT wherein he wrote:

As a result [of being First Lady during a period of transition from the Cold War to the threat of Islamic terrorism] while in the White House, she was never fully a part of either the old school that had been focused on the Soviet Union and the possibility of nuclear war or the more recent strain of national security thinking defined by issues like nonstate threats and the proliferation of nuclear technology.
This article, coming from the bell cow of the heretofore consistently pro-Clinton MSM, busted Senator Clinton's experience mantra wide open to reveal its absence of substance at its White House core.  In short, Healy's piece is a compelling debunking of at least 8 of the 35 years of claimed experience. 

But the Clinton experience mantra is not likely to go away, since there's nothing to replace it.  Nor are there likely to be follow-up questions from the MSM asking exactly what it was that Mrs. Clinton was doing 35 years ago, at age 25, that had a meaningful impact on any serious national issue. 

Meanwhile, if Mrs. Clinton becomes the 44th President, Mr. Healy best prepare his tax accountant for annual IRS audits. 

Posted at 02:54 PM | Email |

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