I’ve Always Been a Yankees Fan: Hillary Clinton
In Her Own Words,
by Thomas D. Kuiper
(World Ahead, 166 pages, $12.95)
“We are at a stage in history in which remolding society is one of
the great challenges facing all of us in the West.” These chilling
words were spoken by Hillary Rodham Clinton during her 1993
commencement address at the University of Texas, shortly after she
and Bill were elected “co-presidents” in 1992. This is one of
hundreds of Hillaryisms compiled by first-time author Thomas D.
Kuiper in his indispensable new book, I’ve Always Been A
Yankees Fan: Hillary Clinton In Her Own Words.
Dick Morris, who wrote the foreword to I’ve Always Been A
Yankee Fan, praised Mr. Kuiper’s “wonderful little book” for
“mak[ing] sure that Hillary’s quotes and lies are not forgotten but
come back to haunt her” when she inevitably runs for president in
2008. I could not agree more. Mr. Kuiper’s book reminds us of the
terrible reality behind Hillary’s recent facade of “moderate”
“bipartisan” leadership.
To begin with, as the above quote (p. 119) demonstrates, in her
heart-of-hearts Hillary is a power-hungry utopian socialist who
believes that political elites (i.e., she) should decide how the
rest of us live. Consider these statements:
- “The only way to make a difference is to acquire power” (p.
68). Hillary to a friend before starting law school.
- “We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking
about what is best for society” (p. 121). Hillary as first
lady.
- “We just can’t trust the American people to make those types
of choices…. Government has to make those choices for people” (p.
20). Hillary to Rep. Dennis Hastert in 1993 discussing her health
care plan.
- “I am a fan of the social policies that you find in Europe”
(p. 76). Hillary in 1996.
- “I think it does take a village to raise a child” (p. 76).
Hillary on C-SPAN in 2005.
Although Hillary rarely expresses her political views in starkly
socialist terms these days, her more traditional-sounding trope,
“it takes a village to raise a child,” reflects the same
totalitarian impulse to replace individuals and families with the
state. Philosophers and politicians as disparate as Plato and Mao
have known for centuries that the nuclear family represents the
single greatest obstacle to their dreams of radically re-designing
human society.
Hillary understands this too. And like all such “reformers,” she
won’t let ordinary people, living their ordinary lives, get in the
way of her “burning desire to do what I can, a desire to make the
world around me… better for everybody” (p. 84). We can be sure
that under a Hillary presidency, individual freedom and opportunity
will take a back seat to more government agencies, bureaucracies,
and regulations supposedly intended to make our lives “better,” but
in fact only making them worse — and raising our taxes to
boot!
Mr. Kuiper’s book also reveals the unprincipled opportunist who
hides behind legal circumlocutions and other evasions whenever it
suits her needs. Consider these gems:
Hillary, in her “autobiography” Living History,
describing her work during law school at a well-known communist law
firm, where she actually assisted with defending Black Panther
cases: “I spent most of my time working for [an attorney]
researching, writing legal motions and briefs for a child custody
case” (p. 139).
Hillary denying that she received special treatment in her
cattle futures trade that netted her $100,000 from a $1,000
investment. Interestingly, she did not report these gains, which
she earned in 1980, until they were discovered by the press in
1994: “There’s no evidence of that” (p. 35).
Hillary in a 1996 statement admitting that, contrary to her
original denials, she indeed shredded documents relating to the
Whitewater investigation: “It appears I cooperated with this effort
— to dispose of such files” (p. 33).
Hillary referring to Bill Clinton’s controversial eleventh-hour
pardon of the wealthy fugitive from justice, whose ex-wife, Denise
Rich, was a major Clinton contributor: “I never knew about Marc
Rich at all. You know, people would hand me envelopes, I would just
pass them….I knew nothing about the Marc Rich pardon until after
it happened” (p. 46).
As these quotations make clear (and there are many more just
like them in Mr. Kuiper’s book), Hillary is willing to twist and
deny the truth whenever she believes doing so will protect her
personal and political interests. There seems to be little Hillary
won’t say, if she believes it necessary to promote her own
position.
The most repugnant example of this is her comment, made shortly
after Saddam Hussein’s capture in 2004, that “[o]n paper, women
[under Saddam’s rule] had rights. They went to school, they
participated in the professions….As long as they stayed out of
[Saddam’s] way, they had considerable freedom of movement” (p.
108). Apparently, Hillary thinks rape rooms, torture chambers, and
summary executions are acceptable tradeoffs for being able to
“participate[] in the professions.” Why would Hillary make such a
heinous comment? The conclusion is inescapable that in Hillary’s
mind, political partisanship — and feminist ideology — trump the
rights and dignity of ordinary human beings.
Which brings us right back to where we started: Hillary Rodham
Clinton is a power-hungry utopian socialist who dreams of
“remolding” American society into something that looks just like
the sclerotic, dying polities of Western Europe: nationalized
health care and day care, more taxes and regulations on business, a
greater “redistribution” of income and wealth, a significantly
diminished military capability, and entrenched political and
economic elites who decide how the rest of us shall live. She must
not be elected President of the United States. Mr. Kuiper’s
enjoyable new book offers plenty of ammunition for opposing
Hillary’s upcoming candidacy. I predict it will become one of the
chief weapons in the anti-Hillary arsenal.
