Letters to the Editor
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@maureenodonnell
Several things: First, yes, one of the many good things Mister Bill did was to facilitate sanity in northern Ireland. For that alone he should get a reserved spot in Heaven. Then again, he and I both have a lot of auld sod in us (along with some other things Bill wouldn't want to mention right now); second, all the good he accomplished cannot somehow be seen as a right-of-way to do wrong now.
Second, and very importantly (to me, not to the issues) is this comment you made:
"There is a medical connection between sexual impotence in a man and cardiac problems so that Bill must be immensely flattered that he is still perceived as a sexual Rambo."
There is a broad statistical connection (your getting this from not only a career medic but a guy with heart disease and emergency bypass surgery in his past). You're wrong to assume that because of Bill's heart disease history he can no longer get it up. In fact, my own sweet story aside (I'm a couple years older than Bill and, well, let's just not go there; it wouldn't be seemly of me) the very fact that Bill can become so aggressive and hot under the collar correlates much better with his likely sustained sexual prowess (and consequent "little brain" directedness, something I honestly admire if not wildly endorse).
Third and finally (for now, anyway): I am totally with you on your post regarding Monica Lewinski. She was an adult (for the record there is no national age of consent in the US; it is a state-by-state deal, and in DC it is 16 years of age), she seemed to have set her sites on the Prez, and, given the circumstances and the harpy of a wife, it's hard to imagine any healthy middle-aged man turning away from that opportunity, although I do wish he'd been a little more discreet. It would have been good, also, had he not lied nor equivocated when caught with his pants down (so to speak). But that's really neither her nor there, and while he gets props from a lot of people (and frank admiration from a lot of men) for having pulled that stunt, Monica Lewinski will remain the butt of tasteless jokes for decades to come. God, that last sentence was full of unintended potential multiple entendres.
Anyway, Bill's peccadillos have, for me, at least, done little to undermine the overall greatness of his administration, nor do they bear on his current dive from grace. Not in my oh-so-humble opinion, anyway. I do feel for Monica Lewinski, but I also feel for Barack Obama, who has been forced into a ghastly three-way with the Clintons, something Bill has probably fantasized over for most of his life. And just for referential purposes, never underestimate a man with a history of heart disease. You could be missing the time of your life.
Good god, this was probably the most tasteless thing I've ever written, and I really didn't intend it to come out like that, but I'm too old and feeble to go back and re-do it, so trust me, it was said in a spirit of unity. Wow, that doesn't even look good now. Maybe I'll just shut up...but I doubt it.
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Gotta love all the posters citing Bill Clintons accomplishments...
as though they were somehow Hillary's. Get over it people, you can't vote for another Bill Clinton term. Hillary can't have it both ways. She can't claim to be running for change, but then base her whole candidacy on the Clinton years in the 1990s.
Obama was absolutely right when he said this was about the past vs. the future. This election is about whether we're going to continue to let baby boomer squabbles and fuzzy warm memories of the 90s dictate the dimensions of the Democratic party, or whether we're going to grow the party to establish a new liberal mainstream.
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South Carolina likely an aberration
To my mind, while Obama's win in SC may appear major, it is more than likely an aberration. A temporary speed bump en route to HRC's nomination. Yes, Obama took the black vote by a huge margin but in a state with a large percentage of black voters.
It may be a different story come Super Tuesday, when black, minorities will be the rule in most of those 20-odd states.
We will see.
It ain't over until it's over, and this contest has a way to go!
Oh, and to the guy that referenced "boomers". Most of us have been around a lot longer than you think - and have seen it all more or less. We have seen the hotshots with their "hope" come and go. What we need now is a champion prepared to FIGHT.
I see in the latest Fortune magazine that most of the hedge fund traders and managers are now tossing their hats into the ring behind Obama. Hmmmmm........let's see- wonder what that portends if he wins.
Yep, in 1968 there was tons of "hope" behind Eugene McCarthy too. Trouble is, it never went anywhere.
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I'm gpoing to say something really shocking.......I
"Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder" and all that, but there will be rending of garments and gnashing of teeth when I declare that despite all the gushing of Dowd, Sullivan (Andrew), Shapiro et al, I don't consider Barack Obama handsome. Neither do I go a bundle for Colin Farrell, the actor, so that should sort that out for the people with an attenuated vocabulary whose favourite words end in -ist. I'd read so often that Barack was handsome, and hav ing my own aesthetic antennae finely tuned, I decided I'd have a look and see if all the raving was justified. What I saw was an extremely thin, tall man with very peculiar ears, a gummy smile which is fequently on display, and lips with a blueish tinge as unprepossessing as Bill's red nose.
I don't give a damn what any of the candidates look like, although it would be nicer if none looked like something carved by Grinling Gibbons, famous for making church gargoyles in the l7th century. I made a typo. above but I'm leaving it there because media goo and gushing is my topic. Is everybody supposed to swallow the stuff that the media is dishing out, hook, line and sinker? Plastic smiles, plastic people - the funeral parlour of intelligent debate.