TERRORISTS' VICTIMS SPOIL CLINTON'S PLAN
By DEBORAH ORIN
The Clinton White House forgot one key thing - the FALN bombers had real victims who still suffer horribly.
When those victims decided to speak out and fight back, it suddenly got very hard to claim that members of the Puerto Rican bombing group were freedom fighters who deserved a get-out-of-jail card.
Very hard when you looked at the fingerless right hand of New York City Detective Richard Pastorella, maimed and blinded in both eyes as he tried to defuse an FALN bomb on New Year's Eve 1982.
Very hard when Joe Connor, his voice shaking, said his dad was blown up on his ninth birthday - and he hates to think his dad's life counts for nothing because Bill Clinton wants to put his wife in the Senate.
Once the victims spoke out, a storm escalated as mainstream Democrat after Democrat - Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan, former Mayor Ed Koch - blasted the idea.
Sure, the White House denied Clinton was trying to boost his wife politically with Puerto Ricans, but the victims said he was - so did Koch - and there wasn't anything else to explain his surprise move.
Every police group in sight begged him not to. He'd only given three other clemencies out of 3,042, but now he wanted to give 16 at once - even though the FALNers hadn't even asked for it as the rules require.
For three weeks Hillary Clinton supported her husband's plan to free terrorists, but because the victims chose to fight back, it began turning into a disaster for her Senate bid - and she flip-flopped and blasted it.
The voter math shows why.
Puerto Ricans account for just 5 to 7 percent of the vote in New York State, and she could have expected to get almost all of that vote in any case.
But Jews and ethnic Catholics are a majority of the state's vote, and clemency for terrorists doesn't play well with them.
Jews account for 12 percent of the vote and tend to be very concerned about terrorism - no wonder the Anti-Defamation League came out against Clinton's clemency plan.
Catholics account for 42 to 44 percent of the state vote and Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) last week pointed out that picking the FALN over the police plays very badly with swing ethnic Catholics or Reagan Democrats.
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Now maybe to the real issue and that is freeing Pollard at least both agree that is what must be done with the traitor.
On THIS WEEK this morning, there was, what I thought, a pretty nifty discussion at the round table with Georgie, Cokie and all regarding this. Georgie says something like "I doubt they've even talked about it, they don't talk much, you know, so he probably didn't know what she was thinking about it." Cokie says something like, "hey, according to her interview in TALK Mag. they talk all the time, they talk in the living room, they talk in the dining room, they talk in the bedroom, just talk, talk, talk. Then she says that HillyHo didn't respond three weeks ago or two weeks ago or last week because she waited to hear and see what the polls were going to show. BUSTED!
There was another great comment from George Will re: the new house financing and he said politics and living off other people is what these people do. Quite a few neat jabs regarding FALN and the new house during the round table discussion.
I don't paint Cokie as "pure, virgin white" journalist, but she seems to have little patience for outright liars. I wonder how she likes working with a slimy, pseudo-journalist, like Georgie.
I keep thinking to myself that, "Wow!! The Roberts household must really need the money!"
Ditto for George Will. This gig must be important to him to tolerate a lightweight like Georgie as a "peer" in a chair next to him.
Now maybe to the real issue and that is freeing Pollard at least both agree that is what must be done with the traitor.
Yes, indeed - There's no path for the First Witch to make a mad dash for the door on this issue.
I found The ''Round-table'' segment to have been thoroughly enjoyable, especially now that Sam Donaldson is back.
Watching Him and George F. Will match wits is worth paying an admission charge.
Your points are right on..
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