NRO

IMPLAUSIBLE APPLAUSE [Andrew Stuttaford]

Instapundit has an astonishing story via the Volokh blog. When Hillary Clinton walked onto the stage at the post-9/11 rock concert headlined by Paul McCartney she was booed by the audience, many of whom were firefighters, police officers and their families (I saw the show live on TV that night). It appears that, so far as VH1 is concerned, these folks are allowed to risk their lives for us, but they are not permitted to express their opinion. The DVD of the event reportedly now has Hillary walking on stage, but to cheers, not jeers.

This is something to remember the next time you hear about the 'suppression of dissent' post-9/11.

Of course, the left have always had a problem with the awkwardness of history. In this context, it's worth checking out The Commissar Vanishes, an excellent book that shows one aspect of how the past was doctored in Stalin's Russia. In essence, history was continually amended in keeping with the Party line. The inconvenient faces of those who had been purged or otherwise fallen out of favor were, like Hillary's jeers, simply edited out of the photographic record.

Reports that VH1 is now in the course of producing Behind the Gulag - a tale of happy peasants, full democracy and prosperity for all - are, I'm sure, unfounded.

-- Anonymous, September 09, 2002

Answers

Another recent editing of history regarding Hillary is that many of the funerals for firemen in NY show her being there even though she didn't attend. I don't remember where I read that at (Lucianne I think).

-- Anonymous, September 09, 2002