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But the rats abandoned ship as soon as they saw it was politically expendient. The Clinton's progressive policies have been on display for decades -- and they took immense personal damage from the Republicans for it. They took it for the Democratic Party. You cannot deny that. Therefore I support them. You go ahead and be just another rat. Go ahead and vote Obama. He deserves you.
-- red_gti2000
Rats don't leave a ship unless it's sinking, but let's leave aside that ironic choice of words.
As for the Clintons' progressive policies, although one could argue that Bill's Don't-Ask-Don't Tell policy shortly after taking office sunk a so-called progressive agenda shortly after taking office, they disappeared after 1994 when Hillary's health-care plan fell apart and the GOP routed the Dems in the congressionals. After that, Bill took a hard tack to the right out of political expediency, (not saying it was wrong, just saying). It was at this time that we got welfare reform, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that has resulted in a total takeover in the MSM by corporate interests. Defend those policies all you like, but they're hardly the byproducts of a progressive. (Hillary's vote on Kyl-Lieberman was the final straw for me. No progressive, period, votes to give Bush a second chance to wage a bad war, after first voting to give him a bad war in 2002.)
As for the abuse the Clintons took, I agree, but some of it wasn't so much for their policies per se as for their prevarications, their apparent lack of integrity. It is with this abuse in mind, that it seemed to me another Clinton could not sell a Dem agenda in a bitterly divided landscape. It became clear to this rat at least that we needed to look elsewhere for someone who could.
We've seen what Dem compromise of their ideals means. (See above examples and the Iraq war, tax cuts for the rich, the Patriot Act, etc., among other recent debacles.) Obama seems to be the right guy. Maybe I'm wrong, but that doesn't mean Hillary's problems suddenly disappear.
