Snubbery

I've been trying to remember if there have been any significant historical examples of an elected official refusing to meet with an average citizen. As it so happens, one example from the recent past has some interesting parallels to the Cindy Sheehan story.

In the early months of Hillary Clinton's term as senator, a story "broke" that she had snubbed a group called "The American Gold Star Mothers" that had come to her office in Washington seeking a meeting. The Gold Star Mothers is a group of mothers whose sons and daughters have been killed while serving in the military (note that this is not the same group founded by Cindy Sheehan, which is called "Gold Star Families For Peace"). The story of the alleged snub first appeared on the website Newsmax.com, a sort of quasi-legit underbelly of the Right. Its homepage currently features Michelle Malkin, Bill O'Reilly and Mike Gallagher in its "Pundits" section. You get the idea.

Here's the flavor of that Newsmax story, which appears here (as a sidenote, apparently it is misdated):

Hillary Snubs Gold Star Mothers

America has long known of Bill Clinton's disdain for the U.S. armed forces, going back as far as his comment during his draft-dodging days when he said he "loathed the military." This, of course, was at the time he was participating in protests against the United States military while he was on foreign soil in England.

Hillary Clinton has also never concealed her own similar sentiments. But it may come as something of a shock to New Yorkers to learn that their new junior senator recently dished out her by-now-familiar rude treatment to a group of Gold Star Mothers.

New York chapter president Shirley Jones and member Mary Wheeler, both of upstate New York, told Behan they had been in Washington visiting Senate offices. The only office that refused to meet with the Gold Star Mothers was none other than New York Senator Hillary Clinton. She and her staff simply refused to meet with them.

The usual cast of keyboarding smearsters latched onto and ran with the story, and a massive email campaign mysteriously started that pushed it---emails, by the way, that somehow continue to find their way around the internet in great numbers even now.

There's one little problem: it was all completely untrue.

A summary of what actually happened, along with a sample of the bogus email campaign, appears here. Two Gold Star mothers stopped by Senator Clinton's office without an appointment, and were met by a curt, overworked receptionist who had no idea who they were. Clinton apologized for the incident, and the Gold Star Mothers released the following statement:

With regard to the Newsmax article concerning our organization, the American Gold Star Mothers, Inc., deeply regret the misunderstanding about Senator Hillary Clinton. The two mothers who visited Washington did not have an appointment with the Senator and she was not in her office on that day. We would appreciate it if the e-mails and negative comments about Senator Clinton would cease.

Four years later, the rabble-rousing Right still holds this issue dear. Mike Gallagher wrote the following at Newsmax today as part of this longer report on his weekend bus trip to Crawford:

When we got to the protest area outside the president's ranch, we stood alongside the road and sang patriotic songs, waved our flags, and said supportive things about the troops and their commander in chief.

Together, let's keep fighting the good fight. Good will triumph over evil. And we'll continue to win the hearts and minds of Americans who love this country, honor its troops, and support our commander in chief.

Isn't it heartening to know that some of the chattering spinmeisters on the Right take the issue of politicians snubbing mothers of dead troops as seriously as ever?