Letters to the Editor
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@haggismold
You are generous in your reply; I do appreciate it. I definitely remain a fan.
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Obama Campaign - JLR
Just Like Republicans. By the day I'm certain Karl Rove is on their team.
So let's just cut to the chase. Mrs. Clinton was "Billary" , a radical feminist wearing the pants and running the WhiteHouse when that's convenient, and when it isn't then she was watering pots of flowers and baking cookies.
I think we can all scroll to the end of the thread on this note.
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@doc, haggismold
I personally think its better for Hillary to come out with some legimate claim to experience in Ireland, but the entire Northern Ireland political situation is crazy, for lack of a better word, and I've come to be suspicious of what politicians claim is on the surface. Northern Ireland isn't exactly a good model if you're looking to stay in Iraq for a 100 years.
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Uncle Fester
"Northern Ireland isn't exactly a good model if you're looking to stay in Iraq for a 100 years."
I'll say. The English have been there for 837 years and counting.
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A Legit claim to Hillary being involved in brokering peace in Northern Ireland?
There is no such animal. Irish authorities themselves have heatily scoffed at the notion, just as nobody in modern Ireland these days believes much that there's a pot of leprechaun's gold at the end of the 'ol rainbow. Facts man, we want facts. Not fairy stories.
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@manos
Dude, you should read the link that doc provided before. It sounds like Hillary did a lot of meeting and greeting, phone calling, and no doubt some arm twisting godfather style. Credit where credit is due. What does it really add up to? I don't know, but at least it sounds more compelling than Bosnia.
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for those too lazy to follow a link
From THE IRISH ECHO
"I am quite surprised that anyone would suggest that Hillary Clinton did not perform important foreign policy work as first lady. I can state from firsthand experience that she played a positive role for over a decade in helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland," said former SDLP leader and Nobel laureate John Hume [also recipient of the Ghandi Award and the Martin Luther King Peace award] in a statement responding to critical press reports. "She visited Northern Ireland, met with very many people and gave very decisive support to the peace process. In private she made countless calls and contacts, speaking to leaders and opinion makers on all sides, urging them to keep moving forward," said Hume.
"Anyone criticizing her foreign policy involvement should look at her very active and positive approach to Northern Ireland and speak with the people of Northern Ireland who have the highest regard for her and are very grateful for her very active support for our peace process," Hume concluded in his defense of Hillary's Irish legacy.
Not surprisingly, some of the senator's most vocal defenders have been women activists from Northern Ireland.
In a series of statements compiled by labor and fair employment advocate Inez McCormack, Clinton was lauded for her "decade-long support" of the peace process.
"We believe it is important for others to know the pivotal role Mrs. Clinton played in helping us in Northern Ireland at critical junctures in the peace process. She supported us over many years and we will always be grateful to her," said McCormack
"Hillary Clinton took risks for peace in asking me and others to bring women and communities from both traditions to affirm their capacity to work for common purpose," McCormack said.
"She used her immense influence to give women like me space to develop this work and validated it every step of the way. This approach is now taken for granted but it wasn't then. She told us that if we take risks for peace, she would stay with us on that journey. In my experience, it took hard work, attention to detail and a commitment of time and energy which she delivered steadily and where needed over the last decade," McCormack added.
Similar testimonies have been forthcoming from other women, Protestant and Catholic. They include prominent community worker Elaine Crozier, Baroness May Blood, a member of the British House of Lords, Geraldine McAteer, chief executive of the West Belfast Partnership Board, Avila Kilmurray, head of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, Patricia Lewsley, former member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and currently Commissioner for Children and Young People, and Joanna McVey, former CEO of the Fermanagh-published Impartial Reporter newspaper and chair of the Fermanagh Trust.
"She turned empathy into action. Her iconic address to the first Vital Voices conference in Belfast in 1998 was truly inspirational and her ongoing support for women's role in peace building and the transformation of economic and political life in the North was manifested through other initiatives and her own personal involvement," stated McVey in her statement.
That 1998 visit to the North was just one of seven undertaken by Clinton between 1995 and 2004, both with president Clinton and on her own. In addition, Clinton has hosted numerous visitors from both communities in the North on American soil.
A precise accounting of Clinton's visits to Ireland and her work for Irish peace forms the basis for a book being published later this year by Stella O'Leary, Washington. D.C.-based president of the Irish American Democrats lobby group.
O'Leary has been one of Hillary Clinton's most fervent backers over the years and in a statement to the Echo took particular exception to a critical column penned by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann that took issue with recent campaign statements made by Clinton about her peace process initiatives.
The column, headlined "Hillary Had No Role in Irish Peace," characterized the statement as being tantamount to Walter Mitty-like dreams.
Anything but, countered O'Leary. "It will come as a huge surprise to the Irish, North and South, to hear Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's claim that Senator Hillary Clinton played no role in the Irish peace process," said O'Leary.
"Starting with the Christmas visit to Belfast in 1995, Hillary Clinton recognized that the participation of women was critical in bringing about an end to the conflict, and she set about inspiring women to become politically involved," O'Leary said.
"The meeting with Mrs. (Joyce) McCartan was a prelude to Senator Clinton opening a larger dialogue with women leaders on both sides of the border. At her prompting, the White House arranged for a delegation of American women leaders to meet in Belfast with their Irish counterparts and the outcome of that meeting was the Vital Voices Conference in 1998.
"As a result of that conference, Northern Ireland women became much more involved in running for elective office and when the time came, the Women's Party were full participants with George Mitchell in the peace negotiations.
"Morris and McGann do not carry a single quote from any leader in Ireland on Senator Clinton's contribution to the solution of the Irish conflict. Nor do they carry a quote from Senator Mitchell. I challenge them to find one political leader, of any significance in Ireland, who does not agree that Senator Clinton's involvement with the women of Northern Ireland, and her advocacy for children damaged by the conflict, played a crucial role in bringing about the Good Friday Agreement," O'Leary said.
"Morris and McGann mention a few of the people Senator Clinton met on her visits to Ireland and scoff at the importance of those meetings."
O'Leary said that in her forthcoming book she would be including tributes to Clinton for her role in the peace process from individuals including Bertie Ahern, Cherie Blair, Gerry Adams, Bono and John Hume.