Remember the prime-time Christmas specials where performing celebrity families don gay holiday sweaters and make for cozy, quaint on-location winter backdrops? "'Tis the Season with Kathy Lee Gifford," "A Rockin' Osmond Christmas in Utah." Lovely. Who could forget that classic family Christmas-show moment when French singer and psycho-shooter Claudine Longet happily (really, too happily) put Andy Williams' house slippers on his feet as he lounged on the couch in their mountain A-frame?

This week we were served up a rare holiday treat in the same surreal tradition as "The Claudine Longet/Andy Williams Classic Christmas in Aspen." "Bill and Hillary's Magic Irish Christmas" featured an absolutely ebullient Hillary Clinton caught out under the mistletoe with two ex-IRA freedom fighters.

On Tuesday, while her husband was sucking down a pint of Guinness stout, Mrs Clinton was sucking face with Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams in a moment rich with the seasonal spirit of reconciliation and just plain holiday fun.

According to Wednesday's (12/13) UK Sun:

"An onlooker at the Guinness factory in Dublin -- where
Mr. Clinton downed the stout -- said [about Hillary]: 

'She looked genuinely overjoyed to see them both and rushed straight to kiss them.

'Nobody else got that kind of treatment.

'It was a level of intimacy not normally seen at official
functions.'

Other observers believe Hillary, who has just been elected New York Senator, was aware of the value of the kisses for Irish-American voters back home."

It's a relief to see that, at least, some observers in Ireland have maintained their senses of perception in the face of what seems to be irresistible Clinton charm. It appears that the Clintons have become the closest thing to a royal family that the Auld Sod has seen in years.

Political parties in the Republic of Ireland, it's been said, would all be considered some branch of the American Democrat Party if their policies and philosophies were compared. Even the more conservative Fine Gael would be likened to moderate Democrats. So Clinton knows where to go for a dose of adulation if he needs it. He did it back in 1998 during the Monica scandal when he made his second trip to Ireland. Hey, what the heck? It beats launching Tomahawks at pharmaceutical plants.

But even if the characterization of Ireland as an island of Democrats is correct, there must be some other magic, some major mojo they've got to be working on the Irish people to cause the phenomenon of extreme Clintomania that sweeps the island whenever Air Force One touches down there.

Just how did the Clintons come by the talent that's causing the usually skeptical Irish to swoon in their wake?

Virtually the same question was asked of the Yanks nearly seven years ago when Gerry Adams made his first peace tour through Irish America. The British and some Irish were amazed at how taken in we were by wee Gerry. They said we were being hoodwinked by his disingenuousness. They said in our naiveté, we were too easily swayed by his charm. Hmm. Beginning to see a pattern?

As the Irish saying goes, "One beetle recognizes another." If the Clintons don't know a game, they learn it quickly. They watch and they learn. They recognize the best when they see it and -- I've got to hand it to them -- they learn from the very best when they emulate Gerry Adams.

Flashback, 1994

Bill Clinton anteed up one Gerry Adams visa for a sizeable return into the Clinton legacy sweepstakes kitty. The President took a chance. He allowed Sinn Feiner and former IRA man Gerry Adams to come to the US on a whirlwind public relations tour to benefit the cause of Irish nationalism and to promote the fledgling peace process. He brought Sinn Fein, which had been long silenced by anti-terrorism legislation, in from the cold. Clinton did so against the urgings of the British government, as well as
against the advice of his own State Department and the Department of Justice.

It seemed to pay off. Adams was an articulate and charismatic speaker, so characteristic of what Americans like to see in their Irishmen. He got major gigs, too, and came back for yet another US tour on a second visa later in the year. He schmoozed Katie Couric, although that was not what could be classified as a great challenge for a silver-tongued socialist like Gerry Adams. He sat across the table from Larry King, next to his arch foe and constant critic, Ulster Unionist Ken Maginnis. Adams scored big time on "Larry King Live," when he offered his hand to Maginnis in a peace handshake, which Maginnis predictably refused, marking himself and other Unionists as intransigent curmudgeons in the eyes of the vast CNN audience. Nice move, Gerry!

In Los Angeles on the high rated morning news and happy talk show "Good Day, LA." Adams jokingly renamed the show "Tiocfaidh Ar LA" after the IRA slogan in Gaelic meaning "our day will come." It even got a chuckle from the friendly LA hosts, even though they didn't have a clue about what Adams was referring to.

The man from rough West Belfast was feted by the Hollywood crowd in an exclusive Beverly Hills party. The next morning he was wined and dined, yet again, this time at a birthday breakfast at the opulent Century Plaza, where he later addressed the World Affairs Council. I was among the attendees six years ago at the Plaza across the street from the Schubert Theater where, you may remember, they once handed out the Emmys -- little statuettes awarded for best performance in a TV series.

Indeed, if anyone deserved a best performance award that day it was Gerry Adams playing the statesman to an audience of mostly Irish American Southern Californians. He quoted Irish poet laureate Seamus Heaney and spoke with dignified passion about his yearning for peace and parity of esteem in the North of Ireland. With a perfect combination of strength and humility he accepted the admiration of the crowd with his Sinn Fein homeboys and California Senator Tom Hayden at his side. His day had come. It was seamless good will until he was caught off guard by a written question from the audience.

I should mention here that as a frequent visitor to Britain and Northern Ireland, I had often seen Gerry Adams quoted in the papers. I had also seen his face on television news there. He was, at the time, not only the Sinn Fein president, but also a member of the British Parliament. However, because of anti-terrorist laws meant to "starve the terrorists of the oxygen of publicity," as Margaret Thatcher had once put it, Sinn Fein members' voices were forbidden to be broadcast over the airwaves. Hence, for years TV audiences in Ireland and the UK were treated to an absolutely ridiculous spectacle of Gerry Adams being often dreadfully dubbed over by Irish actors. It was a sight to behold, especially to a perplexed American like me.

I had never heard his voice until he addressed us at the Century Plaza conference rooms where he gave an eloquent speech and eventually took written questions from those of us present. Most of the questions amounted to little more than amiable kudos and softballs such as, "Gerry, how's your dad?" The function was meant to be a group hug more than a press event.

"And this one is from Lynette Warren," he begin reading my question in a worldly, baritone voice that belied his youthful appearance.

"'Sinn Fein has denounced the exclusion orders imposed by the British government on Irish Republicans, which unfairly restricts their rightful travel onto the British mainland. Would you also denounce the IRA for their exclusion orders exiling certain individuals -- which the IRA classifies as anti-socials -- from returning to Northern Ireland?'"

There was a momentary chill and a lack of movement in the room. I thought it was a fair question. I hadn't come to blow kisses at the man. I had come for information.

Adams was taken back, if only for a moment. His eyes flashed something more akin to anger than irritation, but he was back on all fours, answering within just a couple of seconds.

"You know ...time and again, when I go about from place to place, I am followed by these sort of begrudging questions by people who are in the business of embarrassing or belittling what we are trying to do. They pass themselves off as journalists, but they really work for the British government. I don't know if the questioner is one of these, but I'll say that these are the types of things they ask."

Wow. I was a shill in her Majesty's Secret Service and I hadn't even known it. He was good, I thought, really good.


There is no doubt in my mind that Hillary Clinton is enjoying an extensive friendship with her political soulmate Marxists of Sinn Fein. The brewery worker down at St. James Gate saw it on Tuesday. I only hope Americans will take note as well. Because beneath the Christmas pageant of the Clintons crooning "Danny Boy" in the Dundalk town center and beyond Clinton's incessant quoting of Seamus Heaney, there lies an eerie truth. If you think the IRA has ceased to exist during an extended ceasefire, bought and paid for by international government funding you are seriously mistaken. The IRA doesn't pocket their money, they invest it. If one beetle recognizes another, it goes miles to explain Hillary Clinton's misplaced intimacy with the ex-terrorists on Wednesday.

Would you respect or care to be represented in any capacity by a politician who enthusiastically lays lip all over members of the organization that attacked the USS Cole? Think of how the families of IRA victims felt when they saw Senator Clinton smooching it up with Gerry Adams, the man who, only a few years ago, carried the coffin of an IRA bomber who brutally killed innocent civilians on a Saturday afternoon as they shopped in a Belfast fish shop. Then ask yourself how Senator Mrs. Clinton intends to deal with Osama Bin Laden if such a task should ever cross her desk over the next six years.

© Lynette Warren 2000 All rights reserved


Previously by Lynette Warren...

Mrs. Clinton Goes to Washington (12/08/00)

It's the Outrage (12/01/00)

The Great Florida Vote Hunt (11/24/00)