If you like Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, you’ve probably noticed that a lot of people don’t.
She’s icy, people say. Cold. Calculated. Strategic. She’s too political; too measured with her words. She’s not trustworthy. She’s a liar. She is, as Donald Trump emphasizes, crooked.
Here in Oklahoma, a SoonerPoll found Clinton pulling only 29 percent support, evidence that her perception in the Sooner State is well worse than her negative perception nationally.
But Hillary Clinton — unless you truly believe she’s a robot with $600 haircuts — is also a myriad of other things, including the person who attempted to reform U.S. health care in 1993, roughly 16 years before the job ultimately got done.
She is also, chiefly, a mother, and on April 22, 1995, the then-First Lady of the United States sat in a room with her husband president to record the president’s weekly radio address three days after the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in Oklahoma City.
The Clintons directed that week’s address at America’s children, who were struggling to understand the images they were seeing on television, especially those that showed the blast’s impact on the building’s day-care population.
In the 16-minute video above, you can watch the brief radio address, and you can also watch the Clintons interact with the assembled children after the recording.
A few things of note
Bill Clinton introduces the radio program and hands it off to his spouse, noting that she “has been very worried about all the children of our country in the aftermath of this tragedy.”
Hillary Clinton opens by speaking in a soft voice specifically to America’s children:
“Whenever you feel scared or worried, I want you to remember that your parents, and your friends, and your family members all love you and are going to do everything they can to take care of you and protect you. That’s really important for each of you to know.
I also want you to know that there are many more good people in the world than bad and evil people. Just think of what we have seen in the last few days. Think of all the police officers and the firefighters; the doctors and the nurses; all of the neighbors and the rescue workers; all of the people who have come to help all of those who were hurt in Oklahoma. Think about the people around the country who are sending presents and writing letters. Good people live everywhere in our country — in every town, in every city, and there are many, many of them.”
The second part of those comments is striking because, while it is said with the voice we all reserve for small children, the message dovetails with what President Barack Obama and other progressive leaders find themselves trying to impart on the population as a whole regarding terrorism 21 years later.
So watch the video for yourself. For those of us in Oklahoma, it will draw you back into the immediate aftermath of a generation-defining tragedy, and it may make you consider how many other tragedies our country — and our country’s children — have had to endure in the two decades since.
After their brief radio address concludes, the Clintons ask the assembled children how they are feeling, what they are thinking and what they might be able to do to help the world around them.
The answers are positive, and they prove that, perhaps, we should ask ourselves the same questions every day.
(Editor’s note: If NonDoc can find video of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump discussing Oklahoma in the 1990s, we will run that as well. At this time, we have not been able to locate such footage.)
