Toby Harnden picks up on a strangely intemperate hit back from Hillary Clinton’s (who has ‘misspoken’ again, apparently over one of her trips to Bosnia) aide Jamie Rubin against David Trimble, calling a him a ‘crankpot’ (just under six minutes in). Toby also kindly provides a transcript for the key parts of the exchange:
Mitchell: As you know, there are others, like David Trimble, who disagree.
Rubin: Ive met David Trimble. And hes pretty much the only one. Hes a Protestant, they traditionally go with the Conservatives. I think we have a John Hume, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who said?
Mitchell: It was David Trimble who shared in that prize, Jamie.
Rubin: Right, and I know these people. Ive been living over there. David Trimble is a crankpot and what he said about her was demeaning. He said, Oh well, maybe she accompanied her husband on a couple of trips. As a woman, Andrea, I would think you would recognise when somebody is trying to demean the activities of a woman. She was an important First Lady in foreign policy. I know. I was in that administration and we understood she was not serving tea and cookies, she played a significant role.
Hmmm… I know a few people in Trimble’s former party who have spent time working for the US Democrats in their time, I’m not sure this is going to go down well in many quarters… Not that that is going to cause anyone in the US sleepless nights, but for a man who’s spent some time in the US State department, his diplomacy skills are clearly not what they might once have been…
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty