Thankfully, last week's brief hostage drama at the Clinton campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire, ended peacefully. As it turns out, the perpetrator was no stranger to run-ins with the law and had a documented history of mental illness, criminal mischief and alcoholism. However, to hear the Associated (with the Left) Press tell the story, if it weren't for Hillary, this event could have ended tragically.

Clinton was in Virginia for a DNC event when the story broke. According to the AP, she spent the entire time the crisis was unfolding on the phone with local, state and federal authorities and trying to comfort the families of the hostages. The reporter gushed, "When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis. The image, broadcast just as the network news began, conveyed the message a thousand town hall meetings and campaign commercials strive for---namely, that the Democratic [sic] presidential contender can face disorder in a most orderly manner." Come now---"regal-looking?" And then the starry-eyed reporter asked Hillary for her autograph.

There can be no humor in events such as this, but the idea that Clinton had any hand whatsoever in its peaceful unfolding is ridiculous. She played no role in the negotiations with the suspect, had no part in the deployment of law enforcement to the scene, and made no decisions about how to bring the drama to an end. On the other hand, the real heroes of this event, the law-enforcement officers and the hostages themselves, received scant attention in the media.

- - - - - No surprises here - - - - - - -

Bill Clinton had to cancel a fundraiser for his wife's presidential campaign at the Mississippi home of Super Heavyweight litigator Dickie Scruggsafter Scruggs was indicted for conspiring to bribe a judge for $50,000. Scruggs, a longtime supporter of all causes Clinton (a red flag in itself), has been linked to some of the largest class action settlements in American history, including the shakedown of Big Tobacco and the asbestos litigation wave, some of which was based on utterly dubious evidence. Scruggs's target as of late has been insurance companies involved in Hurricane Katrina payouts. Looking back at Scruggs's methodology---which includes rewarding people for stealing documents from their employers to aid him in his cases---it's no surprise that he's a Friend of Bill and Hillary. If Scruggs manages to slip away from this bribery charge, it's likely he will slide back into the Clinton fold.

- - - this one REALLY hurts - - - - -

North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap recently published his memoirs ( ESSAY REVIEW), in which he said the American media won the Vietnam war for the Vietcong. "What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it," he wrote. "But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!" (REF 1) Giap's words are an important lesson from the past, to be sure.

- - - - - - no shit!?!? - - - - -

In a refreshing bit of unscripted honesty, liberal politico Hillary Clinton recently remarked that the country cannot afford her ideas. Her timing came at an awkward moment amid reports that the national debt is expanding by about $1.4 billion every day, while she is proposing unprecedented government takeovers of the private-healthcare system and trillions in new spending on Social Security.