As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exited her post and rumors abuzz about her likely 2016 presidential run, a key duplicitous reaction of hers warrants attention.
In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2012 massacre in Benghazi, Libya which killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens; Clinton, along with President Barack Obama, was quick to blame the attacks on an obscure and poorly made YouTube video offensive to Muslims. (Clinton proceeded to observe Ramadan two days after the attack; where she "also highlighted the outpouring of support the United States has received from the Muslim world.") While both claimed the video was no excuse for the murderous rampage, Obama called it “crude and disgusting.” Clinton condemned the video as “disgusting and reprehensible,” vehemently denouncing such an offense to “a great religion.”
Yet in hindsight even CBS meekly reported that the video, which had been on YouTube for months before the Benghazi attack, was not the cause. It was a planned attack by Muslim fanatics on the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001; the infamous day other Muslim fanatics committed the worst terrorist attack in this nation’s history and on its soil.
Clinton made clear her respect and reverence for Islam, for her an apparently exclusive sentiment. When Clinton was First Lady, gearing up for her eventual New York State Senate seat, circa 1999, she went against then Mayor Rudy Giuliani regarding a publicly funded exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. An exhibition there featured a “topless woman as the centerpiece” for The Last Supper as well as a depiction of the Virgin Mary smeared in elephant dung, pornographic pictures attached. Giuliani objected to taxpayer money being used to fund such an exhibit. "There is nothing in the Constitution that says that the 1st Amendment requires that the taxpayers fund aggressive, vicious, disgusting attacks on religion," he said.
Clinton called this vow to block the subsidy if the show commenced “censorship.” Apparently she thought taxpayers should be on the hook for $7 million a year to this museum despite its showcasing exhibits blatantly blasphemous to Christianity. But she responds to Muslims killing Americans by praising Islam. Meanwhile the filmmaker behind the video gets a year in prison on a trumped up probation violation charge. One could argue his First Amendment rights have been censored.
Clinton’s duplicity calls to mind Maureen Murphy’s famous quote, “The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces.”
