JWR Roger SimonMona CharenLinda Chavez
Larry ElderJonathan S. Tobin
Thomas SowellWilliam PfaffRobert Scheer
Don FederCal Thomas
Political Cartoons
Left, Right & Center

Jewish World Review /May 13, 1998 / 17 Iyar, 5758

Don Feder

Don Feder Hillary knows what's best for everyone

ISN'T IT ENOUGH to have a president who can't keep his fly zipped? Must we suffer the further indignity of a first lady who can't keep her mouth shut -- who, absent the semblance of a mandate, is driven to policy-making?

To the question, when did Hillary Rodham Clinton become secretary of state, the answer is: on the same day that she became attorney general, secretary of education, etc. -- January 20, 1993, the day the groom of Frankenstein became our 42nd president.

Pre-Hillary, first ladies understood the part the nation wanted them to play -- a reassuring projection of domestic harmony (in the Clintons' case, a real challenge) combined with charitable involvement.

From Abigail Adams to Barbara Bush, other first ladies knew that no one had elected them to public office and that the expression of their views on controversial subjects should await their memoirs.

Not Hillary, who last week blundered into the mine field of Middle East politics, tripping the light fantastic on a claymore.

In a global-satellite interview, the first lady made a pitch for Palestinian statehood. "It would be in the long-term interests of peace in the Middle East for there to be a state of Palestine ... a functioning, modern state that is on the same footing as other states," Hillary chirped.

Indeed, to the same extent that it was in the interests of peace in Europe for a former corporal of the kaiser's army to take the helm of the German government in 1933.

The Yassir Arafat is second only to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin as the major murderer of Jews in this century. He is a liar, a thug and a man consumed by his mission to annihilate the Jewish state.

On May 6, another Jew was stabbed to death in Jerusalem -- yet another crime Arafat has failed to condemn. In the same week, he allowed Abu Abbas (the murderer of American Leon Klinghoffer) to set up shop in Gaza. Last month, the Palastinian leader again told an interviewer that the Oslo Accords are merely a tactical maneuver in the "phased plan" for the piecemeal dismemberment of Israel.

Does Hillary Kissinger understand the implications of Palestinian "statehood"? Her "fuctioning, modern state" will be a terrorist enclave dedicated to the destruction of America's best friend in the Middle East, allied with Libya and Iraq, sitting on Israel's borders with tanks, shoulder-launched rockets and biological weapons.

Since her undergraduate, anti-war days, Hillary has been an ideologue with an airy disdain for reality.

In the '60s, she and Bill thought a North Vietnamese victory would be in the long-term interests of peace in Southeast Asia. A quarter of a century, 3 million dead Cambodians and 1 million Vietnamese boat people later, it's difficult to fathom the credulity of that young lady with the Coke-bottle thick glasses in a navy peacoat.

Is she ever haunted by the ghosts of political delusions past? Probably not. Hillary is a Robespierrian citizen of the Republic of Virtue, who drifts through life formulating theories about what's best for: peace, families, children, patients -- fill in the blank. Never mind the growing mound of heads at the base of the guillotine.

Consequences are never seriously considered. Take It Takes A Village, the manifesto of the Clintons' new child-care initiative. Day care, social parenting -- yeah. Declare a crisis, then solve it with a new federal program.

But don't think about the long-term implications of encouraging parents to default on their primary responsibility by assigning the upbringing of their children to strangers. Federal day care might do for middle-class families what welfare did for black families.

Hillary's policy-making debut was her 1993 health-care initiative, an attempt to nationalize an $800-billion industry. Dr. Rodham thought that would be in the long-term interests of the uninsured.

But what happens when government controls the health-care purse strings? Rationing? Patient triage? Again, never look at an issue too closely. Never ask those uncomfortable what-ifs.

Hillary is part of an arrogant, overeducated, experience-deficient, cliche-driven, American elite that considers itself ordained by destiny to order the fate of the little people, be they Southeast Asians, Israelis or American families.

Early in 1992, Hillary would caper before campaign audiences, chortling, "If you vote for him, you get me." Absent a miracle from special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, we'll have her for the next three years. Lucky us.

Up

5/1198: To honor her would not be honorable
5/6/98: Conservative chasm: pragmatism vs. worship of marketplace
5/4/98: Anglo-saxon me
4/29/98: Needle exchange programs are assisted-suicide
4/27/98: Chretien's mission of mercy to Fidel
4/22/98: School-choice is a religious freedom issue
4/20/98: Corporate execs deliver body parts to Beijing
4/14/98: National sales tax --- looks better all the time
4/13/98: The U.N. sinister? Hey, where did that idea come from?
4/8/98: Unions fight workers rights in 226 campaign
3/30/98: Africa's leaders should apologize
3/25/98: GOP shouldn't look to media for advice
3/22/98: You should care about Clinton's 'private life'
3/19/98: Color-coded reading, product of obsessive minds
3/16/98: Amendment will end exile of G-d from our public lives
3/9/98: Havana will break your heart
3/2/98: Vouchers Terrify Teachers' Union
2/25/98: Presidential politics starts at a resort hotel
2/23/98: Hillary's support comes at a price
2/18/98: How many times must we say "no" to gay rights?
2/16/98: Enoch Powell spoke the truth on immigration
2/11/98: Bubba behaving badly
2/9/98: A conservative dissent on the flag-burning amendment
2/5/98: We get the leaders we deserve
2/2/98: Send a signal that could penetrate boardroom doors
1/27/98: State of the president: hollow rhetoric
1/25/98: For Monica's playmate, we have no one to blame but ourselves
1/22/98: At Yale, bet on yarmulke over gown
1/19/98: Commission tackles America's fastest-growing addiction, gambling
1/15/98: Capital punishment and the hard case: no exceptions for Karla Faye Tucker
1/12/98: Partial-birth abortion and the GOP's future: the "big tent" meets truth in advertising
1/8/98: IOLTA: the Left's latest scam to crawl into our pockets
1/5/98: Connect the dots to create a terrorist state
1/1/98: The Unacceptables of 1997: Long may they rave
12/28/97: Hypocrisy is a liberal survival mechanism
12/23/97: Chanukah is no laughing matter
12/22/97: No merry Christmas for persecuted Christians around the world
12/18/97: Bosnia, Haiti, and how not to conduct a foreign policy


©1998, Boston Herald; distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.