[photo: Philgarlic]

Pushed further and further into the spotlight as her mother’s campaign has fallen behind to the relentless and now unstoppable Barack Obama, Chelsea Clinton is acquitting herself rather poorly as a public personality.

Clearly the young Clinton’s speaking voice has much more of her mother’s shrill, graceless yammer than her father’s smooth hillbilly drawl.  But there are deeper problems with her recent appearances than just an annoying tone.  What has really catapulted Chelsea’s attempted rallies into the media spotlight is her petulant sense of entitlement and insistence on campaigning within her own warped sense of context.

Consider her response when asked at Butler University about whether the Monica Lewinsky scandal had damaged Hillary Clinton’s reputation:

‘"Wow, you’re the first person actually that’s ever asked me that question in the, I don’t know maybe, 70 college campuses I’ve now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business."’

What Chelsea must be forgetting is that her father lied to the American people about the issue–that press conference was his chance to use the "none of your business" line, but Bill Clinton let that particular horse out of the barn by addressing the issue with an angry misleading insistence–and that many Americans suspect that the preservation of the Clintons’ marriage was a calculated, Faustian bargain made in the interests of greater money and power for the both of them.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has already planted questioners at campaign events in Iowa, but the recent revelations about her lies about her 1996 Bosnia trip are an even clearer exposition of her fundamental dishonesty and emphasis on political expediency over the unambiguous truth–and there’s Chelsea Clinton, backing up the falsehoods from her own supposed recollection:

"I support what she said."

Until recently the Clinton campaign has been able to shelter their fledgling apprentice liar:

‘She has largely operated under the radar, speaking frequently to the kind of young audiences that often favour Mrs Clinton’s rival Barack Obama but never granting interviews and being protected by campaign aides who swoop on any reporter who has the temerity to attempt to ask a question.

Events are usually arranged at short notice and only publicised locally. In some cases it is specified that only students are allowed to attend.’

They can try to ensure that her gaffes are aired in front of limited audiences, but Chelsea Clinton has clearly made herself a public figure and the idea that she has some protected status that places her "business" beyond scrutiny is nothing more than moronic fantasy, no doubt nurtured by her arrogant parents and her fear of facing the truth about them.