GREAT MOMENTS IN THE VAST CONSPIRACY AGAINST HILLARY CLINTON

THE only major examples one can find of Hillary Clinton getting emotional, soft-sided and pseudo-feminine has been when she and her husband have been under attack, and usually rightfully so. Then we are suddenly treated to a softer, gentler Hillary Clinton and the media immediately gets the message and backs off. As Jesse Jackson pointed out, Hurricane Katrina did not move her anywhere near as much as Obama and Edwards treating her in a debate with full fledged gender equality, which is to say, just as if she were a man.

We will leave it to psychiatrists to identify the pathological aspects of all this, but for political purposes suffice it to say that it is a con and one that has repeatedly helped get her out of trouble.

Which brings us to the case of the two men crying out "Iron My Shirt" at a Clinton speech.

If you watch the video, and have any experience with theater or politics, it is clear that Clinton is either much faster on her feet than she has typically demonstrated or that she knew what was coming.

Her first and instant reaction was strange - to ask that the lights be turned on. She then offers her, "Oh, the remnants of sexism, alive and well tonight" line scoring another point in her poor me record book. There is none of the usual pause as a speaker tries to figure out what to say and how to handle an unexpected situation.

According to the NY Daily News, one of the protestors had a "Hillary for President" sticker on his bag and both come from a talk show in Boston known for playing pranks.

On the other hand, one of the pranksters has been identified as a Republican which raises the interesting question of whether this was a GOP trick to boost the candidate they would most like to run against.

Normally, one would be inclined to accept the incident at face value, but her record of concocted victimhood inspires caution. A bit of history:

1992: Hillary Clinton speaks of the "pain of our marriage" in talking about the Gennifer Flowers scandal on 60 minutes. Says Jeff Taylor in Reason, "The interview told voters that Bill was sorry, Hillary was sad, but that the couple was together, resilient, and remade. A few days later, Bill 'won' the New Hampshire primary by besting low expectations and finishing second to Paul Tsongas. Thus was born the 'comeback kid,' got Bill out of the Northeast with momentum and on to blacker and bluer-collar electorates. On 60 minutes, HR Clinton also claimed that she was not some "little woman standing by her man like Tammy Wynette."

1992 - During the 1992 campaign, Hillary Clinton defended her role in the Madison Guarantee S&L scandal by saying, "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas. But what I decided to do was pursue my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life."

Forgotten, however, is what inspired this homily: accusations that Ms. Clinton had represented Whitewater business partner Jim McDougal's S&L before her husband's government. Here's what the New York Times reported on March 17, 1992: "Hillary Clinton said today that she did not earn 'a penny' from state business conducted by her Little Rock law firm and that she never intervened with state regulators on behalf of a failed Arkansas savings and loan association. . . "
Records would show that she did, in fact, represent Madison before the state securities department. After the revelation, she says, "For goodness sakes, you can't be a lawyer if you don't represent banks."

1993: Michael Kelly writes a tough piece for the NY Times titled "Saint Hillary." Wrote Michael Crowley in the New Republic last November: "Hillary later wrote that she had been 'raw with grief' over her dying father, implying that Kelly had exploited her emotional vulnerability."

1994: The exposure of Hillary Clinton's cattle futures deal – considered buy experts as nearly impossible to accomplish legally – brought forth a sweeter, gentler Clinton. Wrote Robin Givhan in the Washington Post later, "In April 1994, Hillary Clinton -- then the first lady -- held her "pink press conference." She sat in the State Dining Room dressed in a pink-and-black St. John knit suit to answer questions about Whitewater, her family's finances and the $100,000 in profit she'd made trading cattle futures. During the course of her 66-minute exchange with reporters, she expressed regret for being less than forthcoming with the public. Observers parsed Clinton's pink suit for meaning and it was read as deliberate costuming. A tough woman had wrapped herself in sugary innocence. She was trying to seduce an audience into believing that nothing untoward could have been done by the little lady in baby-blanket pink." Adds Taylor, "With a pinch of fake bottle-blonde self-deprecation -- she just did whatever Jim Blair or Jim McDougal said -- a dollop of amnesia -- Hillary could not remember just how the darn money got there -- and heavy closer of persecution and guilt-tripping – 'We don't fit easily into a lot of our pre-existing categories . . . And I think that, having been independent, having made decisions, it's a little difficult for us as a country, maybe, to make the transition of having a woman like many of the women in this room, sitting in this house' -- further reporting on the topics was ruled out of bounds.

1998: Poor Hillary finds a "vast right wing conspiracy" working against her as the Monica Lewinsky scandal popped up.

2003 – The media has played an important enabling role in the Hillary Victim myth. A fine example was an ABC news special with Barbara Walters shilling for HRC's new book. Some examples of Walters' tough questioning:

"You made investments in the commodities markets, you dealt in real estate -- Whitewater, you worked for the Rose law firm, all of which at the time you thought were very innocent. . .

"You became First Lady like no other First Lady before you. You had your own interests, you got involved in public policy. No First Lady had done that without being severely criticized. . .

"I can barely remember a week went by when one of you wasn't being criticized and investigated."

Clinton's responded with a sensitive lie: "Everything that was thrown at me, everything that was said turned out to be without basis in fact" and that she was the victim of "out of control, zealous prosecutor who was on a partisan campaign to undermine Bill and me and everyone else."