Hillary Clinton, the fire marshal and Bill O'Reilly: The Swamp
The Swamp
Posted January 5, 2008 11:39 AM
The Swamp

By Mike Dorning

PENACOOK, N.H.—Call her the dutiful hostess. Or the anxious politician. Or the unreformed control freak.

But it quickly became apparent why Sen. Hillary Clinton was standing stern-faced in front of the oversized American flag at Merrimack Valley High School as she was introduced.

All around the gymnasium were the very thing that politicians most hate to see, even more so when they have suffered a loss that leaves them vulnerable to a media storyline of waning momentum: empty seats.

Almost as bad, backed up in the school hallway were unhappy voters, lined up and unable to glimpse the candidate whom they had risen early on Saturday morning to come see.

And standing between them was a determined fire marshal.

So Clinton had barely launched into her stump speech when it all became too much for her.

“Mr. fire marshal, we’ve got empty seats,” she declared from the platform, summoning the audience members to make her case. “Everyone raise your hand if you have a seat next to you.”

A few more people are allowed to enter. But, evidently, not enough for this candidate.

“Mr. fire marshal, we’ve got seats down here,” she interrupted herself again, motioning to the front rows and halting her stump speech to vamp pleasantries about New Hampshire to wait for more people to file in.

Still not good enough. “Mr. fire marshal, we’ve got bleacher seats as well,” she motioned, stirring campaign aides to action removing a sign evidently deemed an obstacle.

So Hillary Clinton got her wish: a full gymnasium.

But not every visitor may have been so welcome. As Clinton opened the floor to questions, the first person to stand up began by pointing out the man surrounded by a camera crew standing just to the side of the platform.

“Oh, look,” said Clinton, spotting a Clinton nemesis and FOX News commentator, “Bill O’Reilly’s here.”

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Comments

As the old saying still goes - if you can't take the heat - stay out of the kitchen (and she even had the fire marshall there) -
seems like she could take the heat a lot better when she was younger - after all - she found those Rose law firm records among the rubble, didn't she?


She should have asked the fire marshall to hose down the Obama campaign. It appears the heat is getting to her.


Wow...sounds like Hillary's Presidential Train might be ready to de-rail!! Iowa, America thanks you!


When things go wrong, they go really wrong.

This will be a story in New Hampshire newspapers tomorrow that Hillary could have done without.

And what is Bill O'Lielly doing at a Clinton event?


“Oh, look,” said Clinton, spotting a Clinton nemesis and FOX News commentator, “Bill O’Reilly’s here.”

Hey Bill-O, better late than never. Democrats welcome you!!!


Oh, she looked so presidential! So firm! So ready! so spontaneous! so in control! So strong! So concerned about the little people!


Hillary may be the only person alive who can make Bill O'Reilly look like the good guy.
Go away now Hillary, your time is up.


Bill Oh Really is a vulture! He must have access to the new poll data. Hillary's campaign is crashing faster than Bush's economy.


What's different is that Democrats want to let everyone IN (including Bill O'Liar from Fox Noise).
Bush has always pre-screened his audiences to keep independent thinkers OUT.
RR


goodbye Hillary, time to settle down with Bill and retire quietly to Little Rock.


Faux Comedy Channel's own Bill O'Really,winner of 74 Peabody awards,just can't get enough the "Liberal Elite" crowd.

Bait and switch.O'Really gets all the loser wing nuts foaming at the mouth,then spends as much time as possible sucking up to MSM!!!!

Hey Billo,how about another tax cut for you and Rushie boy!!!!!


Fox! You missed a golden opportunity for big laughs the other night by not allowing Bill O'Reilly to play in the sandbox with Brit Hume and his Droopy Eyed All Stars. Think about that: they sent their highest-rated news guy home because putting a live microphone in his hand to cover the election results would risk making the network look silly. As if that horse hadn't left the barn ten years ago:

http://www.newshounds.us/2008/01/03/oreilly_dismissive_of_iowa_results.php#more


I can't believe anyone in that state would even bother to see a canadiate who was willing to destroy our Naton and give it away to Twenty Million Illegal Aliens for votes ! I can't wait until the President of Mexico visits in Feb. and we can watch the Democrats sit up and beg ! Did you know the Government of Mexico would intervene for any Illegal Caught up in Az.'s new tough laws ? You won't read about it in this rag .


Bill O'Reilly beats out CNN and MSNBC combined in those time slots..Fox news tells the truth and is fair and balanced..That is why Hillary was upset that he was there..Democrats are afraid of him because he will expose their hypocrisy and lack of ideas except the same old tired liberal ideas which will end up on the ash-heap of history


It seems the republican Bush enabelers posting here have no sense of pespective.........I'm not wild about Hillary but to say she's " ready to derail " or " her time is up " , is to miss the point ........... One Primary has taken place.........gee whiz , do you also assume Huck has it sewn up since he won in Iowa ?...........that kind of reasoning is why we make fun of you all........you don't get it..........I am going to love this next year as you continue to tear each other up..........the country will be much the better for it............Our long nightmare is drawing to a close..........thanks to the excesses of the repubs themselves...you see , too much hate ( for Hillary ) makes your thinking faulty......


This article was poorly written. All it did was create confusion as to WHAT the problem was in the gymnasium. The writer made it seem as though the issue with empty seats was Hillary's popularity as a candidate, then turned and made it look like she was the bad guy for "forcing" the fire marshal to seat more people. The seating should not have been in place if it was in violation of the fire code. My feeling is that the fire marshal was either feeling the effects of power in his little gymnasium world, or showing his red party colors.


When the chips are down, that's when you get a good measure of the kind of leader that Hillary is. She is Presidential!!
As for that sweet talking Obama guy, he who's got a consistent record voting 'Absent' on important issues, he got Iowa and maybe NH and Illinois but that's it.
America will see him for what he is -hollow! Sweet -sweet talking- but hollow!!


Hillary for President! :-)


Propaganda machines like FOX news are a bigger threat to our democracy than the terrorists.Too many idiots think its real news and not spin.


Oscar, your comments made me laugh. And cringe, too, but mostly laugh.

Of COURSE, anyone who is different MUST be bad. Of course, Hillary MUST be, as you say, a "power mad lesbo". God forbid a woman be strong. And since Obama has that funny name, of course he MUST be Muslim. Which is the societally permissible way for people to try and point out his cultural differences without actually saying "No black folks".

I'm sure this is the reason so many people love Huckabee and Romney. They're both selling the idea that, if you elect them, everyone will magically be transported back to the 1950s, where everyone had a job, a house, and looked and acted just like each other. And by "everyone", I mean "white Anglo-Saxon heterosexual middle-class".


please, when is this country going to wake up to reality and stop following the meadia like sheeps? can't you think for yourselves????
Please, do me a favor and once think for yourselves. voting for a guy just because Oprah said so??
and please, Obama has no experience, plus his entire campain is based on stealing on Hillary's ideas and making them his own. He has no experience and this country will be in trouble if he wins. But then again men hate women so much that they rather vote for an inexperienced guy than for a smart woman. I see this on daily basis in the corporate world, smart women never win, it's the sneaky men who steal their ideas that win. I hope the democtractic party is smart enough to see this and elect Hillary who is smart and she truely knows what she is talking about. Obama would be nothing it it wouldn't be for Hillary and Oprah.


DildoReilly's latest Fox Spews assignment is to attend Democratic events and plant loaded questions to the candidates. This is what he was doing when he and his crew breached the Secret Service barrier protecting Obama and roughed up one of his campaign staff.


"Bill O'Reilly beats out CNN and MSNBC combined in those time slots..Fox news tells the truth and is fair and balanced."
John Peeloffass is just another demented Fox Spews viewers. "We Exhort, You Comply"
It is enough to make a good American want to projectile vomit


Yes Heywood, Billo and his camera crew breached the Secret Service bubble protecting Obama.
This breach should mandate stripping Billo and Fox Spews of further campaign event credentials.
Even Sirhan Sirhan was a screened and credentialed person at the Ambassador Hotel


Bill O'Reilly = RNC stooge. A dumb old bully. Bill is a freak. Biil quit stalking our future democratic president!

Barack Obama!!!


Please. A win by Hillary in November will be no better for America and the bulk of Americans than would a win by RuPaul Guiliani. We have her husband Bill to thank for the further degradation of media laws in this country and she would do the bidding of her corporate masters much as has been going on the last 7 years.
The woman is George Bush in a pantsuit. If you want a continuation of one nation, of the corporation, for the corporation and by the corporation, she's your gal.Just like Bill, she'll throw a bone to the peasants from time to time, but it's more of the same folks. A for profit news media does not serve the nation and it's people any more than a for profit health care system. If you are as concerned about which Spears girl is knocked up this year as you are about the future of your fragile democracy, it's time to get off your ass and do something


It makes me cringe to read the racist crap couched in langauge so transparent even a blind mice could see through. The facts are plain for everyone to see - this is a country filled with hatred, it was founded on theft, genocide, and slavery. Today it stands as an athama to forward-looking peoples across the globe. Until the Bush Crime Family, the view of America was one of a country that was not anchored in fairness and equality but was working toward that end. Today, because of these criminals we have been warped back in time to an age best forgotten and understandably it was a shock for all observing the events transpiring within our borders. The world dislikes us and we will see the results of what the Bush Crime Family have done to harm us for years to come.


This blog is aptly named. Comments are screened? DildoReilly isn't an over-the-top personal attack? It is outrageous that the Tribune provides a space for this kind of juvenile ranting.


TV Ratings are easy to look up online and John P needs to do his homework to post here in the reality based community.
Keith Olberman regularly beats Bill Oreally and Faux Noise has lost 25% of their audience lately.
Faux doesn't know how to tell the truth.
Trolls go home


I PRAY AMERICA WAKES UP AND REALIZES WHAT HILARY CAN DO FOR OUR COUNTRY/MARGARET KUST


Hillary you had 8 years now it's someone elses turn.

Time for retirement.


So the real truth has come out in this election year and it ain't coming from Obama. It's coming from a country that in 2008 continues to be filled with masoginists and far too many women who are afraid to stand up against them. The true colors of this country are beginning to show. Women need not apply for the most powerful position in the world. The presidency is the private domain of the men of this country.

Obama doesn't have nearly enough experience or wisdom to deal with the issues facing this country, after bush & co. leaves. Nor does he have a clue how the Congress is going to be the one telling him what to do, not the other way around He's a light weight. But that doesn't seem to matter. Just so long as he's a guy whose willing to stand up there and sell us out down the river so that he can be the first black president, it doesn't matter. But it does to me. The last thing this country needs is another unqualified male calling the shots. Didn't anyone learn from the huge mistake the same conventional wisdom spouted about George W. that we should elect him because he was the type of guy you wanted to have a beer with? Wow, how did that work for us?

Obama will be eaten alive. He is not going to "change" a damn thing. He's just a lot of talk with nothing to back it up, except a country obviously afraid of a strong, smart woman.

I'm not giving up on Hillary yet. I'm still filled with "hope" that people will wake and see that Obama is not the man for the job. This time, the most qualified candiate happens to be a woman.

We all know that if Obama were a black woman and had the exact same creditionals, charisma, gave the same "feel good" speeches, had Oprah's support, BUT also had the same lack of experience as Obama has, she wouldn't even be considered a viable candidate and would be down there with Gravalle.

This isn't about hope, this is about a lingering and extreme prejudiced that still exists against women in this country which has once again raised its ugly head and now is the elephant in the room everyone is ignoring.

Yeah, women have come a long way baby!


Experience is overrated. Abraham Lincoln had less experience than Obama going into his Presidency, and he was the greatest President in history.


Yes Heywood, Billo and his camera crew breached the Secret Service bubble protecting Obama.
This breach should mandate stripping Billo and Fox Spews of further campaign event credentials.
Even Sirhan Sirhan was a screened and credentialed person at the Ambassador Hotel


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