I was going to put this in the pit but it didn’t so much anger me as it did relieve me.
The topic: At a fundraiser Hillary Clinton was booed by the audience, specifically New York City Firemen and Policemen. (I didn’t see it but the situation was explained nicely by “The View”.)
My first thought on this was “how could they do this, it’s a blasted fundraiser. This is perhaps the most tactless display I have seen in a long time. This is certainly not the time to worry about politics or to display your dislike for a public figure. Hell, the clapped for her husband for crying out loud.”
Then I thought to myself, “self, you haven’t had any faith in humanity ever since you were very little, this means you were right through this entire ordeal…people haven’t changed and never will.”
I think that most people when put into a difficult position will come through with shining colors. Look at all the heroism stories we heard about on 9/11: people carrying a wheelchair-bound person down God knows how many flights of stairs, a man who was in good health staying and dying with a friend of his who in a wheelchair (different from first guy) and couldn’t get out of WTC. The list goes on and on, not to mention all the blood doners and donations to charity.
But you need to remember that some things don’t change: everyone still hates the Yankees (except New Yorkers), reality TV sucks, and a lot of people don’t like Hillary Clinton. While I agree that it was in poor taste to boo her at a fund-raiser I don’t think that’s indicitive of most people having a natural propensity to be selfish pricks, before or after 9/11.
I really had no intention of downplaying the heroism displayed by some on Sept. 11. I guess I was just kinda hoping the good will towards your fellow man mentallity would carry on a little longer than a month and a half.
I guess what I was trying to say is that we often don’t notice kindness and courtesy unless it’s truly dramatic (all the heroes on 9/11), but we are quick to notice every time someone acts even remotely like a jerk.
In day to day life we often don’t notice the little niceties that people extend to one another: holding the door of the elevator open, handing you money you may have dropped on the ground, letting you get over in traffic, etc.
We seem to think that our receiving of these sorts of behavior are our God-given rights and pay less attention to them than we should. But should someone accidently bump into us and not apologize I think that most people turn into self-righteous pricks (myself included). Honestly, I think that sometimes we prioritize wrong: thoughtlessly accept acts of charity, and brood over acts of thoughtlessness.
BTW, I don’t think that you downplayed the heroism on 9/11 in your OP, and I wasn’t trying to imply otherwise.
IMHO, I kinda wonder why there hasn’t been more censure of Dubya for, in effect, running and hiding in Nebraska on September 11 instead of acting like a President…rather than getting good and sore at Hillary Clinton. I read a blistering commentary on this a few days ago in the local paper (The South Bay (L. A. Co., CA) Daily Breeze ( http://www.dailybreeze.com ).
I was also a little surprised that she was booed on such a large scale. Bill got a few boos, but quickly managed to get the crowd on his side – something he is good at.
Booing her or not, every single one of those firemen would have gone willingly into a burning skyscraper to save her or anyone else, both before Sept. 11 and after, so that is one thing that has not changed. What I think has changed is that more people are aware and appreciative of that, a good change IMHO.
Not to say that “booing” Hillary was classy or even appropriate, but I keep hearing a story (I do not have a cite and I cannot verify this, so it may easily be an urban legend) that “the other day” Hillary, in a hurry to get <somewhere…airport?> hit/bumped/ran over a cop/security guard/airport security guy who ended up hurt/hospitalized/in the trauma ward.
The “punchline” that makes this sound urban-legendary to me is that the next day Hillary was (allegedly) quoted in the paper as saying that she wasn’t hurt at all and “regrets” that she was in such a hurry. (Notice that there was no apology to the police type. I’m no Hillary fan, but she’s not that dumb. NO politican’s dumb enough to run over a cop and then not apologize). I’ve heard this story two or three times from my standard “Have YOU HEARD!?” types (the same ones who sent me fifty billion copies of the Nostradamus thing, the tribute to America that was 30 years old by the Canadian guy, etc), so the story is out there circulating.
IF the story’s true (and it’s almost certainly exaggerated/slanted, if there’s any truth at all) or, more importantly, if the cops in the audience heard the legend (more likely) then maybe that’s why they were booing. They weren’t booing a senator from New York, they weren’t booing a Democrat (they cheered Clinton, after all), they were booing someone who just ran over a cop recently and didn’t care.
Just a speculation. (I’ve looked for a cite or at least someone repeating the story…SNOPES has nothing. Where’s Google-Goddess Duck Duck Goose when you need her?)
As a matter of fact, I’m gonna post a chunk of this post in GQ and see if anyone there has heard the legend, since this thread is about the response Hillary got and doesn’t need a hijack about urban legend or not.
It just shows what a lack of class that people who don’t like Hillary Clinton have. Those sorts of people have no couth, and they shouldn’t be considered leaders at all.
Uh, Dougie? When hijacked planes are hitting important buildings such as the Pentagon, and nobody knows how many are still flying around looking for targets to crash into, then the best place for the President to be is in his secure command center on the Air Force Base that US Strategic Command is headquartered at. The Secret Service and the Department of Defense didn’t want him anywhere NEAR DC while that was going on, and the decision makes PERFECT SENSE when you think about the options:
Option One: Take the President to a secure location where he has all necessary resources to continue his job.
Option Two: Take the President back to the White House and potentially into extreme danger
Option Three: Tell the President to wave and say “Hi, Opal!”
This would’ve been the same NO MATTER WHO THE PRESIDENT WAS. When the Secret Service says “no,sir, you can’t go there, it’s too dangerous right now”, then the President doesn’t go there.
NOW, back to the OP…I’ve heard various stories of Hillary Clinton’s attitude toward NY police officers, and based on those stories (such as referring to police officers involved in an accidental shooting as “murderers” before any facts were in)there is no love for Mrs Clinton among the New York law enforcement community.