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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
No sale. No way. She's as duplicitous and as slippery as they come. If it weren't for Guilani she'd be the most despicable candidate running. If it weren't for Cheney she'd be the most hated person in America. DO. NOT. WANT.
I prefer a fair interview to the in your face type. The answers showed some thought behind them. No glib one liners, catchy phrases and the usual mind numbing bullshit that passes for pundit approved talking points. (I wonder how Chris Matthews will react. Will he get a heart attack?)
If one wants likeability (which seems to be the rage) then you had that for 7 years now. Recall that all the pundits wanted to have beer with the guy? Now they swoon over Thompson and gloss over his love life, and are looking for a manly man.
Hillary is not my first choice but I confess to having second thoughts about Obama - about his relative lack of experience. I saw Michelle Obama stressing her independent mind and asked myself: If Hillary has said this what would have been the reaction? Yet Michelle said things that were said by Hillary and I say good for her.
As a Brit used to the very high standards of speaking and communicating required of our leaders, it is finally refreshing after 8 long years of inarticulate George Bush to have someone who can speak in paragraphs and with clarity and precision. I'm pretty sure the world, certainly Britain is sitting with their finger's crossed hoping American's make a good descision this time. If I may with great respect give voters some advice: Don't go for likeability or charisma. We did that in Britain and got Tony Blair, who took us down the alley of Iraq and basically trashed what was left of Britain's world reputation. Go for competence, go for a sharp mind, go for someone tough minded but fair. Go for someone who is cautious, deliberate and serious minded who won't bet what's left in your Treasury on some wild adventure. Go for someone who commands wide respect internationally. Go for someone who will make you proud when they walk down the steps of Airforce One. Go for a meritocrat who studied hard at school, never relied of family connections but was propelled by the force of their own ambitions. Don't go for someone like George Bush who thinks they are above the English language, that wealth and power exempt them even from intellectual seriousness and even the rules of the English grammar. Eight years of George Bush has given the world time to figure out how to bypass America or just work around this troubled nation. Go for someone who will make America relevant again. Go for someone who will be ready on Day One. Go for Hillary Clinton.
Just what "hard-won" experience are we talking about? Let's see: How many positions has she taken on Iraq? And now she is going to keep troops there forever to compound the problems? Just what experience is she drawing on there?
First she supported the war. Then she wouldn't have supported the war if she had known what she knows now. (Likely experience here: others were gaining by having been against the war, and the electorate seemed to believe that we should declare victory and leave.) When for some reason that didn't fly, she decided to stay something different from anyone else: i.e., that we should stay in Iraq for 10 years. Which oil company gives her marching orders?
Or is it Bill's experience we are talking about? Or maybe her experience in New York? I am sure you have all heard what I have read: she doesn't lead, she follows.
Furthermore, and this really pisses off a lot of us who liked Bill Clinton: She didn't stand by her man. He was impeached for the most trivial reason, and where was she? Was she big enough to say to the world, "Hey, this is personal. Leave him alone. We will resolve this between us." Or something of the sort. No, she just uses the incident to try to stir up sympathy.
And so it will always be.
I know some people don't trust Hillary because she is always so prepared, pundits call her stiff and practiced. I always feel like we are seeing two different people. I like it that she is prepared. I don't have a problem that she is always the smartest person in the room...
I am in agreement on all of this. Furthermore, in contrast with the "smart guys" in the Bush administration – Wolfowitz comes to mind, in particular – she is not so blinded by ideology and so impressed with how smart she is that she is unable to learn from mistakes.
In my opinion, Hillary's biggest drawback is that she seems to approach a political fight leading with a compromise instead of settling for a compromise in the end. This is a problem I have with the most Democrats these days, and against slash-and-burn Republicans it is a losing strategy. It is why they come off like wimps.
I also see far too little recognition among Democrats of the very serious damage that the Bush administration has wrought on the foundations of American democracy - some of which was already underway long before Bush. Bush is a symptom of what can happen when the imperial presidency is in place. I'd like to see a Democrat (or a Republican, for that matter) who would convince me that one of their major goals is to reduce the power of the presidency: No signing statements. Unqualified denunciation of the 'unitary executive' horseshit that makes bastards like John Yoo cream their jeans. A promise to never inappropriately invoke 'executive privilege'. No wars without Congressional declaration of same. Maybe with these kinds of issues on the table, a Democrat in the White House could put together a comprimise coalition with people like McCain to bring in real campaign finance reform - with public financing of presidential and congressional races.
I found Ms. Clinton's tenor and tone surprisingly cordial in the interview. This runs counter to recollection. Indeed, most recently there was her scathing attack of Barak Obama because former Clinton supporter David Geffen who has switched camps claimed the Clintons had turned lying into an art form.
Her swift, vicious response was a page out of the Carville play book. One can argue it is a necessary campaign function, but it becomes difficult these days to not argue that Americans seem sick and tired of it.
Her Dean-like shrill yell won't play well. Snarky comments about a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy won't play well. Mocking women by saying she's not some Tammy Wynette singing "Stand by your man" won't play well.
Indeed, the Matt Lauer interview made famous by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy gets selectively edited to only include the VRWC comment. Matt's follow-up question was to ask her "but what if it is true" to which she replied that it would be "very grave indeed."
That doesn't get mentioned anymore.
Stand by your man.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
