Washington Watch - Page A1
October 18, 1996 WOMAN ON BEACH TELLS CLINTON OFF. LATER, CLINTON CAUGHT STEALING WORDS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN!
by Howard Hobbs, Ph.D., Economics EditorWASHINGTON DESK - The morning after the Dole-Clinton debate was more newsworthy than the 2nd debate, itself. Either way, it was no walk on the beach for President Clinton. He had just finished a jog in front of his oceanside hotel when 32-year Valerie Parker of Bloomington, Ill., started screaming at him.
'You draft-dodging yellow-belly liar! You're a disgrace to the office of the presidency, to your gender and to this nation! How do you sleep at night, Mr. President?.
Parker mixed the insults with occasional curses. Clinton seemed confused and didn't seem to know how to deal with the situation.
Witnesses to the incident understood what was being said, however, as they cheered the woman.
Before the president began the beach exercise things weren't going swimmingly, either. The Associated Press is reporting that as soon as Clinton hit the beach, he was met by economist-author Mark Skousen. Clinton was asked by Skousen if he could jog along. Clinton said 'OK.'
During the encounter, Skousen took the opportunity to complain to Clinton that '... taxes on American taxpayers are too high.'
The Dole-Kemp campaign called the beach jog another 'presidential gaffe of historical proportions.'
On Thursday, while Speaking in Orange County, Clinton revealed that his knowledge of American history is less than that of a typical Orange County Sixth Grade student.
President Bill Clinton told an audience of Orange County Democrat Party supporters that Republicans want to divide the American people. The president stood-up and with a straight face said: 'The last time I checked, the Constitution said of the people, by the people, and for the people. That's what the Declaration of Independence says!'
Clinton was misquoting the Constitution. The phrase was a direct steal from a well-known Republican, president Abraham Lincoln(R).
The phrase was directly lifted from the Gettysburg Address, delivered on Nov. 19, 1863. It was part of the famous speech by Abraham LINCOLN at the dedication of the Civil War cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa.
Lincoln eloquently stated his grief for the fallen military soldiers and the principles for which they had given their lives. The brief address is perhaps the most quoted speech of all time, including among many memorable phrases: 'and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'
The American people have known for the past four years that president Clinton does not know anything about the Constitution of the United states. Now, the American people know how little president Clinton respects the history of the Nation and its fallen military heroes.
Lincoln's address at Gettysburg PA, 1863: 'Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
[The World Almanac® and Book of Facts 1995 is licensed from Funk & Wagnalls Corporation. Copyright © 1994 by Funk & Wagnalls Corporation. All rights reserved.
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