Years ago, I read that the first movie Bill Clinton took Hillary to see when they were dating was The Battle of Algiers. If so, Bill made a shrewd choice.
The Battle of Algiers was a cult classic among leftists of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its final scene depicting Algerians rioting against the French is so realistic and intense that, as a film critic for the New Yorker said, you almost believed the clash continued after the director yelled “cut.”
Hillary was a committed radical leftist. The following summer, she would work for a law firm in Oakland two of whose four partners were current or former members of the Communist Party.
Bill was also a leftist. But with his down-home Arkansas style and obvious mainstream political ambitions, he must have struck Hillary as somewhat less radical and less committed. Choosing to take his date to see The Battle of Algiers would have been a good signal of his left-wing bona fides.
The Algerian uprising against the French is far from perfectly analogous to the attacks against the U.S. in Benghazi. But it still would be ironic if Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects were derailed by a riot in North Africa.
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