Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Arrogance and Ego

Time magazine, which has run eleven issues since 1992 whose covers have been graced with Hillary Clinton's visage, declares her "ready to run" for the presidency in 2008. With eleven covers dedicated to Mrs. Clinton there doesn't seem to be much question who Time will be endorsing if she does.

At any rate, a friend of mine has a cousin who is an air marshall. He related this story to me about an encounter his cousin had with Senator Clinton:

A few months ago a cousin of mine, a US Air Marshal, boarded a plane and sat in the first class section. His partner sat in the last row of the plane. The plane was held waiting at the gate for what the pilot said was "an important VIP passenger."

Sure enough, Senator Hillary Clinton, two secret service agents and several other aides came bustling onboard, demanding all passengers in first class move to the rear. Senator Clinton promptly announced her staff would be occupying the entire first class section. Several customers complained that they had paid for their first class seats, to which the senator told them to take up their problems with the airline and stop wasting her time.

Everyone eventually left, except the undercover air marshal. The secret service agents requested he move, but the marshal instead told them that he too was a secret service agent, and as an air marshal, the aircraft was his jurisdiction. Finally, Senator Clinton herself requested the marshal move to the rear, or else she would get the pilot involved. The marshal recommended she do just that.

The pilot was notified of the delay and announced on the intercom that all passengers kicked out of first class were to return immediately. Senator Clinton and her two agents would be allowed in first class, but the rest of her entourage was relegated to the rear of the plane.

Needless to say, the senator was unhappy with her treatment.

We have to consider the possibility, of course, that the details were not exactly as the air marshall remembered them. On the other hand, if events did unfold as he related them then this says something very unpleasant about Senator Clinton.

It reminds me, in what it reveals of the senator, of the time Senator Kerry scolded and demeaned a secret service agent with whom he accidentally collided on a ski slope. Politicians like Clinton and Kerry profess to care about the "little people", but stories like these raise one's doubts. It seems rather that at least some of our political leaders are so consumed with arrogance and a sense of self-importance that they forget that it is they who are the servants and it is tax-payers whom they serve.