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Jewish World Review March 2, 2000 /25 Adar I, 5760
Ann Coulter
http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- HAVING COVERED Mrs. Clinton's culinary deceptions earlier this week, I thought we'd take a peek at her stylistic deceptions today. Since the days of the first presidential campaign, Hollywood producers Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason have fought a Sisyphean battle to remake Hillary's image, from Hairy-Armpitted Harridan to Susie the Homemaker in a Talbots headband. (With great fanfare, the headbands were dropped in the middle of the 1992 campaign.) The Hollywood power couple hauled in a costume designer from their TV shows to help Hillary with her clothes, and got the famous Cristophe Schatteman to style her hair. They produced the sappy Clinton documentary "The Man From Hope," and coached both the Clintons on their lying (as Hillary has now inadvertently admitted to Talk magazine) "60 Minutes" appearance. The "pale yellow" outfit Hillary wore at the 1992 Democratic National Convention was chosen by "Designing Women" costume-consultant Cliff Chally. An enthusiastic press corps praised the sartorial selection for showing a "softer" side of Mrs. Clinton, and "giving the appearance that she was on the sidelines," as one news service put it. (Not everyone was snowed. Political consultant Roger Ailes remarked during the 1992 campaign that "Hillary Clinton in an apron is like Michael Dukakis in a tank.") On the carefully choreographed "60 Minutes" interview, in which Bill Clinton would call Gennifer Flowers a liar, the reinvented Hillary adopted the patois of a backwoods redneck. She was suddenly imbued with a wildly incongruous Southern twang and a ridiculous predilection for dropping the g's from her gerunds: "I'm not sittin' here, some little woman, standin' by my man like Tammy Wynette. I'm sittin' here because I love him, and I honor what he's been through and what we've been through together, and, you know, if that's not enough for people, then, heck, don't vote for him." "Heck, don't vote for him"? Of course, now that Mrs. Clinton -- or "Hillary" -- is running for the U.S. Senate from New York, she has traded in the phony backwater twang for a phony New Yawk accent. The Giuliani campaign ought to put together a melange of these bits, just to show people the different accents the Manchurian Candidate is capable of. In April 1994, when Whitewater was heating up, the first lady held her first formal news conference. Forgoing the presidential lectern and seal, Hillary sat in a straight-backed chair on a small platform in the state dining room, surrounded by ferns and lots of pink flowers. She was dressed in a pink sweater, a long, black knit skirt and high heels. She never took a sip of her water, and sat with her hands folded and legs neatly crossed throughout the interview. If a fly had landed on her hand, she would have reacted like Norman Bates in the final scene of Hitchcock's "Psycho." In the end, though, even the Hollywood image-makers haven't been able to fool the American
people. In a U.S. News & World Report poll conducted in September 1998, the vast majority of
respondents -- 48 percent -- said they believed Mrs. Clinton's relationship with her husband
was a "business and political relationship." Another 23 percent said Hillary remained in the
marriage only for the sake of the country or her daughter, Chelsea. Only 18 percent claimed to
believe the Clinton's relationship was a "loving
JWR contributor Ann Coulter is the author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton.
02/28/00: You have to break a few eggs to make a joke
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