Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Limbaugh, I gather, is asking whether the mother of Bill Cleveland, the pilot whose body was dragged through the streets of Somalia during the "Black Hawk Down" incident, ever protested Bill Clinton -- the point, presumably, being that only dirty filthy commies ever express anger at the President of the United States after the loss of a child in war. Real Americans would never do such a thing.

I find no evidence that Bill Cleveland's family ever mounted a protest against Clinton's Somalia policy.

The father of Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart, however, is another story.

Sergeant Shughart was one of two men posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the Somalia incident. According to Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal, Herbert Shughart

refused to shake President Clinton's hand at the Medal of Honor ceremony in 1994. "You are not fit to be president," Mr. Shughart told Mr. Clinton. The president did not reply, Mrs. Shughart reports.

I know there wasn't a public protest. That's not how people who hate Democrats do things. But the story made the rounds, and it somehow it found its way into Tom McKenney's 1994 Clinton Chronicles Book -- with this as a bit of garnish:

Clinton was visibly shocked, amazed, and momentarily speechless. It is revealing that he was surprised that the man should feel that way. Clinton really doesn't think the way most people do, seeming to lack a sense of personal responsibility. After a brief, awkward silence, Clinton caught his breath. Becoming angry, he turned to the mother of the dead her[o] and said, "What's he jumping on me for? I didn't kill the kid!"

Yes, he really did say that--to the bereaved mother--he really did! It was an eloquent demonstration of Clinton's insensitivity, and of his absolute inability to understand sacrifice and responsibility.


Freepers and others have spread that story for years.

Ah, but at least no parent ever embarrassed Clinton with a picket sign.

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