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Mail Gail:
Gail Hennessey
To Tell the Truth
with
Hillary Clinton
by
Gail Skroback Hennessey
*With permission from Mark Goodson Productions
Host:Today's guest is Hillary Clinton. Only one of the three on the panel is the REAL Hillary Clinton. The other two are impostors. Your job is to listen carefully to the information presented and decide which of the three guests is the REAL Hillary Clinton. Let's begin by meeting our guests.
Hillary Clinton 1:My name is Hillary Clinton. As Secretary of State, you can call me Madame Secretary.
Hillary Clinton 2:Hello, students, my name isi Hillary Clinton.It is very nice to be able to visit with you today.
Hillary Clinton 3:A first lady of the United States, a United States senator,a presidential candidate and a Secretary of States, I am Hillary Clinton. Wonderful to get a chance to be with you today.
Host:Let's begin by reading this short summary on Hillary Clinton:
I, Hillary Rodham Clinton, was born October 26, 1947. I grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois. As a girl, my parents took my brothers and me to Wrigley Field to see baseball games, purposely driving through poorer neighborhoods. I learned early that not everyone was as fortunate as me. As a teen, my church group leader took us to hear Martin Luther King speak. I liked his views on non-violence to bring about change and decided then, that I wanted to work to fight racial injustices of any kind.
After graduating from Wellesley, I went to Alaska where I worked sliming fish in a fish processing plant. After I complained about unhealthy conditions, I was fired! Accepted to both Yale and Harvard Law schools, I went to Yale where I earned my law degree.
After marrying Bill, he entered politics and was elected the governor of Arkansas. He served for 12 years. As First Lady of Arkansas, I was especially interested in children's issues. Then, in 1992,Bill became President of the United States, and served two terms.
In November, 2000, I became the first wife of a president to be elected to the United States Senate,representing New York State. When I came to Washington to work in the Senate, there were only 13 women senators, out of 100. In both 2002 and 2003, I was named most admired woman in the United States in the Gallup Poll. In 2008, I ran for president of the United States in the Democratic primaries. I eventually lost the nomination to Barack Obama. When Mr. Obama became president of the United States in 2008, he selected me to be the Secretary of State. I am only the third woman to become the Secretary of State. Madeleine Albright and Condoleeza Rice were the other two women Secretaries of State.
Signed,
Hillary Clinton
Panelist 1:You learned to play the piano and took ballet lessons. You liked sports such as swimming,tennis, volleyball, softball, and ice skating. As a Girl Scout, you earned lots of merit badges to sew onto your sash. You were active in your church and you spend time after school and on school holidays earning spare money baby-sitting. You saw the less fortunate, such as Mexican itinerant workers, brought to your area to work, and helped care for their children while their parents worked. You said that you were lucky to have very supportive parents and that your mom told you that there was nothing you couldn't do if you worked for it. Share with us, Mrs. Clinton, another childhood memory.
Hillary Clinton 1:Yes, I loved playing sports. I remember learning to play baseball and my dad spending time with me pitching a ball to me until I could swing and hit it. Sadly, there were no sporting teams for girls when I was in school like there are today.
Hillary Clinton 2: I guess you could say I was opinionated at an early age. My father instilled in me an interest in politics and government. We often discuss politics during dinner. As to having opinions, my dad said that if I had an opinion to make sure I could back it up!
Hillary Clinton 3: I remember wanting to be an astronaut. My brother Hugh and I would pretend that we were astronauts on a mission to Mars. At the age of 14, I wrote a letter to NASA saying I'd like to volunteer. I was very disappointed when I was told that there was no such thing as a woman astronaut and that no girls could be admitted to the astronaut program. It wouldn't be until 1978 that woman were admitted into the astronaut program. Do you know who the first American in space was? Her name was Sally Ride.
Panelists 2: Your fifth grade teacher, Mrs. King said you were such a wonderful student that she moved to 6th grade and had you for a second year. Tell us something else about your school days.
Hillary Clinton 1: I was the only girl to run for high school class president but I didn't win. A male student said to me,"You are really stupid if you think a girl could be president. I remembered those words!
Hillary Clinton 2:
I was a member of the National Honor Society and in In my senior year, I was voted the girl most likely to succeed.
Hillary Clinton 3:If the teacher had to leave the room, I was often asked to watch the class. I was a very good student in school and considered a student leader.
Panelist 3: As first lady, you were wrote a weekly newspaper column(called "Talking it Over"), where you shared your experiences as First Lady. Tell us something else about you and your husband's time in the White House.
Hillary Clinton 1: Some British diplomats came for a visit to the White House. Although I did not allow smoking in the White House, one of the diplomats lit a cigar when he thought I wouldn't enter the room. When he heard me coming into the room, he quickly threw the cigar into the wastepaper basket. It caught fire and we had to quickly exit the White House. Worried about damage, I grabbed the famous portrait of George Washington, which Dolley Madison had also saved, during the War of 1812. When we went back inside, I did another thing which Dolley Madison had done, I made everyone homemade ice cream. It was pistachio nut, my favorite flavor.
Hillary Clinton 2:Bill said during the presidential campaign that I would be a full partner if he became President, terming it a "two for one" deal. I received much criticism for being asked to chair the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. In fact, it got so bad, that I had to wear a bullet proof vest when I attended rallies. Sadly, the criticism resulted in no legislation and it would take until President Obama's term in office, before a health care bill would be enacted.
Hillary Clinton 3: At the 1993 Inauguration, Bill and I had our daughter, Chelsea, join us at the podium for taking of the oath-of-office, something never before done.
Panelist 4 : You were the first first lady to keep an office in the West Wing, with the president's senior staff. For the spoken word version of your best selling book,"It Takes a Village", you won a Grammy Award. Any other memories of being First Lady you'd like to share?
Hillary Clinton 1: I read with interest when Sir Richard Branson opened the first spaceport in the New Mexico desert. When I read that he planned to start commerical space flights aboard his SpaceShipTwo, I jumped at a chance to go into space(remember, being an astronaut was something I wanted to be as a young girl). I paid the $200,000 and was the first wife of a president to go into space! It was so exciting floating around in the space craft experiencing zero gravity. Then, while looking outside one of the huge windows, I saw an alien space craft come near our spaceship. The creature looking out the window had two heads, and six arms. It waved all its arms at me and I waved back with both my arms. THAT was really cool!
Hillary Clinton 2:I would like to say that other first ladies whom I admired included Eleanor Roosevelt(my favorite first lady), Dolley Madison, Patricia Nixon, Lady Bird Johnson and Jacqueline Kennedy. I think Eleanor Roosevelt taught me to not take things too personally and to develop a thicker skin to unkind comments about me.
Hillary Clinton 3: As first lady, I competed on Dancing with the Stars. My partner and I came in as runner ups in the competition.
Panelist 5: As first lady, you visited 80 countries and you were the most widely traveled First Lady. You believed that government should help its people especially those in need. You initiated the Save America's Treasures program, a national effort to restore historical sites and items, including the flag which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner. In addition to children's issues and health care, what is another issue that you supported as First Lady?
Hillary Clinton 1: I wanted to make the White House green, not in color but in thinking about the environment. I tried to get windmills installed on the White House grounds but wasn't successful.
Hillary Clinton 2: In my desire to improve women's issues, I was one of the few international leaders to speak out again the treatment of women by the Afghan Islamist fundamentalist Taliban. Did you know that when I was the first lady, women in Afghanistan couldn't go to school after the age of eight,couldn't leave the house without a male escort,and had to be covered from head to toe in a covering, called a burqa,when out in public. Beauty parlors were closed, cosmetics were banned, women were not allowed to work,or laugh loudly when in public, were banned from riding bicycles and home windows had to be painted over or screened so a woman couldn't be seen from the streets!
Hillary Clinton 3: As first lady, I was concerned about the number of cars on our highways and the pollution that was created. I had just read "Around the World in 80 Days", by Jules Verne, to my daughter, Chelsea. I thought, why not a fleet of huge hot air balloons which commuters could take to get to and from work, especially in the Washington, DC, area?I thought the the building of balloon ports would create jobs and commuters would get a relaxing and beautiful way to get to and from work each day.
Host: It is now time for the panelists and members of our audience to decide who is the REAL Hillary Clinton. Please vote for number 1, number 2 or number 3. Alright, the votes have been cast...Will the REAL Hillary Clinton, please stand up?
Additional Information:
panelists'questions to review the information students have heard. Invite
opinions about which guest may be the real Hillary Clinton encouraging students to share their reasoning along with their responses. Remind the class that only the real guest must always tell the truth.
Notes:
All responses to Panelists 1, 2 are correct.To panelist 3, responses 2 and 3 are correct.
Additional Resources:
Website on Hillary Clinton:
Although I have checked the websites,always check websites before having students use them,to make sure they are age appropriate.
Books:
Notes:Fact about Hillary's 5th grade teacher, Mrs. King:http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/03/10_hillary.html