Heroes In Their Own Minds
Seems to me there are two kinds of people in the world: those who need to make themselves the hero of every story.
And those who don’t.
Remember Hillary Clinton’s breathless account of her bravery as she landed in Bosnia in 1996 and had to run across the tarmac to escape sniper fire?
"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”
Much to Hillary’s chagrin, CBS News had video footage of the landing. Those weren’t snipers, they were little girls showering the first lady with bouquets of flowers.
And remember last winter in South Carolina when Joe Biden, seeking African American support, repeatedly boasted about being arrested in apartheid South Africa on his way to visit Nelson Mandela?
“I had the great honor of meeting him (Mandela). I had the great honor of being arrested with our UN ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on (Robben) Island," Biden said at his South Carolina launch party.
Just one problem, the former UN ambassador, Andrew Young, said it wasn’t true and Biden finally admitted that he was never arrested. Someone stopped the two men briefly at the airport to ask some questions. They weren’t detained.
Then there’s the repugnant Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. The New York Times reported that he claimed to be a Vietnam vet, when what Blumenthal should have said was that he served in the Marine Corps Reserves in Washington while the Vietnam War was raging thousands of miles away. He’s since apologized for that lie.
Shoot, I’ve spent more time in Vietnam than Blumenthal.
Which bring us, as you knew it would, to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the only member of Congress who’s spent the past two weeks with her hair on fire, screeching about how Ted Cruz tried to have her murdered on January 6, demanding he resign from the U.S. Senate and telling anyone who would listen about how she locked herself in her congressional bathroom to hide from rioters.
She’s suffering from PTSD she claims, as the result of an earlier sexual assault. This brush with death brought it all back.
This week we learned that AOC, as she likes to be called, wasn’t in the Capitol building that the rioters breeched. She was in the Cannon House Office Building, which is adjacent to the Capitol. It is connected by tunnels. That building was evacuated as a precaution, but the lunatics didn’t enter Cannon.
Ahem.
In fact, according to news reports GOP congresswoman Nancy Mace, whose office is two doors down from AOC’s, confirmed Wednesday that “insurrectionists never stormed our hallway.”
No sooner had the news broken than #AlexandriaOcasioSmollet began trending on Twitter and AOC asked her followers to collect names of those using the hashtag so she could report them to Twitter moderators.
Oh and she’s indignantly accused those who pointed out her wild exaggerations of traumatizing a victim of abuse.
In her rantings, AOC also declared there were bombs placed near the Cannon “by Trump supporters.”
Careful there, congresswoman. You’re getting ahead of yourself. No one has yet been arrested for the bombs. In the present climate, saying the bomb planters were Trump supporters could be interpreted as an incitement to commit violence.
Look, I’m sure January 6th was harrowing for everyone on Capitol Hill. The Capitol building was invaded by violent goons, who were wearing helmets and flak jackets and armed with zip-ties for handcuffs. They seemed bent on harming members of Congress.
It’s fine to express your fear, but stretching the facts to make it all about you is simply peak AOC.
Which brings us to the other kind of person. One who isn’t self-aggrandizing.
Remember when Rep. Steve Scalise was shot in 2017 by a deranged Bernie supporter who actually tried to kill a lot of Republicans on a baseball field?
In the aftermath, Scalise didn’t claim that Sanders tried to have him murdered and demand that he should resign from the Senate.
What I remember was Scalise’s effusive praise for his security detail, Capitol Police Officers Crystal Griner and David Bailey, who were injured in the shooting while protecting the congressman.
According to Politico, Scalise called them “my heroes.”
And that’s the difference between adults and narcissists.
