“What difference at this point does it make!?” asked Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearings. Now the prospective 2016 presidential contender may soon want to issue the same query with respect to a couple of more scandals brewing.
One involves a new tell-all book written by Dan Emmett, a Secret Service agent who guarded George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. And, boy, does he have some tales to tell. Thomas Lifson at American Thinker introduces the story, writing, “The real Hillary Clinton is a nasty piece of work. Unlike her husband, who genuinely likes people and understands one or two things about relating to them, Mrs. Clinton is an arrogant, angry, phony, who disdains the ordinary courtesies toward people who can do nothing for her, in her estimation.” Lifson then goes on to quote the UK’s Daily Mail:
Hillary has been known to hurl a book at the back of the head of one agent driving her in the Presidential limo accusing him of eavesdropping, forget her ps and qs by never thanking her protectors and lob profanity-laced orders when she just wanted the agents to carry her bags — a job not on agents’ “to do” list.
“Stay the f**k away from me! Just f*****g do as I say!!!” she is quoted as saying to an agent who refused to carry her luggage in the book Unlimited Access by FBI agent Gary Aldridge.
Compared to Hillary’s salty language, Bill Clinton was a gentleman, according to now-retired Secret Service agent, [sic] Dan Emmett, who began covering President Clinton on his first day in office in January 1993 and writes about guarding the president in a new version of his book Within Arm’s Length, published by St. Martin’s Press.
… Emmett launches a stinging attack on the Clinton administration staff he used to protect — branding them arrogant and claiming that ex-First Lady Hillary Clinton was aloof.
He tells how Hillary never said “thank you” to agents, unlike her husband, Bill, and their daughter, Chelsea and treated the Secret Service agents like “hired help”, he said.
In the new book, Emmett tells of one stormy night, St Valentine’s Day in 1994 to be precise, when Bill and Chelsea had him accompany them to Andrews Air Force Base to surprise Hillary, returning from a trip.
Although Bill and Chelsea thanked him for the effort, Hillary did not.
The second scandal involves newly discovered recordings that the Washington Free Beacon dubs “The Hillary Tapes,” in which Clinton discusses a case where she defended a man who was accused of raping a 12-year-old girl. The site writes:
In 1975, the same year she married Bill, Hillary Clinton agreed to serve as the court-appointed attorney for Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old accused of raping the child after luring her into a car.
The recordings, which date from 1983-1987 and have never before been reported, include Clinton’s suggestion that she knew Taylor was guilty at the time. She says she used a legal technicality to plead her client, who faced 30 years to life in prison, down to a lesser charge.
… The full story of the Taylor defense calls into question Clinton’s narrative of her early years as a devoted women and children’s advocate in Arkansas — a narrative the 2016 presidential frontrunner continues to promote on her current book tour.
Of course, defenders could say that Clinton was just doing a job (other) Americans won’t do. Thomas Lifson adds perspective in a different American Thinker post:
To be sure, she was doing her job. It is a lawyer’s obligation to work on [his] client’s behalf. But try explaining to voters that “I’m a lawyer so I am not supposed to care about the female victim.” In fact, I really, really hope that Hillary tries exactly that if questioned about her behavior all those years ago. Americans love and respect lawyers so much that becoming the poster girl for them would be an apt reward for Mrs. Clinton.
Yet such revelations, especially those relating to rude, crude behavior, are nothing new. Just consider examples I posted at my website in 2007 (from a GOPUSA forum, edited slightly for punctuation, style, brevity, and decency):
• “Where is the G*d**** f****** flag? I want the G*d**** f****** flag up every f****** morning at f****** sunrise.” (From the book Inside The White House by Ronald Kessler, p. 244 – Hillary to the staff at the Arkansas Governor’s mansion on Labor Day, 1991.)
• “You sold out, you mother f*****! You sold out!” (From the book Inside by Joseph Califano, p. 213 — Hillary yelling at Democrat lawyer.)
• “F*** off! It’s enough that I have to see you ****-kickers every day, I’m not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*d**** job and keep your mouth shut.” (From the book American Evita by Christopher Anderson, p. 90 — Hillary to her state trooper bodyguards after one of them greeted her with “Good morning.”)
• “Stay the f*** back, stay the f*** away from me! Don’t come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f****** do as I say, okay!!!?” (From the book Unlimited Access by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldridge, p. 139 — Hillary screaming at her Secret Service detail.)
• “Where’s the miserable c*** sucker?” (From the book The Truth About Hillary by Edward Klein, p. 5 — Hillary shouting at a Secret Service officer.)
• “Come on Bill, put your d*** up! You can’t f*** her here!!” (From the book Inside The White House by Ronald Kessler , p. 243 — Hillary to Gov. Clinton when she spots him talking with an attractive female at an Arkansas political rally.)
• “You know, I’m going to start thanking the woman who cleans the restroom in the building I work in. I’m going to start thinking of her as a human being?” (From the book The Case against Hillary Clinton by Peggy Noonan, pg. 55.)
• “We just can’t trust the American people to make those types of choices. Government has to make those choices for people.” (From the book I’ve Always Been A Yankee Fan by Thomas D. Kuiper, p. 20 — Hillary to Rep. Dennis Hastert in 1993 discussing her expensive, disastrous taxpayer-funded healthcare plan.)
• “I am a fan of the social policies that you find in Europe.” (Hillary in 1996, also from I’ve Always Been A Yankee Fan.)
These revelations and others could make some critics wonder if Clinton is emotionally stable enough to be president. The Benghazi blow-up referenced at this piece’s opening may be especially worrisome since it was an emotional outburst during a government hearing with the world’s eyes watching, a situation in which any public official with self-control would be on his best, made-for-TV behavior. So, some may ask, should Clinton still be viewed as presidential timber? Or will these revelations be the yell of “timber!” for her political future?
Photo of Hillary Clinton: AP Images
