Differing Media Outrage: Hillary’s 2001 Car Accident Was Totally Ignored

America’s media have been falling all over themselves with outrage concerning this weekend’s quail hunting accident involving the vice president. Yet, when a van containing Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) rolled through a checkpoint at the Westchester County airport in 2001 injuring a policeman, the press paid virtually no attention. A LexisNexis search identified only six reports on this subject in the two weeks after it happened, with one being an October 16, 2001 Journal News (Westchester County, N.Y.) article:

“A Westchester County police officer was treated for a minor injury after a Secret Service agent with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's motorcade tried to cruise past a security checkpoint at the county airport. The incident - which police and Secret Service chalked up to miscommunication - happened at 10:30 a.m. Sunday as Clinton was headed to an airport hangar to catch a flight for a Democratic rally in Syracuse.”

The article continued:

“County police Detective William Rehm said the Secret Service called the police that morning to arrange for an escort through a newly installed terminal checkpoint. The police told the Secret Service, which oversees security for the former first lady, to meet an officer in a marked patrol car at the airport entrance on Route 120, and to follow that officer through the checkpoint.

“But when the two-car convoy arrived, the Secret Service drivers blew past the officer and headed down the airport's access road. Seconds later, when the motorcade came upon the checkpoint, the Secret Service drivers continued through, ignoring signs and several officers gesturing for the vehicles to stop.”

According to a Washington Times report the same day:

“Officer Dymond, 47, said Mrs. Clinton's van approached the checkpoint at about 35 mph. The driver, he said, was talking on a cell phone as he yelled for him to stop, but only after the police officer threw his shoulder into the van while banging on its side did the vehicle come to a halt about 100 yards beyond the checkpoint. He described the agent driving as ‘quite agitated’ when asked to show his identification. The officer was taken to a hospital for treatment of bruises.”

The incident was determined to be an accident, and a misunderstanding. However, besides the Journal News and Washington Times, according to LexisNexis, only the Boston Herald, the National Journal, the Bulletin’s Frontrunner, and the Hotline did reports on this incident.

Compare that with the furor over a hunting accident this weekend: though an imprecise measurement, LexisNexis identified 649 reports since Monday containing the name “Whittington.”

As an aside, according to Monday's NewsMax report on this issue, neither Hillary nor anyone from her office bothered to apologize to the officer, or check in to see how he was doing.