She’s Never Wrong, Is She?

Daya Olopade:

The real story is the cynical and egotistic response to a rare but clear blunder. Handler Howard Wolfson immediately rephrased Clinton’s two statements as referring to a political party rather than the "President Musharraf" she spoke of four days after the Bhutto news blitz (if only Mike Huckabee had had that time to catch the NIE). The mind trick captures the instinctive bunker mentality that would pervade a Hillary Clinton administration. She chould probably just say she misspoke, and put an end to a story that – if the MSM is working hard enough – should have legs for more than a few days. But she won’t. She can’t. It’s not in her blood.

If you think Bush admits mistakes too easily, vote Clinton.

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

That reader should get his facts straight. The Bosnian conflict ended under Clinton’s leadership and a multinational NATO coalition. It was George Bush who initially had the conflict, waffled for years and passed it on to his predecessor. It is amazing how some will try to rewrite the most basic and obvious historical facts. And Clinton and our allies eventually put an end to the Bosnian conflict in which mostly Muslims were getting slaughtered.

On the foreign policy front Clinton put troops in Haiti and, eventually, ended the military dictatorship and had elections.

Not one American casuality or terrorist bombing or insurgency from that. The Clinton administration had peace with North Korea that de-activated their nuclear program and stopped the proliferation to other nations from the rogue dictatorship.

The Suharto dictatorship ended swiftly under Clinton because he -as opposed to the past five presidents- untangled American support from the bloody dictatorship which collapsed afterward. Hussein was isolated and contained.

There was an actual potential for peace in the Mideast under Clinton and honest-to-God real talks and negotiations. Unfortunately Arafat wanted to maintain his kleptocracy and that was what unraveled very productive talks. There was more peace and prosperity in the Mideast under America’s balanced leadership.

There was peace and prosperity at home. The unemployment rate never received such ridiculously low rates. African American families -typically the most vulnerable- prospered more under Clinton than any president. More black, brown, and yellow families entered the middle class, acquired affordable homes, and became apart of the American dream. Economic prosperity was not limited to Wall Street hedge funds and the elite.

All this was possible because he was a pragmatist. He hired competent smart people who were more concerned with the problem at hand than enforcing a personal ideology. That is all we need as a president. We don’t need a Lincoln or FDR, although that would be nice. All that is required to be effective is to have a moderate progressive and pragmatic sense of government, a willingness to compromise, an ability to understand the other side, and courage to hire competent people across a continuum of party lines and faiths that can get the job done.