Letters to the Editor
Rocky57
Published Letters: 213 Editor's Choice: 4
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madame fauntleroy
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton's long strange journey on Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"She says she worked in the civil rights movement. Yeah. Did see her gleefully holding the hose for Bull Connor."
Your implication is correct [and, figuratively so, in one sense]: She was too young to have fought the battles the movement endured between 1960 and 1965. She was, what, 17 when John Lewis got his head stoved in on the Edmund Pettis Bridge, in Selma? And, her father certainly wouldn't have given her his permission to have her stand in Civil Rights picket lines or sit-ins, anyway.
But, it's telling what he DIO give her permission to do, at 15-16 years, and that was to actively campaign as a Goldwater Girl, in the Chicago environs, for "Mr. State's Rights."
If it seems as if I'm a bit fixated on Mr. Rodham's social and political views and Hillary's political activities during the time [as she told a black congregation-- in a dialect that had to heard to be believed] of her "involvement" in the greatest social movement since the American Civil War it's only because I've grown more and more exasperated with her chutzpah.
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@LJWalker53
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton's long strange journey on Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"...If we think the American people were under pressure to conform to Bush's worldview and were intimidated, just imagine the pressure in Congress to conform. Obviously, it worked!
Finally, Sen. Clinton's record since that authorization vote has been consistent and true. She never took that vote as a "game," as some seem to imply in these threads. She has actually worked to address the problems, from the get-go, even before the authorization was imminent...."
But, here is the dilemma for Clinton: How does she convincingly say that she voted for the authorisation without having been coerced by a post 9/11 zeitgeist or having calculating that, despite the very real possibility [considering the nature of the person sitting in the Oval Office] that massive human suffering and material destruction could result from a blank check given to the administration, a "yea" vote could help her win the Presidency?
Again, if she says she was coerced, then she raises the question of whether she's suited enough, ie., strong enough, to lead and if she backs away from that particular horn of the dilemma, she's right back to the question of whether, as a progressive Democratic national figure, she ignored the likely outcome of giving a war vote to George W. Bush and did the expedient thing for the advancement of her career [which, of course, once again raises the old bugaboo about the Clintons and their tried and true tactic of triangulation]? From the perspective of the 2008 Democratic electorate, she's been firmly on the horns of a dilemma since that 2002 vote, and they see no way in which she's gotten free of them.
Hence, the rise of Obama and her present electoral predicament.
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He's not the kind of leader to?....
[Read the article: Moving beyond Obama and race]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Obama, a multi-racial figure, was hoosegowed into the political low rent area of race with an incessant if muted drumbeat about "fairy tales," drug addiction and selling, pictures of Somali tribal gear and sly evocations of Jesse Jackson to make him the "race candidate." Though the Wright thing was always going to be hanging out there, it acquired traction because of the groundwork laid by the Clinton campaign. Obama, to that point, hadn't discussed race since, given the particular bent of a large part of a certain electorate, it wasn't to his advantage. Hillary made sure that he couldn't avoid it.
Oh, yeah...then, there's this:
"New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said today that the people around Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton practice "gutter" politics and that they feel entitled to the presidency, a day after an informal adviser to her campaign compared Richardson to Judas for endorsing Sen. Barack Obama..."
Richardson Scorns Clinton Aides, Defends Clinton, By Zachary A. Goldfarb http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-talk/2008/03/richardson_scorns_clinton_aide.html?hpid=topnews
What many here have been saying all along, Joan [and Richardson was, in pinning this on Clinton aides, being charitable to his old benefactors]...I doubt if African-Americans would be backing Al Sharpton or Alan Keyes in die-hard, overwhelming numbers, given the track record of those two. And, that should be ditto for many women of a certain demographic who are all wrought up about Hillary Clinton, possibly one of the worst possible female candidates offered up by the Republic. Throw in her exaggeration of her foreign policy experience--even Sinbad had to riff on her about that one--and now we know she was, to say the least, puffing about her Bosnian experience, and her blatant lack of respect for Obama, a fellow democrat, as a viable presidential candidate and, I believe, as a person, and you've got a particularly unworthy Democratic standard bearer.
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@rphillips
[Read the article: Moving beyond Obama and race]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]rphillips:"Everyone who criticizes Obama is being called a "racist", and if McCain appears headed for victory in the final weeks of the campaign, threats and intimidations will come hot and heavy. "We'll riot" if "racism" keeps Obama from getting elected. You're a racist if you oppose Obama!!"
Whooa...ease up now. Time to put the cap back on the bottle.