Letters to the Editor
juneausmog
Published Letters: 223 Editor's Choice: 10
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Left-wing Ideology - Stop listening to Hillary, she voted for the war!!!
[Read the article: What Hillary Clinton should have known]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hillary voted for the war before she was against it. *GASP*! OMG, the senator from New York which was impacted the most by 9/11, fell for the WMD and al quaeda trick. So, now let's punish her for it.
I thought that crap could only work on right-wing sheeple. But now its working on us.
This tactic reminds me of the people who argued that there was no difference between Gore and Bush, then voted for Nadar. Cutting off their nose to spite their face.
This stance on Hillary's war vote is an ideological stance. She has one option: say her vote was a mistake. It doesn't matter that she agrees with, say you or me now, her vote is an excuse to punish her and stop listening to her positions on other issues, or even the Iraq issue. This plays right into the right-wing noise machines hands. One option or the other, and then the debate is closed. That's an ideological stance. She's being punished for not thinking exactly how we, the 15% of the time, thought.
Now Edwards voted for the same thing as Hillary, but because he has parroted the exact thing the left-wing wanted him to say, he's golden.
Does this really make him superior to her on the issue? Only by degrees. Do you want the one who will admit an error or the one who sticks to their guns? Edwards' position plays better in the primaries, but does it show that Hillary has the courage of her conviction to stay with a position that flies in the face of present political convention? She could now, and then be accused of flip-flopping. The main thing is, the left-wing is pissed off that she is not pandering to THEM.
And then, as I've heard that this vote illustrates her inability to admit a mistake. The fear is that when someone can't admit a mistake (like bush), not only are they stubborn, but they can't learn or listen. The reality is, Bush cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, but Hillary can. I think people could easily say, that I too, cannot admit a mistake. And put in the same position, perhaps publicly I couldn't, I don't know, but that doesn't mean I didn't allow a debate about an issue to occur, and listen, and it doesn't mean that I don't learn my mistakes for future actions.
The reality is, she hasn't given anyone reason to believe that not only can she not admit a mistake, but she can't learn from it as well (the bush paradigm). In fact, she did learn from it and has changed her position on the war. She FLIP-FLOPPED on the Iraq war. She's not like bush who can't debate, listen, admit wrong OR learn.
The irony is about this position on Hillary, is that the left-wing has stopped listening and debating. You're either with us or against us.
The bottom line; if a Democrat was in office, Hillary, Gore or anyone but Lieberman, wouldn't have taken us to war against Iraq. Judge her on her abilities to run the executive, not in the context of a legislative one. If she didn't vote for it, the Iraq War resolution would have passed anyway, and here we would be, bitching about the war, just like we are now.
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Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart
[Read the article: What Hillary Clinton should have known]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When a smart and formidable woman screws up, the latent misogyny that exists in our society bubbles up to the surface.
We watched this happen with Martha Stewart who ha jail time for her stock shinanigans. Now, I KNOW our president should have gone to jail for his actions in Harken Oil. And Ken Lay and Jeff Skillings didn't spend a day in jail. But Martha did.
Send that woman back to the kitchen! The misogynistic glee can't help themselves.
And while I am not laying any accusation of misogyny to any Salon reader, I do see the easiness at which the arguments fall back into this context.
Hillary's divisiness is based in real misogyny or the FEAR of misogyny. She is cold, and calculating. Wow, that's just what Martha was accused of. And yet, is Guiliani called cold and calculating? Is Edwards? Is Obama? Is McCain? Nope.
A man can fuck up this country over and over again, and yet we'll keep giving them chances. But a woman is calculating, and now she's divisive and not fit for the White House.
Remember when Georgie in '00 ran on the same perception Obama and Edwards cuurently has? Staying above the fray,...changing the tone,...transforming politics,...that really worked out for us, didn't it? And while I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Obama and Edwards, I don't know why Hillary doesn't get the same treatment.
Actually, I do know, and its sad. This Democratic party is playing right into the conservative, right-wing hands of hating Hillary. We are manipulated so easily.
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Correction to Emmagrace
[Read the article: What Hillary Clinton should have known]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]True, currently Jeffrey Skilling is serving in jail. My point was not centered on the current status, but of the entire 4-year period in comparison with the crime, the punishment and the gender.
By the time Martha Stewart served her sentence, the Enron scandal had already been going on for 4 years. And it still took another year after she had completed her 5 month sentence for these crooks to be jailed. But the fast-track treatment of her case and the wide-spread condemnation coverage she recieved supports my point.
Or, you can just dismiss the entire point by hinging on this nuance. Oh, don't liberals love to nuance to death.