
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 27, 1995                   TAG: 9502270019
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT SOUNDS LIKE HILLARY DIDN'T GET THE MESSAGE

As the result of investigative-reporting techniques sharpened over decades, I'm dropping a bombshell this morning that will blow the lid off this town.

(Actually, investigative reporting had nothing to do with it. I learned about this sobering comment on life in America today from a reader who will remain unidentified.)

What I learned - now get hold of yourselves - is that Hillary Clinton doesn't read her mail from the common folk of this country!!!!!!!

I know how you feel, It just kind of takes away your will to go on, doesn't it?

I know, in spite of being a hardened newspaperperson, that my gorge rose, as we sometimes said in Radford, when I learned about this.

The reader sent a column of mine to Hillary - about Newt Gingrich's suggestion that she rent "Boys Town" one night to get some idea of how his plan for orphanages for one-parent children would work.

You know what a funny guy I am. I told Hillary to tell Newt to rent "Oliver!" to see what Charlie Dickens thought about orphanages.

I know. I know. In the column I had Pat O'Brien running "Boys Town" when it was really Spencer Tracy. But I got Mickey Rooney right.

Anyway, Hillary wrote back to my informant, and she said: "Thank you for your thoughtful letter. Your words of encouragement and support mean a great deal to me."

What, in the name of Eleanor Roosevelt, is going on here?

Hillary gets this letter with a copy of a column in which some ink peddler out in the sticks is advising her to tell the Speaker of the House of Representatives to rent "Oliver!''

This is encouragement and support?

Hillary also wrote: "It is a pleasure to hear from individuals who share a vision of a better life for all Americans."

Right. Let's see now. Somebody sends you a column by some yokel down in Virginia who can't get his actors straight, and this leads to this "vision of a better life for all Americans" stuff?

Then there's the part where the president is working "to ensure that every American's future is filled with courage, hope and confidence."

Yeah. I see it now. I may be a rube, but I know a form letter when I see one. Doesn't do much for my "courage, hope and confidence."

I wonder what would've happened if I'd suggested that Hillary tell Newt to rent one of those movies in which martial-arts people beat hell out of everybody in sight.

Same letter, I bet.

by CNB