Holding hands with Hillary
It's not actually a Q&A, but I spoke to First Lady Clinton and touched her when she came to Pittsburgh with husband Bill during the 1996 presidential campaign.
When Hillary Clinton visited Primanti’s, Pittsburgh’s iconic sandwich joint in the Strip District, I was assigned to ‘cover’ the contrived photo op. I and the rest of the stinking local news media were put in our place by being roped off in a corner where we could watch but could not talk. When the political pseudo event was over, thanks to my very casual attire I was able to avoid being herded out of the restaurant by the Secret Service. Impersonating a Primanti’s staffer, I shook her soft, warm hand. Hillary never suspected she had been ambushed.
Hands-on Hillary makes an impression
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 8, 1996
Her husband, Bill, is famous for his sincere, two-handed, "I love you, man!" handshake, but Hillary Rodham Clinton has got to have the best hands in the first family.
Not just the prettiest or the most expressive, either. The cleverest.
The first lady can take the paper off a straw, stick it into a cup of unsweetened ice tea and raise it to her lips without ever taking her eyes off the person she's talking to.
She performed that subtle trick at Primanti Bros restaurant yesterday, when the "Traveling Hillary Rodham Clinton Show" stopped by during its half-day layover in Pittsburgh.
But the first lady didn't come to show off her hands, which these days are in the news because of her fingers and which Whitewater documents they have left their prints on.
She came — let's admit it, dear Democrats — for purely political motives. There is a presidential election on. Her hit-and-run visit was planned for maximum news coverage, smoothly staged by her White House handlers and carefully protected by the Secret Service.
No Republicans were invited, but if they had been, they would have been impressed.
Hillary may have bobbled health care reform and made herself a few million enemies, but she sure knows how to win friends in a room full of strangers.
The First "Ice Woman" did not cometh to Pittsburgh: The Hillary Clinton who ran the roundtable discussion in Primanti's was the warmest Right Hand a hard-campaigning president could ask for.
With an untouched cheese steak (with slaw and french fries) at her right elbow, hands clasped demurely, smiling sweetly, a slice of blondish hair arcing across her right eyebrow, she spoke clearly and without affectation.
Outfitted in a purple silk suit and minimal gold jewelry, she was in charge but didn't hog the show.
She knew how to listen and asked smart questions. She smiled at all the right tunes. She spoke English, not policy-wonkese. In a totally controlled, staged and artificial event, she was all natural all the time.
The only time she got a little testy was when she started talking about health care. You could tell she was mad because her smile faded, her eyes gazed floorward and she stirred her ice tea real hard with her straw.
Otherwise, she was boffo.
If anyone didn't like her, if anyone thought she was a phony, if anyone didn't agree that she was the most charming, most intelligent, most caring, most sincere person in the room, it had to be because he was related to Bob Dole.
When the talking ended, Hillary shook hands and signed autographs and books all around.
Then, as she was being escorted out of Primanti's by a phalanx of robotic Secret Service men, she made a detour to go over and shake the hands of Primanti's T-shirted kitchen staff.
Hillary didn't know it, but she also extended her right hand — and what a warm, soft but strong hand it was — to a member of the dreaded news media, who gave it a squeeze, looked back into her bright eyes and held on a little longer than her husband would have liked.