Tag: Hillary Clinton

A reader writes:

You show a billboard of the repulsive Hannity urging "Stop Hillary Now," and you see that as a force against the former first lady. Why can you not see how energizing such items are for Hillary? I like Obama, think he’s said all the right things and avoided all potential pitfalls to date — I could certainly make a case to myself that he is quite presidential and could be the healing force this country needs. But I will vote for Hillary no matter what. I’m as bothered as anybody about the concept of 3 decades of the Bush/Clinton dynasties. It is very possible that Edwards’ plans for Iraq and healthcare could be more effective than Hillary’s.

But I will vote for Hillary in the primary if Edwards and/or Obama walk on water. Why? Because the Hannitys and the Limbaughs and the Malkins  et. al. have made it their mission to stop her. I have voted in every election since 1981 and no vote I have ever cast would make me more proud than one I could use to foil the mission of that revolting scum. Andrew, I am not alone in this. The right wing ranters’ audience already hates Clinton and she has already written them off. But the people that loathe the right wing ranters almost have to vote for Hillary specifically because of this scum’s terror of her.

So you vote for Clinton entirely to stick it to the right. This is the logic of polarization as its own reward. It is faction and dynasty placed at the core of American politics – something the founders rightly feared would destroy a rational democratic polity. It is the toxin that won’t go away. And when this country is attacked again and Clinton needs the trust and support of those who didn’t vote for her? What will America do then?

They need each other. So do the polarized, professionalized political and media classes. That’s why this race is already over, according to Washington, MSNBC, CNN and Fox. And they all make oodles of money off the classic left-right, McGovern-Nixon, Lib-Con circus. It’s win-win. For them.

This gets it about right:

HRC reaffirmed its 2004 position of supporting a trans-inclusive ENDA, but would not lobby members of Congress against voting for the watered down bill.

Sounds like her, doesn’t it?

The ride gets bumpier. But then we know her and him. Some of us had to cover them for eight years. The thought of doing it all over again is enough to make even the liberal journalists go pale.

Clinton is not yet the presumed nominee for the Democrats:

In a nutshell, Obama is beating all competitors in every category — number of donors, cash raised, cash on hand — except one. Only Democrat John Edwards has a smaller percentage of big donors — those who gave the maximum $2,300.

But, when actual people rather than percentages are measured, Obama takes that title, too, with more than 9,600 maximum givers compared to Edwards’ roughly 3,000 big donors.

Another virus I’ve contracted, apparently:

You are usually an astute observer of the political scene, but this time, I think you’re blinded by HDS (Hillary Derangement Syndrome). You really think the Republican establishment is so publically drooling over the prospect of a Clinton nomination because they think she’ll extend Bush’s Iraq policy into the next presidency? Come on. They’re eager for the Democrats to nominate her because they see her candidacy as their only hope of retaining the GOP grip on the presidency.

Clinton isn’t nearly anti-war enough to suit me, but I give her credit where it is due. She had the huevos to vote to cut off funding for the war and has repeatedly and vociferously denounced Bush’s quagmire — as recently as this Sunday, in fact. Although she believes some troops will be necessary in the Middle East to counter terrorism and prevent genocide, she doesn’t seem at all interested in "legitimating and extending" Bush’s Iraq debacle to rescue his legacy. It’s hard to imagine an honest reading of her words or deeds that would lead to that conclusion.

I’m an Obama supporter, and as much as I disagree with the idea of keeping any troops in Iraq, it seems obvious to me that Clinton’s approach is the moderate anti-war path advocated by many centrists. Obama himself wouldn’t immediately remove every American soldier from the Middle East.

It’s so interesting to observe the extreme responses Ms. Clinton evokes — someone should do a sociological study. She’s a prism through which people see their darkest fears projected. To the wingnut right, she’s a wild-eyed Marxist who will destroy the economy and make abortion mandatory. To the usually sensible Mr. Sullivan, she’s a patrician fellow-traveler with the oligarchic Bush clan.

Another readers writes:

You are missing or overlooking the essential point of Brooks’ column: That Hil’s popularity isn’t just a DC establishment phenomenon, but supported by middle-income and working-class people who are the true base of the Dem Party.

Obama is Dean with charm and charisma: A darling of the educated elites, the Net savvy, the well-heeled who have the time and money to make Internet contributions. Dean got savaged in Iowa when "regular folks" came out to caucus. I suspect a similar fate for Obama.

We’ll see, won’t we?

My friend, David Brooks, does his best to reinforce the Hillary-Is-Inevitable consensus in Washington right now. He may regret this, though:

On "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," Clinton could have vowed to vacate Iraq. Instead, she delivered hawkish mini-speeches that few Republicans would object to. She listed a series of threats and interests in the region and made it clear that she’d be willing to keep U.S. troops there to handle them.

Then we hear this from a right-wing reporter with access to Bush:

[Josh] Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that "even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there."

"Especially if it’s a Democrat," the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. "He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out."

If Clinton is that comfortable with a permanent occupation of Iraq at this point in the election cycle, how comfortable do you think she’s going to be next year? You think a politician so obsessed with gaining and wielding power is happy to relinquish any in the Middle East?

Patrick Ruffini draws the obvious conclusion:

Hillary is morphing into a George W. Bush Democrat. While that will draw heat from an increasingly desperate Obama, she will pay the price in the general election, not because she’s totally wrong, but because Democrat-inclined voters will smell something fishy about their gal acting like the one they’ve so long fantasized of kicking to the curb. And if she wins, the BushClintonBushClinton consensus will be back.

The conservative Washington Establishment is swooning for Hillary for a reason. The reason is an accommodation with what they see as the next source of power (surprise!); and the desire to see George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq legitimated and extended by a Democratic president (genuine surprise). Hillary is Bush’s ticket to posterity. On Iraq, she will be his legacy. They are not that dissimilar after all: both come from royal families, who have divvied up the White House for the past couple of decades. They may oppose one another; but they respect each other as equals in the neo-monarchy that is the current presidency. And so elite conservatives are falling over themselves to embrace a new Queen Hillary, with an empire reaching across Mesopotamia, a recently deposed court just waiting to return to the salons of DC, a consort happy to be co-president for another four years, and a back-channel to the other royal family. She’ll even have more powers than Clinton I, because Cheney has given her back various royal prerogatives: arrests without charges, torture, wire-tapping, and spy-ware on your Expedia account. Only the coronation awaits.

Vivat! Vivat! Vivat Regina! Unless, of course, the coronation is happening just a little too soon.

Diddly squat.

Drum likes it:

[A]lthough the three leading Democratic presidential candidates have proposed healthcare plans that are similar in a lot of ways, Hillary’s strikes me as not just substantively as good as any of them (and better in some ways), but also the politically savviest and most practical of the lot. Given her experience in 1994 (she knows what won’t work) combined with the legislative canniness she seems to have developed in the Senate (she know what will work), that’s not too surprising.

So does Ezra. Obama’s countering spin is here.

The animated musical version. It has its moments: