ALL EYES ON HILARY AS SHE STANDS BY HER MAN
All eyes on Hillary as she stands by her man
By Marese MacDonagh
WHEN Bill Clinton quoted Van Morrison in West Belfast yesterday to mark "the healing has begun", there were a few snorts of derision from the cynics listening. "Not for you, it hasn't," remarked one onlooker who had been searching Hillary Clinton's inscrutable face for a clue to the real state of the American first couple's relationship.
Hillary wore shades yesterday and when the sun danced on them at an early morning engagement the reflection was decidedly blue. And nobody could blame her if that's how things looked to the woman, once derided for vowing not to stay home and bake cookies and now being scoffed for apparently being that very stand-by-your-man type of gal she had once almost mocked.
Important issues may have touched the presidential visit to the North yesterday - the continuing pain in Omagh, the banners asking 'Sudan, Omagh, Afghanistan - what is the difference', and the thorny references to decommissioning. But for many people watching the most riveting issue the still unspoken question was: how does Hillary put up with him?
SPECULATION
Around the time Bill Clinton touched down in Air Force One at Aldergrove Airport after his four-and-a-half-hour flight from Moscow, the press were gathering at a small park in the leafy Belfast suburb of Stranmillis to see Cherie Blair and Hillary Rodham Clinton give their blessing to the notion of safe play areas for children.
Hillary was late, so late that speculation was rife that she might have joined the welcoming party for her husband being led by Tony Blair on the tarmac of Belfast International Airport.
Mrs Blair had arrived at Stranmillis at 8.45am and by the time the American First Lady appeared (without making a detour to the airport) the prime minister's wife had charmed the waiting schoolchildren and their parents, posing for photographs and chatting about the pain of being back at school. She had urged local women who posed for photographs with her to send on the snaps so that she could sign them, and finally as the wait for the guest of honour had continued, Mrs Blair wandered down the street chatting over garden walls to mesmerised residents much to the consternation of the ever eager American Secret Service agents.
Some of the American visitors seemed almost embarrassed as Cherie Blair kicked her heels and scanned the street lined with police officers. "The Clintons are always late. It's really rude in someone else's country," remarked one as more locals were drafted in to fill the empty seats just as a beaming Hillary arrived. "Morning . . . how long have you been here . . . bless your heart," she gushed to the serene and smiling Cherie.
As packets of "Bill Clinton M & M's" and photographs of the White House pets Buddy and Socks were doled out to the delighted kids, Hillary and Cherie got an enthusiastic reception from those still waiting for a commitment from Belfast City Council that the site of this event would be handed over for a play area.
Cherie spoke warmly about Hillary's commitments to women and children and "making the world a better place".
Hillary told the gathering that she and Mrs Blair had spent a lot of time chatting about their children, and all children and the kind of activities that would "help to strengthen families".
As she spelled out the comparable problems facing children in the gangland ghettoes of US cities and those facing youngsters living under the shadow of violence in the North, she made a passing reference to President Clinton's work in this area. "A primary priority of my husband was to make parks safe for children and we have made some progress," she remarked.
Her husband at this stage was in Stormont for the so-called shoulder-to-shoulder photo opportunity on the steps of Parliament Buildings with Tony Blair, David Trimble and Seamus Mallon.
There were four armchairs lined up on the stage of Belfast's showpiece venue, The Waterfront Hall, where not so long ago Bono had linked David Trimble and John Hume in another embrace for the picture album celebrating the coming together of the two communities in Northern Ireland.
Shortly after 11am, President Clinton arrived with Tony Blair for the keynote address to 2,000 specially invited guests. 'Body language' was the catch word as the audience strained for the best view of the expected Blair/Clinton line-up.
But the expectant buzz of conversation was interrupted by a burst of applause and a standing ovation as the political wives led by Mrs Blair and Mrs Clinton slipped into seats to the side of the hall.
On stage Mr Clinton was paired with Seamus Mallon on one side of the microphone while Mr Blair and Mr Trimble sat together on the opposite side.
A hush had descended when William Jefferson Clinton was welcomed on stage and his wife had joined enthusiastically in the applause and the standing ovation.
When he opened his speech with a rather formal reference to his last visit to Belfast "with the First Lady", all eyes were on her still smiling face. When he peppered his address with warm references to Hillary her expression never changed.
It was Seamus Mallon who described Bill Clinton as "fittingly a man from a town called Hope in Arkansas". As the man from Hope got a second standing ovation, his wife was on her feet before many in the hall, and as the crowd clapped enthusiastically she chatted indifferently to David Trimble's wife Daphne beside her.
When the President bounded of the platform to work the room, Mrs Clinton was already slipping quietly out a side door.
Outside the venue there was a smattering of protests with people carrying placards reading 'Go home you bum' and 'Why is one bombing different to another'. The presidential motorcade sped past apparently oblivious and on to West Belfast where memories of the Clintons' much-publicised exodus from Washington to Martha's Vineyard were evoked.
After President Clinton's abject televised apology to the American people, Chelsea Clinton had acted as a buffer between her parents, even in front of the cameras. Yesterday a Belfast schoolgirl sat between the Clintons as they waited for the sod to be turned on the campus of the new University of Ulster in Springvale.
FITTING WORDS
"I feel like a fifth wheel," Bill Clinton remarked as Belfast teenagers Margaret Gibney and Gerard Quinn stole the show at this ceremony. But of course, other people read a different meaning into his words as his wife stayed close but not close enough for whispered confidences or a show of affection.
Later in the wounded town of Omagh, where grief is indeed a lonely emotion, the Clintons finally did stand shoulder to shoulder. As they moved together through a people ravaged by the loss of 28 lives the couple shared the emotion of others who have had their private pain pushed into the glare of the world's spotlight. It was perhaps fitting that in his very few words to the bereaved people of Omagh, Mr Clinton, speaking for himself and his wife, said simply: "Thank you for letting us come here."
By Marese MacDonagh
WHEN Bill Clinton quoted Van Morrison in West Belfast yesterday to mark "the healing has begun", there were a few snorts of derision from the cynics listening. "Not for you, it hasn't," remarked one onlooker who had been searching Hillary Clinton's inscrutable face for a clue to the real state of the American first couple's relationship.
Hillary wore shades yesterday and when the sun danced on them at an early morning engagement the reflection was decidedly blue. And nobody could blame her if that's how things looked to the woman, once derided for vowing not to stay home and bake cookies and now being scoffed for apparently being that very stand-by-your-man type of gal she had once almost mocked.
Important issues may have touched the presidential visit to the North yesterday - the continuing pain in Omagh, the banners asking 'Sudan, Omagh, Afghanistan - what is the difference', and the thorny references to decommissioning. But for many people watching the most riveting issue the still unspoken question was: how does Hillary put up with him?
SPECULATION
Around the time Bill Clinton touched down in Air Force One at Aldergrove Airport after his four-and-a-half-hour flight from Moscow, the press were gathering at a small park in the leafy Belfast suburb of Stranmillis to see Cherie Blair and Hillary Rodham Clinton give their blessing to the notion of safe play areas for children.
Hillary was late, so late that speculation was rife that she might have joined the welcoming party for her husband being led by Tony Blair on the tarmac of Belfast International Airport.
Mrs Blair had arrived at Stranmillis at 8.45am and by the time the American First Lady appeared (without making a detour to the airport) the prime minister's wife had charmed the waiting schoolchildren and their parents, posing for photographs and chatting about the pain of being back at school. She had urged local women who posed for photographs with her to send on the snaps so that she could sign them, and finally as the wait for the guest of honour had continued, Mrs Blair wandered down the street chatting over garden walls to mesmerised residents much to the consternation of the ever eager American Secret Service agents.
Some of the American visitors seemed almost embarrassed as Cherie Blair kicked her heels and scanned the street lined with police officers. "The Clintons are always late. It's really rude in someone else's country," remarked one as more locals were drafted in to fill the empty seats just as a beaming Hillary arrived. "Morning . . . how long have you been here . . . bless your heart," she gushed to the serene and smiling Cherie.
As packets of "Bill Clinton M & M's" and photographs of the White House pets Buddy and Socks were doled out to the delighted kids, Hillary and Cherie got an enthusiastic reception from those still waiting for a commitment from Belfast City Council that the site of this event would be handed over for a play area.
Cherie spoke warmly about Hillary's commitments to women and children and "making the world a better place".
Hillary told the gathering that she and Mrs Blair had spent a lot of time chatting about their children, and all children and the kind of activities that would "help to strengthen families".
As she spelled out the comparable problems facing children in the gangland ghettoes of US cities and those facing youngsters living under the shadow of violence in the North, she made a passing reference to President Clinton's work in this area. "A primary priority of my husband was to make parks safe for children and we have made some progress," she remarked.
Her husband at this stage was in Stormont for the so-called shoulder-to-shoulder photo opportunity on the steps of Parliament Buildings with Tony Blair, David Trimble and Seamus Mallon.
There were four armchairs lined up on the stage of Belfast's showpiece venue, The Waterfront Hall, where not so long ago Bono had linked David Trimble and John Hume in another embrace for the picture album celebrating the coming together of the two communities in Northern Ireland.
Shortly after 11am, President Clinton arrived with Tony Blair for the keynote address to 2,000 specially invited guests. 'Body language' was the catch word as the audience strained for the best view of the expected Blair/Clinton line-up.
But the expectant buzz of conversation was interrupted by a burst of applause and a standing ovation as the political wives led by Mrs Blair and Mrs Clinton slipped into seats to the side of the hall.
On stage Mr Clinton was paired with Seamus Mallon on one side of the microphone while Mr Blair and Mr Trimble sat together on the opposite side.
A hush had descended when William Jefferson Clinton was welcomed on stage and his wife had joined enthusiastically in the applause and the standing ovation.
When he opened his speech with a rather formal reference to his last visit to Belfast "with the First Lady", all eyes were on her still smiling face. When he peppered his address with warm references to Hillary her expression never changed.
It was Seamus Mallon who described Bill Clinton as "fittingly a man from a town called Hope in Arkansas". As the man from Hope got a second standing ovation, his wife was on her feet before many in the hall, and as the crowd clapped enthusiastically she chatted indifferently to David Trimble's wife Daphne beside her.
When the President bounded of the platform to work the room, Mrs Clinton was already slipping quietly out a side door.
Outside the venue there was a smattering of protests with people carrying placards reading 'Go home you bum' and 'Why is one bombing different to another'. The presidential motorcade sped past apparently oblivious and on to West Belfast where memories of the Clintons' much-publicised exodus from Washington to Martha's Vineyard were evoked.
After President Clinton's abject televised apology to the American people, Chelsea Clinton had acted as a buffer between her parents, even in front of the cameras. Yesterday a Belfast schoolgirl sat between the Clintons as they waited for the sod to be turned on the campus of the new University of Ulster in Springvale.
FITTING WORDS
"I feel like a fifth wheel," Bill Clinton remarked as Belfast teenagers Margaret Gibney and Gerard Quinn stole the show at this ceremony. But of course, other people read a different meaning into his words as his wife stayed close but not close enough for whispered confidences or a show of affection.
Later in the wounded town of Omagh, where grief is indeed a lonely emotion, the Clintons finally did stand shoulder to shoulder. As they moved together through a people ravaged by the loss of 28 lives the couple shared the emotion of others who have had their private pain pushed into the glare of the world's spotlight. It was perhaps fitting that in his very few words to the bereaved people of Omagh, Mr Clinton, speaking for himself and his wife, said simply: "Thank you for letting us come here."
Further Information
Publisher: IRISH INDEPENDENT
Ref: II/224
Published Date: 04-Sep-98
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