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I just had to contribute this, as I have it saved from 2000.

Hil's College Thesis Reveals Her Mind

News/Current Events Opinion (Published)
Source: New York Daily News
Published: 1/17/00 Author: BARBARA OLSON
Posted on 01/17/2000 10:30:59 PST by kattracks
"He who fears corruption fears life." - Saul Alinsky,

"Rules for Radicals"

This quote immediately came to mind after my reading of Hillary Rodham's
Wellesley College senior thesis - a document kept under lock and key since
the 1992 elections.

Back then, when researchers and journalists were searching for information
on the newly elected First Couple, Wellesley suddenly declared that it would
seal the thesis of any graduate who became President or First Lady.

A few weeks ago, however, I came into possession of Hillary's suppressed
thesis. In those 75 pages, the future First Lady reveals herself as someone
steeped in the political lore and history of one of America's most political
cities. No, not New York - Chicago. There she began her political journey
from Goldwater girl to leftist icon.

The thesis' title, "There is Only the Fight ... An Analysis of the Alinsky
Model," exposes Clinton's strong ideological attachment to her most
influential mentor, Saul Alinsky.

Reading this work makes it clear why she had to remove it from public view,
for Alinsky, who died in 1972, was a radical social activist who preached
grass-roots organizing and intense, confrontational politics.

While Clinton was studying under Alinsky, he was preparing what would be his
final and most important book: "Rules for Radicals," published less than two
years after Hillary graduated from Wellesley and only one year before his
death.

Alinsky's hold on Hillary is astonishingly evident in her thesis, which is
replete with his yet-unpublished political tactics. The thesis reveals that
he was moving from local organizing efforts to a new arena - the national
stage.

She wrote: "His [Alinsky's] new aspect, national planning, derives from the
necessity of entrusting social change to institutions, specifically the
United States government."

Alinsky, we can now see, taught Hillary the political tactics that she
successfully deployed in Arkansas and the White House and is now beginning
to use in New York.

What were his lessons?

Alinsky defined "obtaining power" as a key tactic of organizing his "mass
jujitsu." His formula for attack: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize
it and polarize it."

This principle has become the essence of the Clinton rapid-response tactic
and a key aspect of Hillary's attacks on what she has dubbed "a vast
right-wing conspiracy."

The Clinton White House has adhered to Alinsky's rule that "ridicule is
man's most potent weapon" and followed his advice to "let nothing get you
off your target."

Hillary discusses another Alinsky rule - "power is the very essence, the
dynamo of life" - in her thesis. Clearly, she had absorbed his lesson that
one must first obtain power to achieve real change.

But nowhere in her thesis - or in her later life - does she seem to
recognize the classical liberal critique that the relentless pursuit of
power is antithetical to democracy.

Perhaps the most prescient part of the thesis is a quote from a profile of
Alinsky in The Economist: "His charm lies in his ability to commit himself
completely to the people in the room with him. In a shrewd though subtle
way, he often manipulates them while speaking directly to their experience."

Although her thesis was written several years before she cornered Bill
Clinton in the Yale Law School library, Hillary had come to recognize the
potential power of a man of exceptional charm.

Alinsky recognized the potential of his student and offered her a paying job
to develop organizers for "mass power-based organizations."

Hillary's thesis confirmed the offer and called it "tempting." But she
decided law school was a better place to develop the skills necessary to
effect the changes in government she has spent so much of her life trying to
achieve.

Hillary's thesis received an A. So far, her political acumen in New York has
yielded her at best a C-. But her story continues to unfold.

Barbara Olson is the author of "Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary
Rodham Clinton."