By Dan Murphy
Chelsea Clinton will appear at the Barnes & Noble in Scarsdale, on White Plains Road, this Saturday, Oct. 27, to promote her new book “Start Now! You Can Make a Difference.” A wristband is required to listen to Chelsea, and you must purchase a book to receive up to three wristbands. Chelsea’s father, former President Bill Clinton, recently appeared at the same Barnes & Noble to promote his latest book.
“Start Now!” Is Chelsea’s fourth book. The former first daughter is now 38, a mother, a part-time teacher at Columbia University, and vice chairwoman at the Clinton Foundation. Her new book hopes to inspire America’s youth to participate in their planet and realize the importance of clean drinking water, help save endangered animals and, most of all, to encourage young people to stand up to bullies and cyber bullies.
“Cyber bullying is a huge challenge across our country,” said Clinton, who remains an optimist and who calmly answers her online critics and trolls. “I think we need those of us with platforms to not ignore the trolls, not to become consumed by them, but to shine a light and say here’s how you can respond where you’re calmly defending yourself but you’re also showing it’s not okay and you’re not degrading your own humanity in doing that.
“So when I was confronted directly – even as a child – and people would say awful things to me, I would say, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t feel that way. I don’t think I’m ugly or born in sin or the family dog or that my parents should have aborted me.’”
Decades later, the taunts still come – these days via social media. At first, Clinton ignored them, but recently she started to speak up. “I started to worry that by ignoring it, that I was somehow OK with that language and that behavior. And I think particularly being a parent now, I never want my kids or any kid to think that that’s OK.”
She added: “And I do think even if you don’t agree with me politically it’s never OK to attack me personally. I want my children to see their mom standing up for respect and kindness and to know that that is not a sign of weakness.”
Making a positive change in your community is not only possible, but needed, and Americans of any age can play a role in making a difference, are other messages in Chelsea’s book, which also highlights climate change, hunger, healthy nutrition and treating people with kindness. “I’ve always believed that you’re never too young or too old to make a difference,” she said.
One of Chelsea’s recent online interactions was over recent comments made by Louis Farrakhan, who has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks for years, who posted a clip to Twitter of a speech he gave captioned “I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite.”
“Comparing Jews to termites is anti-Semitic, wrong and dangerous,” said Clinton, whose husband in Jewish. “The responsive laughter makes my skin crawl. For everyone who rightly condemned President Trump’s rhetoric when he spoke about immigrants ‘infesting our country,’ this rhetoric should be equally unacceptable to you.”
When Kate took Chelsea to task online about her father, who recently attended Aretha Franklin’s funeral, also attended by Farrakhan, Chelsea tweeted: “Hi Kate – I’ve heard this a lot today. Almost a drumbeat. A few thoughts: 1) Aretha’s family had every right to invite whomever they wanted to celebrate her life. 2) As I’ve said before, Farrakha’s anti-Semitism is wrong. Bigotry is always wrong. 3) …I’m not my parents.”
During her book tour, Chelsea has stated, “I have no intentions of running for public office,” but the rumors about her one day running for Congress have never gone away. The long discussed rumor of Chelsea Clinton replacing Nita Lowey in her seat in the xxxx District persists.
But now, Lowey, who has represented Westchester in Washington, D.C., for 30 years, could become the new Appropriations Committee chairwoman if democrats retake control of the House on Nov. 6. Lowey would become the first woman to chair the Appropriations Committee, which has great power and control over where federal dollars go and what projects get funded, including many infrastructure projects in New York City and New York State.
With her mother, Hillary Clinton, publicly pondering another run for the presidency, the question being asked by many is: Does the country want more of the Clintons? NY Times Editorial Board member Michelle Cottle recently wrote that Hillary should remain silent until after the mid-term elections Nov. 6.
“Having Mrs. Clinton proclaim political civility dead until her team wins again is unlikely to prove an inspirational message for these voters,” wrote Cottle. “It is, however, extremely likely to electrify the Republican base, in whose collective lizard brain Mrs. Clinton still looms large – the ultimate boogeyman to be invoked whenever a Republican politician is having trouble exciting his constituents. For a GOP desperate to get its voters to the polls Nov. 6, what could be more welcome than “Crooked Hillary” jumping in to inflame partisan passions?”
