Blatant Reality

By Jonathan Williams

Last night, Bill Clinton gave a surprise visit to the University of South Carolina to do a little Q&A about his wife’s campaign. This event was publicized before hand because of the venue that was chosen would have been way to small and I’m sure security would have been even more crazy than it was. Since I arrived late (I had just happened to be walking by and went to find out what all the commotion was about) I don’t know exactly when he started this engagement but I think it was around 10:30pm EST.

 

 

When I arrived around 11:00pm, there was already a pretty sizable crowd in the room and it seemed that everyone there was texting someone they knew to come see him. One of the first things I noticed was that he was wearing a blue tie with a red plaid shirt that reminded me of those table clothes you put out on fourth of July. Another thing I noticed was all the secret service present. There had to have been at least seven agents inside the coffee shop. After the room got filled up with people, one of the agents actually manned the doors and would only let a certain number of people in who had just left.

 

The first question I actually heard the answer to was about Roe v. Wade. A girl asked what Hillary would do to ensure that it wasn’t overturned. Bill pointed out that all the democratic candidates have pretty much the same view on this and that they will do everything in their power to ensure that it isn’t overturned. For example, he stated that within the next four years, 1-3 Supreme Court Justices will retire which means that whoever is president will choose their replacements. If there is a democrat president, the Justices will most likely be ones who vote to keep Roe and if there is a republican president, the Justices will most likely be ones to overturn Roe. He then went on to say how Bush has overturned a lot of the policies he established while he was president. He sounded pretty bitter when he said this.

 

 

One of the most interesting this about this talk is that I swear he was talking in the terms that we were going to elect him. For example, he said that he would “bring back accountability” to the white house. He didn’t say that Hillary would, he said that “I” would. It was weird because he made this mistake more than once. I really wish I had my camera so I could have had taped this part. I’m pretty positive that I heard this but its just so outrageous that I wish I could have proof.

 

One of my friends (who I might add is an Obama supporter) was there and got to ask Bill a question concerning the Darfur resolution that Obama has already signed. Bill admitted that he had no knowledge of this resolution and didn’t know why Hillary might not have signed it already. In the words of my friend, after stating this he went on to talk about all “the great things he did in terms of foreign policy when he was president.” The most interesting thing was that as my friend was about to leave, Bill asked her if she could get him a copy of the resolution. She did and as he was leaving, he stopped and talked with her and her friends about genocide and poverty for about ten minutes. To say the least, she was very excited about this.

 

 

As he was doing his Q&A, I noticed something very interesting about the crowd. At most of these events, people stay the whole time to listen to what is being said, but here, people were coming and leaving after a while. Now, this may be because people felt guilty about those who had to wait outside until more people left but I have a theory that most of the people there just wanted to see “the man.” Most of those in the crowd didn’t really care about what he had to say all they wanted was a picture proving that they were there and had seen him in person.

 

 

Anyways, I must admit that it was pretty cool to see him in person even though I couldn’t dislike him any more. However, one positive thing about this event is that now I can see how he got the nickname “slick willy.”

 

UPDATE (4:13pm EST)

This is what I just found on my friend’s blog who spoke with Bill about Darfur.