Have You Seen This Mental Patient?

Remember this guy? He took hostages in a Hillary Clinton campaign office back in 2007. For some reason the guy was walking free and now he's a fugitive. Funny how that happens.

The man who took hostages at a New Hampshire Hillary Clinton campaign office in 2007 cut off his monitoring equipment Tuesday and went on the lam.

Leeland Eisenberg, who has a history of mental and alcohol problems, was on probation when he cut off his GPS bracelet at 10:09 a.m. and "absconded from supervision," cops said.

He was last seen in Dover, N.H., getting into a green SUV with a female driver, officials said.

In 2007, Eisenberg strapped road flares to his chest and took five campaign workers hostage in Rochester, N.H. He surrendered after a five-hour standoff. No one was hurt.

Eisenberg, who said he was molested by a priest, reportedly wanted assistance getting mental help. He served two years of a three-year sentence but had trouble sticking to his probation rules, including taking medication and getting court-mandated mental help.

Eisenberg Sought 'Suicide by Cop'

The hapless Leeland Eisenberg, who took hostages at Mrs. Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, NH, last Friday, was apparently looking for the police to put him out of misery.

Call me cynical, but I see a townhall-style dialogue with The Pantsuit on the horizon.

The man accused of taking hostages at a Hillary Clinton campaign office in New Hampshire said in an interview he had hoped the standoff would end in his death, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

"My intent was never to hurt anyone," Leeland Eisenberg told the Daily News in a jailhouse interview. "My intent was actually almost like a suicide by cop."

Eisenberg, 46, is accused of taking six hostages at Clinton's storefront campaign office in Rochester on Friday, showing them road flares strapped to his chest and claiming they were explosives. State police negotiators coaxed Eisenberg to surrender and no one was hurt.

In the interview with the News in Wednesday's editions, he expressed disappointment in how his surrender ended.

"I knew once the last hostage went out the door, there would be no reason for them to have restraint," Eisenberg said of police. "I could see the sharpshooter. He was all dressed in camouflage, and he had one of those laser lights on his rifle... I didn't have my hands up or nothing. I just walked toward the door, thinking, 'This is it, he'll take me out.' So I swing the door open, and he still didn't shoot me, and I'm like, 'What do I gotta do here?'"

During the interview with the News, he said he had been diagnosed as bipolar and that it was his mental health condition — combined with the loss of his job as a sales manager and his wife's filing for divorce — that led him to feel "apathetic and despondent."

College Republicans Thank Mrs. Clinton

Somehow, I doubt she'll appreciate the thanks.

As if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't have enough problems with sagging support among Democratic presidential-primary voters, now she's the darling of College Republicans, who are praising the New York senator for backing President Bush's war policy in Iraq.

When Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana arrives to headline a $500-a-plate fundraiser for the former first lady today in Warwick, R.I., his motorcade will be greeted by student activists from six campus chapters of the College Republican Federation of Rhode Island (CRFRI).

Students will display "signs and banners ... to thank [Mrs. Clinton] for voting for the war in Iraq and for pledging to continue the presence of troops to fight al Qaeda in Iraq if she is elected president," CRFRI said in a press release pointing out that young Hillary Rodham was president of the College Republicans at Wellesley during the 1960s.

"From one former College Republican chapter president to another," CRFRI Chairman Ryan Bilodeau said in a remarkably straight-faced statement, "I would like to welcome presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign to Rhode Island and thank her not only for the vote she cast in 2002 that authorized the war in Iraq, but also for her recent commitment to keep combat troops in Iraq to fight al Qaeda if she is elected president next year."

Meanwhile, desperate to milk Friday's hostage crisis in New Hampshire, The Pantsuit claims to have volunteered to negotiate with crackpot Leeland Eisenberg.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton volunteered to personally negotiate with the crackpot who took over one of her New Hampshire campaign offices, she revealed yesterday. Clinton offered to speak directly to suspect Leeland Eisenberg, 46, in the hours he was holed up with hostages he took at her Rochester headquarters on Friday, she said.

Why do I not believe this for a second?