Hillary does recall that in her meetings with women in Ireland, she’d spoken with them about the troubles and how to find a way to “achieve peace and reconciliation.” But she turns that into a discussion of her own personal problems with Bill and Monica, “Now that’s what I had to try to do in the midst of my own heartbreaking troubles.”
Hillary makes one last mention of Ireland in her book, citing the important role of her husband and former Sen. George Mitchell in the peace process.
That’s it.
Bill’s memoirs are also totally devoid of any memories of any role at all by Hillary in the peace process. Other than the Christmas tree lighting and attending receptions and meeting celebrities — Bono, Seamaus Heaney, etc. — there is nothing substantive about Hillary.
In elaborating on her so-called role in the Irish peace process, candidate Hillary now says:
"And I know it’s frustrating. It took years before the Catholics and the Protestants before Sinn Fein and you know, the DUP would even talk to each other … I mean George Mitchell sat at a table sometimes for hours and nobody would say a word or if they would they would say: 'would you tell him this?' Or 'here's what I think'. And that went o n for years. But eventually there were breakthroughs. You could build enough trust and connection."
So what does that have to do with her and what was her deep involvement in the Irish peace process? Hillary never explains.
But Bill Clinton said, as he desperately tried to help Hillary overcome her new found deficit in Iowa, that an unnamed man had said that Hillary had played "an independent role in the Irish peace process.”
Clinton offered no explanation of who the anonymous man was or what exactly this “independent” role was for Hillary.
But Bill does describe his own role — and Hillary was nowhere to be found:
"Good Friday was one of the happiest days of my presidency. Seventeen hours past the deadline for a decision, all the parties in Northern Ireland agreed to a plan to end 30 years of sectarian violence. I had been up most of the night, trying to help George Mitchell close the deal. Besides Georg e, I talked to Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, David Trimble, and Gerry Adams twice, before going to bed at 2:30 a.m. At five, George woke me with a request to call Adams again to seal the deal.”
Hillary apparently slept through the night — perhaps dreaming her Walter Mitty dream of delivering the peace agreement single handedly. |