Letters to the Editor

• How Selfish Are You?

  [Read the article: The knives come out in South Carolina]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Hillary backers, through endorsing her are essentially saying that they have no problem with Rovian tactics so long its being used by their side, are facing a cognative dissonance problem that could potentially detroy this country's short term hopes.

  How selfish are you?

  First of all, let's back up here. Hillary Clinton didn't start this; Barack Obama's campaign started it when they put out emails and letters saying that Bill Clinton was calling Obama's campaign a "fairy tale." So let's talk about who's distorting the truth. Worse than this, they took their distortion to the Black community. The tactics continued in Nevada when Obama's campaign endorsed the CWU's ad saying Hillary Clinton didn't "respect" Latinos.

  Barack Obama set himself up for some of Monday night's drubbing when he engaged in a sneak attack on Bill Clinton via his comment about Ronald Reagan's presidency being more "transformative" than Clinton's.

  I was part of the generation that wanted change in the Democratic Party and supported Bobby Kennedy for president. That is where the similarities to Barack Obama end. Bobby Kennedy had not only the vision, he had the leadership and the experience to back up the vision. That is the difference. Barack Obama isn't one-tenth the candidate or leader that Bobby Kennedy was.

  Bobby Kennedy didn't pander to religious fundamentalists, to whites, to a Republican ideology just to get votes, because he believed to his soul in his vision and the ability to make it happen. He would have.

  In addition to his limited experience as a U.S. Senator, Barack Obama talks out of both sides of his mouth, saying widely divergent things to different groups about his "vision" (universal health care vs. penalizing those who won't buy health care; taking funds from the Social Security trust fund to help pay for his economic stimulus package; voting in favor of the 2005 bankruptcy bill) and has sidestepped hard choices: speaking against the war in Iraq in Chicago, but voting to fund the war every time as a U.S. Senator; voting "present" over 100 times on legislation that was "troubling," rather than taking the heat to vote for or against it, or doing something to moderate it).

  So, how selfish is a question best directed at Barack Obama, or to Obama supporters, most of whom don't have a clue about what it takes to get policy introduced, much less passed in Washington, D.C., and who seem motivated more by their own self-interest than that of a greater good.

  I spent 20 years in Washington, D.C. as a progressive Democrat, working on issues near and dear to progressives: Family and Medical Leave Act, Americans With Disabilities Act, laws making sexual harassment illegal, pay equity for women workers, and helping employees who wanted to form unions. I know how the system works because I have worked it. I am proud of what I have done. And let me add something here. Eight of those years were during the Clinton Administration. Hillary Clinton helped us fight -- and win -- these battles, as First Lady.

  So, because Hillary Clinton presents herself as the "establishment" candidate, that's a bad word? She has also worked extremely hard -- on her own -- to get where she is. What do you suppose it was like in the 60s for women to get into any law school, much less Harvard? Men of the sixties forget that they were just as sexist and demeaning to women then as other men are today and that women didn't have anything given to them then.

  Now we have this attractive, young Black male running for president with weak credentials at best, arrogantly assuming that he's the heir apparent to the Democratic Party and a shoo-in for the party's nominee. Put yourself in a woman's shoes, in Hillary Clinton's shoes, under those circumstances and tell me you wouldn't feel disrespected, ignored, disenfranchised and angry. She has to fight back and she has to fight twice or three times harder than Barack Obama or John Edwards to get noticed and listened to. She has the backbone to fight and she has the experience to serve. If you and others can't see it, maybe you need to examine your own motives.

  Permalink Wednesday, January 23, 2008 12:54 AM