Heroes, Hillary, Barbara Olson and the BBQ Crowd

With all that has happened over the last six weeks and all, America has seen something I have long known about New York City – that being, it is the kindest, most together, loyal city in the world with no other city even coming close. It is also BY FAR the toughest, as America and the rest of the world has found out firsthand.

Do not get me wrong. I realize that New York is not perfect by any stretch, and it’s in a league all its own in its intra-city squabbling, but like the Afghan tribes that are perpetually at each other’s throats, New Yorkers will close ranks when outsiders such as the terrorists execute an attack such as the World Trade Center disaster. These terrorists screwed with the wrong town when they decided to carry out this cowardly attack, as New Yorkers are not only as tough as they get, but they tend to go above and beyond when it comes to settling the score.

With the body count now believed to be in the 3,000 range – and that includes the Pentagon fatalities and all passengers and crew on the four airliners that went down that fateful day, we can give a large portion of the credit to God that while that large a loss of life was horrific, that it was only 6 percent of what it could have been, had both the WTC towers been at full occupancy and had that wing of the Pentagon not been recently reinforced.

NYPD logo

In all of this, the American people were reminded who our real heroes are. It wasn’t Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa or Michael Jordan. It was the police officers (NYPD logo shown, right), firefighters and the medical and surgical teams that made the difference. It was they who saved the lives of so many of those injured in the WTC attack. It remains these wonderful people who are continuing to give of themselves, their time and energies in the recovery efforts that will be continuing at Ground Zero for what in all likelihood will be at least a year.

These are the people that are commonly referred to as “the BBQ crowd” – they’re from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, hence the label BBQ. These working-class folks are the ones who hold the glue of New York together. These people – police, fire and medical personnel are among the heroes I encounter in my daily travels. Others who I consider heroes as well - the people that all too many “hoity-toity” types tend to look down upon, are people who are vital to our freedoms and way of life.

In addition to the people mentioned above, these everyday heroes would be military personnel, public utility people, mail carriers, dentists, paperboys among others, and especially mechanics. As much as I drive my car in any given year, the need for a reliable and trustworthy mechanic is essential.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY

What is sad but not in the least bit surprising in all of this is that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY, shown left) just doesn’t get it, nor will she ever get it. Hillary’s problem continues to be that she still thinks she is better than everyone else; her haughtiness and absolute arrogance finally caught up with her last Saturday night at the New York benefit concert where she was jeered and heckled right off the stage by the real heroes of the night (firefighters and cops) who were tired of her trying to make this tragedy all about her.

While I may have some major disagreements with New York’s other U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, the fact is that I find him an extremely bright, engaging man who has a very well documented record of having a meaningful, sincere and ongoing interest in the needs and concerns of his constituents, as his entire adult life since shortly after law school has been spent helping those who cannot always help themselves. Having grown up in New York, he genuinely understands the pain of his fellow New Yorkers who suffered the loss of their beloved World Trade Center with its attendant loss of life as well as the devastating effects it has had on the local employment picture.

On the other hand, Queen Hillary and (as a friend put it) her “Royal Court” continues to seek to make it all about her. She doesn’t have the slightest clue about New York or New Yorkers, because she never was one and never will be. Like Bobby Kennedy in 1964, she moved to New York solely for the purpose of getting Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s open Senate seat. She may have run a good campaign and her opponent Rick Lazio was something of a comparative lightweight - however, it is one thing to talk the talk, but another to walk the walk. While I may not have cared for her antics since 9/11, there is a distinctive up side to it all.

Between her preening and the looks on her face as the camera showed her during the President’s speech September 20th, she has all but sealed the doom of both her presidential ambitions and just as good, any chance she may have once had of being elected to a second U.S. Senate term in 2006. Here’s hoping that outgoing Mayor Rudy Guiliani steps up to the plate at that time, and trounces her even more soundly than he did Ruth Messenger in his 1997 mayoral reelection. Maybe this is what it will take for America to finally rid itself of the Clintons once and for all.

However much the mainstream media crowd may think of themselves as the story rather than reporters of it, we as a people need to remember that these people as well as the Hollywood crowd, professional athletes and other “celebrities” are not the real heroes in our world. The real heroes are those who I’ve mentioned, best described as “the BBQ crowd.” These are the people who make the world the wonderful place it is. These are the folks that allow us to more fully enjoy the freedoms all too many Americans take for granted.

With few exceptions, you will not find the Hollywood crowd or the mainstream media among the people who make our lives of such quality – even more so in light of the attack of last month.

As one who has had the both the privilege and blessing of giving a portion of his life in service to his country, I am thrilled to see America’s real heroes being appropriately honored and even more so, to see Hillary finally getting exposed for what she is – a Bill Clinton clone with their two personalities feeding off each other in the most depraved sense of the word.

Perhaps the Clintons were best described by the late Barbara Olson’s posthumous release of her latest and last book, The Final Days where she quoted comedian Dennis Miller, who said:

“We’ve all been watching in astonishment these past few weeks as the Clintons merrily parade their greed and corruption past us like a garish Mardi Gras float powered by the drivetrain of Bill Clinton’s gargantuan sense of entitlement. Hillary steers, while Bill sits on the top tossing pardons out to the crowd like a drunken Bacchus with a perpetual h**d-on for a scepter…. You almost have to admire the sheer audacity of granting pardons to two tax-scamming billionaire fugitives named Rich and Green. If the symbolism were any more obvious, Andrew Lloyd Weber would be writing music for it.”

In death, Barbara Olson not only saved the lives of countless others by warning her husband before the crash, her book will in all likelihood save countless more lives as the public sees in even more detail how the behavior of the Clintons both directly and indirectly contributed to an environment where the events of September 11th were not only allowed to happen, but begging to happen.

I may not know anywhere near as much as I’d like, but this I can say with absolute certainty: Barbara would have definitely fit in with the BBQ crowd, and when you get right down to it, she’d have known that there was no higher compliment for a person to receive.

Barbara Olson

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Barbara Olson (shown, right) saw the world in terms larger than just her own needs, and even though Barbara is no longer with us, her memory lives on with the affection, love and appreciation of the American people. This is something that Hillary will never know because she is too busy worshipping herself at the altar of self-adoration to realize her insignificance.

Thanks so much Barbara, for leaving a legacy that will be hard to surpass and for making the ultimate sacrifice in order that others may live who may not have, had you not been able to phone in the incoming threat.

We loved you – we still do, you’ll be sorely missed and the goodness of your life and work will be remembered for generations to come.

You truly were one of the best – thanks for everything!

Timothy Rollins

• NYPD Logo patch courtesy of the New York City Police Department
• Photo of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) courtesy of the Associated Press
• Photo of Barbara Olson courtesy of Cable News Network (CNN)

Copyright © 2001 by Timothy Rollins.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission