This Clinton is heartless. Not your cunning, swindling Clinton. No, not that Clinton. The precocious governor from Arkansas would never have brought up dissent back home. Instead, He'd rest on his smile and glad-handing. And that Clinton was far too calculating.. He would never allow himself to be on the tarmac at Baghdad International as his rival, the President, was taxing out with a major personal and political achievement. But this cold politically inept politician, Hillary Clinton, went anyway. She thought she could outdo the President.

The President's brave visit to Iraq generated praise from even his most severe critics, especially the highly critical European and British press. What was she thinking?

As she 'met with the troops,' this Clinton was the embodiment of gloom. She was the goddess of death and doom, while the President glowed when he faced the troops, honored the troops, and stood humble before the nation's warriors. This Clinton instead spread an infection of doubt: among troops away from home, missing their spouses, their children, feigning the Thanksgiving spirit through the heat and hell of an Iraqi Fall, forced to greet a U.S. Senator who smiled as she highlighted a warped picture of dissent back home. No wonder crowds were sparse and disengaged around her.

This was not the first time. Hillary Clinton had recently invaded a military compound and spread a demoralizing message of doom, and openly questioning the military's mission.

Two weeks earlier on a cold Tuesday night, she claimed she visited injured men and women of the military in their painful recovery at Walter Reed Hospital. Like in Baghdad, she felt no remorse as she used the patients as pawns in her anti-war rhetoric. She said, "as I went from room to room and bed to bed, seeing young men who had lost arms and legs, who had head injuries that, at least as for now, prevented them from knowing their names and remembering where they came from.." She said she answered questions, their questions, about the war; as if the wards were filled with dumbfounded soldiers who had lost their mission. "I came to answer their questions." The audacity of this Clinton. She believed that she alone could answer their questions.

Newsmax has reported there is no record that the New York Senator ever visited Walter Reed Hospital, as she claims. Likewise, her accounts of comforting the victims of 9-1-1 are as hollow as her pretense of patriotism. Her visits to the victims of 9-1-1 are unconfirmed. In 2001, as now in Baghdad, she was forced to follow in the courageous tracks of a popular President who had effectively preempted her. At the site of the World Trade bombings, he lifted a nation's wounded spirit with a moving address. She was in the audience and forced to listen. Later would come her claims of comforting the victims.

But this is different. Her performance in Baghdad was spiritual treason. She'a guilty of moral betrayal: to travel to the battlefield, to face troops, and criticize their efforts; to feed their fears, raise questions to those who at any moment, even during her visit, could be in a fire fight, risking it all.

Her miscalculated media stunt ranks up there with another despicable protest by actress Jane Fonda. Fonda embarrassed a nation and many anti-Vietnam war activists when she visited the enemy, North Vietnam, and for a few moments took the controls of an anti-aircraft battery. Fonda has come to regret her actions.

This Clinton will have no remorse. She is not politically pliable. She doesn't learn and adapt like her husband. There is no turning back for her, there are no mistakes. Most dangerously, there is no heart there. Victims of a horrifying terrorist attack, military personnel painfully recovering from their injuries at a military hospital, soldiers in harms way in the field. All are appropriate props for her political show, and her ambition. But by seeding doubt in the field, going to the battlefield and bringing dissent and doubt to those soldiers during a Thanksgiving meal, she showed all of us, including her supporters the blind ruthlessness of her ambition.

Bill Clinton charmed with his smile, and at the same time, hid his ambition from the public. The public wants it that way. They know politicians thrive on ambition, they just don't want to see it exposed. They also know there's dissent with any military action, including the great wars. They just don't want some cold politician going out to the troops on Thanksgiving Day and reminding our troops about it.

Write to Arthur at bruzzone@rightturns.com

Arthur Bruzzone has written over 250 political articles for national and regional media, and has commented on political and urban issues for American and European television and radio networks.  He is an award-winning public affairs television producer/host.His articles and columns have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Campaign & Elections Magazine, among other publications. Mr. Bruzzone holds a Masters Degree in Philosophy from C.U.A in Washington , D.C., and a M.B.A. in real estate. He is a returned Peace Corps volunteer serving two years in the Kingdom of Tonga, and the former chair of the San Francisco Republican Party. He served as a California state commissioner on a major environmental regulatory agency. He presently is president of a real estate investment company headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

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