Archive [June 2000]

When The Limbaugh Letter editrix, Diana Schneider, e-mailed me about an incident at her daughter’s school, I gave her an assignment to write it up and put it in the newsletter. Here is the story she turned in to me:

Rush,

As you know, Mrs. Clinton is on a mission to save American school-children from eeeevil guns. On March 1, she went to Valley Cottage (NY) Elementary School and had a group of fourth and fifth graders recite a no-gun pledge — making them promise that they will “never, ever” go near a gun: “If you know of any guns in your house or in the houses of your uncles, cousins, friends or neighbors, I want you to promise you will never, ever go near them,” she said. “I want you to promise you will never, ever play with anybody who goes near them, and I want you to promise you will never, ever pick up a gun with any idea of using it against another person.” The First Lady told the children that if they knew of an adult who owned a gun, they should tell the adult to lock it up or take it out of the house altogether.

“Would you do that as good citizens for us?” directed Mrs. Clinton. The children dutifully answered, “Yes.” And, “I promise.” That day, Mrs. Clinton posted a story on her website (www.hillary2000.org) titled, “Hillary Calls on Students to Stay Away From Guns.”

Two days later, on March 3, my seventh-grade daughter called me from her school, the Robert E. Bell Middle School in Chappaqua, NY: “Mommy, I’m scared. There are men in the halls with guns!” Hillary Clinton, new resident of our town, was coming to Bell School. Secret Service and dogs were crawling over the place.

I phoned the school. The receptionist told me that the First Lady was giving a presentation at a citizenship assembly. Unprompted, she assured me that Senate candidate Clinton’s appearance would “not be political.” But why, I asked, had parents not been notified ahead of time? The receptionist advised me to call the Board of Education.

A Board secretary repeated, though I didn’t ask, that it was “not a campaign stop.” It was arranged — and this is word for word what the secretary told me — “by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which bypassed the school system.” The secretary said the school only found out about the visit 12 hours earlier. (The INS. Well, at least it wasn’t a SWAT team.)

Finally, I reached the middle school principal. I asked, yet again, why the parents weren’t notified. The principal told me that the school had been ordered by Hillary’s security not to disclose any information ahead of time about her visit — to anyone.

Meanwhile, my child called again to tell me that it was very “scary” at school. Agents were everywhere; kids were against the wall being frisked while police dogs were on their hind legs, barking at them; the children had to stand outside all their classes for searches. She said that as one seventh-grader took paper from his pocket, an agent deliberately pulled opened his suit jacket, pointedly revealing his firearm.

The bottom line is, despite her anti-gun advocacy trips to suburban schools, the only person bringing guns into my kid’s school was Hillary Clinton.

— Diana Schneider