Hillary Clinton’s “Experience”: Northern Ireland Story Falling Apart

2:35 am EST March 8th, 2008 | News | 9 Comments

Oh noes.

Hillary Clinton had no direct role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and is a “wee bit silly” for exaggerating the part she played, according to Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of the province.

“I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around,” he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely “the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets” during elections. “She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player.”

Mrs Clinton has made Northern Ireland key to her claims of having extensive foreign policy experience, which helped her defeat Barack Obama in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday after she presented herself as being ready to tackle foreign policy crises at 3am.

“I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland,” she told CNN on Wednesday. But negotiators from the parties that helped broker the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 told The Daily Telegraph that her role was peripheral and that she played no part in the gruelling political talks over the years.

And the response from her campaign sort of cements how ludicrous this claim is.

Responding to inquiries from this newspaper, Hillary Clinton’s campaign issued a statement from Mr Hume. “I am quite surprised that anyone would suggest that Hillary Clinton did not perform important foreign policy work as First Lady,” the statement said.

…

“There is no doubt that the people of Northern Ireland think very positively of Hillary Clinton’s support for our peace process, due to her visits to Northern Ireland and her meetings with so many people. In private she made countless calls and contacts, speaking to leaders and opinion makers on all sides, urging them to keep moving forward.”

Wow. She gave them phone calls and encouragement. Nothing says commander in chief than an encouraging phone call!!

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9 Responses to “Hillary Clinton’s “Experience”: Northern Ireland Story Falling Apart”

  1. Robster says:
    March 8, 2008 at 3:06 am

    Wow. That’s like me taking credit for helping my Raiders win the AFC Championship in 2002 because I watched a few games on television and bought a jersey and hat. (laughs)

  2. Jamie Pitts says:
    March 8, 2008 at 7:25 am

    “an encouraging phone call”…AT 3AM!

  3. Jamie Pitts says:
    March 8, 2008 at 7:33 am

    Robster….maybe the blogosphere can pump up the wurlitzer, in much the same way as the republicans do (see “Gore invents the internet”), riding on your comment.

    Hiliary WINS Super Bowl – buys a ticket!

    Hiliary is CURING AIDS – attends fundraiser!

    etc…

  4. Masson’s Blog - A Citizen’s Guide to Indiana » Hillary’s “Experience” says:
    March 8, 2008 at 8:32 am

    [...] active participant in policy matters and when she was more or less a bystander. Oliver Willis has a post up suggesting that Clinton is attempting to take credit for stuff in which she had no significant [...]

  5. Tony Iovino says:
    March 8, 2008 at 8:59 am

    Jon Stewart noted that the phone in Hillary’s “3 am” commercial rang 7 times, which seemed a long time. He wondered why the phone wasn’t picked up a bit quicker.

    Well, you got to get up, go to the next room, shoo out the floozy, wake up the guy with the experience and get him to answer the phone.

    That takes time.

  6. The Grand Panjandrum says:
    March 8, 2008 at 10:40 am

    Wow. She gave them phone calls and encouragement. Nothing says commander in chief than an encouraging phone call!!

    Come on ! Get with the program! Its only fancy speeches that don’t count. Just words. Oh…. except for the speech that she gave in China. Now THAT was a speech because she was really mean to the Chinese Government in one of the paragraphs.

    (I’ve been lurking for a while, and couldn’t resist commenting on this one.)

  7. durablend says:
    March 8, 2008 at 5:51 pm

    Did everyone see the story about how one of the kids in Queen Hillary’s 3am commercial (which used stock footage from years ago) supports Obama?

  8. August J. Pollak says:
    March 8, 2008 at 8:48 pm

    Meanwhile, thanks to Hillary’s latest ad campaign, guess which presidential candidate most Americans now want to “answer the phone at 3:00 AM”?

    McCain.

    I wonder if a clip reel of her praising McCain’s experience will be used at the Republican National Convention, or just in the ads afterward.

  9. Fred Couples says:
    March 8, 2008 at 9:45 pm

    Here’s what Hillary herself had to say in a column she wrote in 1995 (when she was supposedly saving the world). Sounds pretty much to be in Laura Bush’s league to me.

    http://www.creators.com/opinion/hillary-clinton/talking-it-over-08-01-01.html

    “A few years ago, I could never have imagined the range of activities that are part of my life today, such as defending public television, planning state dinners and visiting the CIA with the President.
    I have also met a lot of interesting people. Some are famous, like Lady Bird Johnson, Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa. But most are men and women we never hear about who wake up in the morning, do the best they can, and contribute more to their families and communities than most of the celebrities and public figures whose names regularly appear on the evening news.”

    Here’s what I found that she wrote about Ireland. While there’s some nice first lady type stuff – nothing remotely presidential.

    http://www.creators.com/opinion/hillary-clinton/talking-it-over-1998-09-02.html
    http://www.creators.com/opinion/hillary-clinton/talking-it-over-1997-11-04.html