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Out of the Mouths of Babes

    My mother occasionally babysits for her neighbor who has two young daughters, ages 7 and 9. The neighbor is one of those New Agey types, you know, the yoga, the incense, the wheatgrass, and tattoos type. She's also incredibly politically active  and is into the whole "grassroots movement." She's a huge Obama supporter and she's been keeping her two daughters engaged in the whole process in terms they can understand.
    So, today the neighbor was out registering voters for the Obama campaign and my mom was watching her two daughters. The girls are playing some sort of board game, they decide to modify some of the rules and they commence playing. About twenty minutes later my mom hears the younger girl indignantly accuse the older girl of cheating.
"No, I wasn't!" the older one yells back. My mother goes to check what's going on and hears the younger one shout,
"You're, you're being Hillary Clinton!"
    My mom watches incredulously for a couple of minutes as the older girl tries to defend herself from the accusation. Then she finally steps in and settles the matter. She called me to share the story that little children are using Hillary Clinton as the prime example of a cheater. I thought I'd share.


Comments (12)

Well, me and my husband are about 30 years older than those girls, but that sounds like our conversations when we're trying to get the other one to do the chores. So, if he asks me to change the baby's diaper and I tell him to do it because I had been changing diapers all morning, he tells me I'm being Hillary. And yes, I've said, "I have 35 years experience of changing diapers." I'm ready to change diapers from day one!

It sounds like "Don't pull a Hillary on me!" may become a reasonable argument of defense... ;-)

Perhaps off the subject, but playing Mozart for children has been shown to calm them and increase intellect. Many suggest that an early exposure to TV hurts their ability to seek a middle way through conflicts.

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I'm not sure how gentle many of his movements are, or how rhetoric equates with music.

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Reminds me of Iraqi mothers telling their children to eat their vegetables or "democracy" will get them.

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I think you shared this once before. Or perhaps it was someone else. I didn't find it believable then either. But I must allow for at least the possibility that this exchange actually occurred, in which case it is an example of the kind of foolishness children pick up from listening to their parents who should know better.

I just learned this story yesterday. It's definitely possible that someone else might have had the same experience.

Funny! I predict that "pulling a Hillary" will definitely become a part of the lexicon in many families.

Funny, we use Veruca Salt.

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Yeah, funny. I'm sure that in other families there are kids saying Barack is a muslim. Kids say the darndest thinks. Yup it sure is funny when parents teach their kids to hate.

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Saying something is different than making a connection. If they right out called Clinton a cheater, it wouldn't be a good story, but these kids took what Clinton was doing, and saw an analog in unfair behavior.

Difference being, of course, that Obama is not a muslim. That is a lie.

Hillary, however, has been trying to rewrite the rules. First states don't count. Then they do count. Then states that count don't really count. First, it's all about the delegates. And then it's all about the voters. But, of course, it's only about the voters so that it can be about the superdelegates.

Constantly trying to change the rules is a form of cheating. This is perfectly acceptable in some instances. In my family, it's practically a tradition in certain games.

A presidential race, however, is somewhat more consequential than a game of croquet. Changing the rules midstream is just dirty tricks.

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