Hillary and the Extraterrestrials
Three reasons to appreciate Clinton's fascination with UFOs
Hillary Clinton's thoughts on UFOs have been a running side story of the 2016 campaign. Every now and then an interviewer will ask her about sky saucers, and she'll reply with an apparently earnest pledge to open the government's files on the subject, sometimes adding that we can't say for sure whether we're alone in the universe. Now The New York Times has put together a detailed story on her interest in extraterrestrials, which turns out to go at least as far back as 1995, when she was spotted hauling around Paul Davies' book Are We Alone? while visiting Laurance Rockefeller.
It's easy to mock this, but I've decided it's actually one of the few things I like about Hillary Clinton. I've got three reasons:
1. At least she wants to be transparent about something. I'd rather she pardon Snowden, end the Leak Scare, stop the war on whistleblowers, and battle Washington's overclassification epidemic. But a smidge is better than nada.
2. Almost every aspect of Clinton's public persona feels like it was designed by a committee of PR professionals after they spent a year asking focus groups what they'd like to see in a firm-but-caring suburban grandmother. Her interest in something vaguely weird and disreputable is one of the few signs she's not a pod person.
3. If she is a pod person, this is our chance to find out.
In any event, you should check out the New York Times piece, which among other factlets describes the X-Files fan club that John Podesta ran in Bill Clinton's White House. To read the story, go here.