HILLARY HOSTAGE “LEADERSHIP” PALES NEXT TO SARKOZY
In an intriguing coincidence to the recent New Hampshire hostage crisis, French President Nicolas Sarkozy also had a bomber take some hostages in the 1990’s, when he was the mayor of a Paris suburb, and he handled himself far differently than Hillary Clinton. This uncanny precursor has not been reported in the press but deserves to be studied to see what real leadership looks like under pressure. History is full of these types of strange coincidences which beg for study. One sensational example occurred when Lady Diana Spencer died within a week of Mother Teresa, throwing the phenomenon of celebrity-charity against a humble life of total self-abnegation and service lived out in the midst of abject poverty. Hillary’s own recent tempest in a teapot does not fare well versus the extraordinary Paris intervention of recently elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy. His drama ended in a jaw-dropping conclusion that, while not well known outside Europe, tells everything one needs to know about his resolve, character and audacity, or in a word – his leadership.
It was illuminating to hear well-known analyst Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, tout Hillary’s response to her mini-hostage event. Embarrassingly he claimed, “It looked and sounded presidential…This was an instance of the White House experience of this campaign. They knew how to handle this.” Has ever more been made of less? Recall that a mentally unstable man walked into a small, regional campaign office and announced he had a bomb on his person, and explained he needed to talk to Ms. Clinton. But Hillary was over 500 miles away in Washington D.C. She did not fly to New Hampshire and neither did she ever talk to the man. The drama ended without her intervention.
One must feel at least some pity for a candidate whose bona fides are so thin that her partisans are willing to leap upon a few meager crumbs of opportunity to sing hosannas in her honor. Sabato overstated Hillary’s achievement, and thus revealed an unseemly bias. Yet, what exactly was learned about Hillary during this crisis? Did she really do anything that any other candidate wouldn’t have attempted? She called the N.H. Governor, which was said impressive, but on a moment’s reflection such an action goes without saying. In fact, it would have been odd had she not contacted the Governor. Again, she “counseled the victims,” which might be thoughtful and good politics, but not the stuff of leadership of any great merit. And to the point of this essay, her actions were the opposite of what President Sarkozy delivered some 14 years ago.
In May 1993, a man calling himself “H.B.”, or the Human Bomb took a group of kindergarten children hostage in the Paris suburb of Neuilly where Nick Sarkozy was mayor. The man, much like Hillary’s bomber, was a crazy person with a list of insane demands. Yet, instead of allowing local police and terrorism experts to handle a situation that oozed potential for carnage to the innocent, Sarkozy went directly to the site, entered it unarmed and began a gentle dialogue with H.B. When the man proffered his list, Sarkozy claimed he would not discuss it till the youngsters were released. The tense situation was famously defused when Sarkozy exited victoriously with the children in tow, with the event unfolding on national TV and therefore suddenly making Sarkozy a national hero. His presidency today can be fairly claimed as a result of the astonishing risk he took and the unmitigated success it reaped.
The comparison with Hillary could not be starker. Unlike Sarkozy, Hillary did not go to the site, and neither spoke with the American Human Bomb who pointedly insisted he was there to talk to her. While critics will undoubtedly note that Hillary could have potentially risked limb and life to personally intervene, this overlooks the primary lesson of the comparison. Hillary simply did nothing resembling what the very brave and persuasive Sarkozy attempted in his single-handed, unprotected and intrepid act. To draw out the comparison, can anyone even imagine Hillary taking such a risk or depending on her charm and wiles alone, outside of any other stratagem? Given her penchant for choosing a course of grim inevitability over casting her fate to the wind and doing unscripted actions, it seems out of the question.
So what does this comparison reveal? It does not itself prove that Hillary lacks all leadership qualities, of course. Undoubtedly most established leaders would have followed her same track. But it does show she has very ordinary instincts for crisis, at best. And it also curiously reveals how — in starkest relief — what an individual exhibiting genuine leadership traits and raw courage has done in an almost exactly similar situation, and who gained stunning success as a result. Putting that aside, in the void of Hillary’s experience it also exposes how desperate her advisers must be to cast off the sense that Hillary has tried to publicly sneak up on the U.S. presidency without proven merit. She has certainly made some silly and even nonsensical claims of her past feats of statesmanship. Again, it exposes the rather odd way that Leftists tend to build a cult of personality around their purported leaders that simply and quite badly outstrips reality. For example, who could forget when Hillary was claimed one of the most brilliant women in the world, just a few short years ago? This notion now sounds frankly daft.
When non-existent, and even negative, leadership encounters real statesmanship, the false withers on contact. For example, recall that sympathy for Jimmy Carter’s own Iranian Hostage Crisis evaporated the day Reagan entered office, when the Americans were spontaneously liberated by their Islamic terrorist keepers. In similar contexts, Hillary chose a safe course and let the experts do the heavy lifting. But Nicolas Sarkozy, risking his very life, calmly entered an arms-length negotiation with the Human Bomb that ended – in contrast with the typical U.S. scenario – with all innocent parties going home to their families. Can Hillary be criticized for her response? Of course not. But we need to be very careful in analyzing the grand and often vague claims of our presidential candidates, remembering that leadership is either found in specific decisions or not at all.
