
Chelsea Clinton’s personal reactions to the Benghazi and 9/11 tragedies, revealed in public and a private writings, manifest a robotic, politically correct, and peculiarly unemotional response to the catastrophic terrorist attacks in New York and Benghazi.
Ms. Clinton’s own words were disclosed in a private email to her mother after Benghazi and in an article she wrote for Talk magazine in 2001. Both are stunning in the lack of empathy and the astoundingly pedantic and sometimes implausible musings.
On the night of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Hillary Clinton emailed her daughter and told her about the tragedy:
“Two of our officers in Benghazi were killed by an Al-Qaeda-like group. The Ambassador, whom I handpicked and a young communications officer on temporary duty with a wife and two young children, Very sad day and I fear more of the same tomorrow.”
(The content was originally redacted by the State Department, but released by the Benghazi Committee as evidence that Hillary, indeed, knew that there had been a terrorist attack and not a protest gone wrong.)
Chelsea’s response to the news of the terrorist murders was a policy wonk litany of constitutional amendments and historical events. For some inexplicable reason, she even invoked the 16th amendment, which instituted the income tax!!!
Huh?
Here’s exactly what she said:
“I am so sorry about the State Department officer killed in Libya and the ongoing precariousness in Egypt and Libya. Such anathema to us as Americans — and a painful reminder of how long it took modernism to take root in the U.S. after the Enlightenment, the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 19th amendments, removal of censorship norms and laws. Heading to bed to read. Strange day here. Another bright blue beautiful chilly September 11. Much to discuss when we can, hopefully tomorrow.”
Sounds like she was reviewing her old history class notes on European political thought and post-civil war America to impress the teacher. She shows no outrage whatsoever at the murder of the innocent patriots, offers a perfunctory sympathy for one “officer” killed (nothing about the other one) and for the “precariousness in Egypt and Libya.” And then she turns to her history outline before she discusses the weather.
What kind of emotionally disconnected person is Chelsea Clinton? A tragedy is reduced to a historical timeline, with no concern for the human lives lost or the implications of a violent assault on American property.
She tells her mother that there is much to discuss, but one gets the impression that what she means is more talk about the mumbo-jumbo she wrote about.
And what conceivable connection did the income tax have to the terrorist murders and unrest in Libya? Looks like she copied her notes wrong. That one’s a mystery.
What’s not a mystery is her icy, detached reaction to brutal murders. Not an ounce of compassion for the victims and their families.
It was an isolated response. We had another glimpse into Chelsea Clinton’s thinking in 2002, when she wrote a piece for Talk magazine about her terrifying experience on 9/11 in New York City.
It’s amazing. While she says she was running along with a throng of hundreds of New Yorkers who were heading uptown in the aftermath of the attack, she recalls that she was concerned about the federal budget crisis. Just think about that. The worst terrorist attack on American soil and she is pontificating about the Bush budget cuts. Here’s what she said:
“One thing I recall is the somewhat irrational medley of thoughts running through my head: my parents, the tax cut, and Humpty Dumpty.”
What about the victims?
She was fixated on the tax cut? When New York was under attack and thousands of people were killed in a slaughter that was witnessed on television? She was worried about the Bush tax cut!
“I worried that with the tax cut we wouldn’t have enough money to repair New York and D.C. and to help the families of the thousands I knew must have died.”
That was the closest she came to acknowledging what the tragedy was about.
She continued: “I was expounding on the detriments of Bush’s tax cut as we approached Grand Central Terminal and were met with hordes of people running out of the station.”
Is she kidding? Or is she simply incapable of appropriate emotion? Who summons up a tax cut and “expounds” on it as hundreds of people race past you, fleeing a possible next target?
We were in New York that day, too, and witnessed the fear and sorrow that dominated the streets. From our office on 5th and 44th Street, around the corner from Grand Central, we could see and smell the black smoke from the Twin Towers. We joined the crowds that walked uptown on 5th Avenue. After a few minutes, we realized what was so odd. It was the absolute eerie quiet. Thousands of people were silently and orderly heading uptown. No one was talking. No one was running. Except Chelsea Clinton. And, according to her, she was blabbering about the “detriments of the Bush tax cuts”.
“Once we stopped running I started praying. I prayed for my country and my city. I stopped berating the tax cut and started praying that the president would rise to lead us.”
Then she got to the point — how everything is about the Clintons.
“I thanked God my mother was a senator representing New York and that Rudy Giuliani was our mayor. I have never reacted so viscerally to a leader, particularly not to one I had been criticizing just the day before for some insensitivity or other…
…As soon as my father got back to New York, I was anxious to bring him to Manhattan……I knew he would want to connect with everyone who was confused and suffering…
…As he always does, my father made me extremely proud.
…My mother, meanwhile, had worked nonstop, and as my father and I walked around Union Square, person after person approached us to tell us how grateful they were to her, how proud they were of here. I am still so unspeakably proud of her too, and as a New Yorker, grateful for her and her colleagues’ efforts.”
You see, to Chelsea it wasn’t about the 2977 people who died in the attack, including the 343 brave firefighters who lost their lives, or the 37 police officers from the Port Authority, or the 23 New York City Police Officers, or the 8 emergency medical officers who were killed. No it was about Bill and Hillary Clinton — and by extension Chelsea. The aftermath was a time to go out and stroll the streets with her father and accept the thanks of the grateful crowds.
Chelsea made no mention whatsoever of the horrific losses, except in the context of the budget cuts. Did she happen to notice the fighter pilots overhead, the lines at the Red Cross to donate blood (when none was needed because everyone was dead)? Did she happen to notice scores of people frantically trying to call their loved ones in the Towers?
Probably not. This was another event to showcase the Clintons and excoriate the Republicans.
What her writings showcase is a shockingly self-involved, unemotional young woman who showed no empathy about two catastrophic events.