The Associated Press engages in some open and gross bum-kissing and campaigning for Hillary Clinton with it’s “analysis” of how she reacted to the hostage situation at a campaign office in New Hampshire.
It’s obvious that we’re supposed to draw the conclusion from her actions that as President she would act decisively and make good decisions. I think it shows the opposite. I think it also shows the continuing double standard—by liberals, mind you—toward women in leadership, i.e. if they aren’t paralyzed with fear, that’s supposed to be leadership.
For one thing, I would expect other candidates would have cancelled another appearance upon hearing of the situation, although some might have gone on with the speech but thrown out their prepared text in order to address the topic of security or law enforcement or somesuch.
But the rest of the “analysis” is just electioneering:
When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis.
I suppose she could afford to be calm since, as he wrote, the crisis was over. Is it a big deal she was calm when knew it was all over?
The rest of her actions actually lead me to believe that in fact she would be terrible facing presidential crises:
Over the ensuing five hours, as a state trooper negotiated with the suspect and hostages were released one-by-one, Clinton continued to call up and down the law enforcement food chain, from local to county to state to federal officials.
“I knew I was bugging a lot of these people, it felt like on a minute-by-minute basis, trying to make sure that I knew everything that was going on so I was in a position to tell the families, to tell my campaign and to be available to do anything that they asked of me,” the New York senator said.
So over the five hours of the standoff, Clinton micromanaged the entire law enforcement chain of command, bugging them for situation updates—which she openly admits—and taking them away from actually ending the situation. Is this what we can expect if President Hillary (God forbid) has a terrorist hostage crisis on her watch? Will she be picking targets for the F-15s if we have to bomb a terrorist training camp?
Rather than bugging the professionals trying to do their jobs, she should have waited by the phone for them to call her in case they needed her.
I think Clinton’s response to the situation was indeed very telling, just not in the way AP reporter Glen Johnson thinks it is.
Hey I also remained calm, can I be president? Funny thing is it is easy to be calm when you are not personally threatened in any way. The media is grasping at straws to make Hillary look good.
I wonder when the anti-flare activists will start to demand that flares be made illegal because of this incident?
I can hear the floor speeches now: “How many more must die, Madam Speaker, before these flares are taken off the streets?”
Well, I’m no fan of Sen. Clinton (and I could not imagine any circumstances in which I would vote for her for President), but I thought she handled the situation just fine.
I saw her live on the 10:00 pm news on Friday. She expressed genuine admiration for the way the locals had handled things, and she basically admitted to having been quite distracted and obsessed with information during the course of the crisis.
I’m not sure what we should have expected her to do differently.
I don’t know where the adjective “regal” came from; frankly in the live report I saw I thought she looked exhausted and more like a normal human being than I’ve seen her look in years.
I’m with brassband on this one. If you told me that local police said that her persistance was an interference and prevented them from doing their jobs I’d sing a different song. But that’s not what I’m hearing out of NH.
First, I think I recall her making express reference (during the crisis) to the fact that they were not taking actions other than what they were directed to do by local law enforcment. That is leadership in that it tells the community, “I’m here, I’m aware, and I’m letting the professionals handle it, who are handling it fine”. It relaxes the community and it makes the locals look good.
Second, behind the scenes “bugging” is smart and often necessary. Many of us have been in a position (at the emergency room, for example) where you really can’t just leave it to the professionals, and you need to be persistent and let them know that you’re watching them, and that you expect them to do their jobs perfectly. If it was my office being held hostage, and my volunteers, I’d be on the phone to every official I know, making sure they were on top of it and had their people on top of it. Police (and others) screw up way too much in this country and I bet the pressure from Clinton helped assure the best possible result.