On her 12 p.m. ET hour show on Monday, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell gifted viewers with a trip down memory lane to Hillary Clinton’s “amazing” college days. A mere twenty-one years old at the time of the speech, Clinton represented her classmates at the 1969 Commencement of Wellesley College. The way Andrea Mitchell and The Wall Street Journal's Jeanne Cummings fawned over the speech was akin to Chris Matthews describing the thrill he gets up his leg every time he hears Obama speak:
ANDREA MITCHELL: It is just amazing to hear that, uh, that young voice of Hillary Rodham at the time. Jeanne Cummings, a graduate of Wellesley College and a real class leader and a political activist as she was heading to Yale Law School and where she would of course then meet Bill Clinton. Jeanne.
JEANNE CUMMINGS: Yes, and it’s interesting that, uh, you know here on tomorrow night she may become the, uh, first female nominee of either national party, which is, you know, breaking a really big glass ceiling and a big historic moment for the very things she was fighting for way back then as a college student and then later in her early career for the rights of women and children and others. And it has been one long line of consistency on her part when it comes to those sorts of fights.
The memories of journalists are quite cloudy when it comes to Hillary Clinton and the rights of women and children. At the top of the list is the famous 1975 case where she defended a forty-one-year-old man who was accused of raping a twelve-year-old girl. After tapes were released of a radio interview Clinton did in the eighties where she spoke about the case, she laughed at the situation and was accused of breaking attorney-client privilege by sharing the results of a polygraph.
As for being a lifelong advocate for the rights of women, there are few and far between who believe she is worthy of that praise. Recent attacks on Hillary have sparked even more bad press surrounding her role in former President Bill Clinton’s indiscretions. Dozens of stories with personal testimony accused Hillary of enabling Bill’s repeated transgressions. Gennifer Flowers, who allegedly had an affair with Bill that lasted twelve years, was quoted as saying Hillary “is an enabler who encouraged Bill to go out and do whatever he wanted with women.”
In the same article, Juanita Broaddrick, another alleged victim, insisted that Hillary “has always known everything.” Similarly, well-known victim Paula Jones insisted that Hillary “allowed her husband to abuse women.” Another alleged victim, Katherine Willey, who was a White House volunteer at the time she met Bill Clinton, had harsh words for the former Secretary of State. Willey claimed that Hillary “wrote the book on terrorizing women” and that “she is the war on women.”
Skepticism over Hillary Clinton’s commitment to the rights of women and children dates back over forty years. The only thing consistent about her record with women is that liberal journalists constantly ignore her controversial past.
View Full Transcript Here:
06-06-16 MSNBC - Andrea Mitchell Reports
12:43:29 PM - 12:45:01 PM
ANDREA MITCHELL: And in this time of commencements, Wellesley College has now released for the first time an audio exert of Hillary Clinton’s student class speech given during the 1969 commencement. Let’s listen to this, she was talking about her generation and politics.
[Audio Clip from Commencement Speech]
HILLARY CLINTON: We are not in the positions, yet, of leadership and power. But we do have that indispensable element of criticizing, and constructive protest. That for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the part of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.
MITCHELL: It is just amazing to hear that, uh, that young voice of Hillary Rodham at the time. Jeanne Cummings, a graduate of Wellesley College and a real class leader and a political activist as she was heading to Yale law school and where she would of course then meet Bill Clinton. Jeanne.
JEANNE CUMMINGS: Yes, and it’s interesting that, uh, you know here on tomorrow night she may become the, uh, first female nominee of either national party, which is, you know, breaking a really big glass ceiling and a big historic moment for the very things she was fighting for way back then as a college student and then later in her early career for the rights of women and children and others. And it has been one long line of consistency on her part when it comes to those sorts of fights.
