First Hillary Clinton told a newspaper that Bernie Sanders wasn’t qualified to be president. When he shot back that her judgement made her unqualified, she pretended he’d attacked her out of nowhere. Such are the dynamics of a media narrative: it’s impossible to tell the true truth, only their truth.
Unqualified
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
21 Comments. Leave new
Rule #1 of *winning* in politics. Always attack. Never defend.
“The media believes Hillary cannot be criticized by a man. She thinks she can hide behind her gender.”
“If she’s president, will she and her media cronies try to bring Putin to heel with accusations of sexism?”
The really interesting part, for me, is the fundamental gap in situational awareness this demonstrates. For instance, HRC going up against the king of Saudi Arabia, a country described by one of its female inhabitants as “the largest women’s prison on the planet.”
HRC should realize that it isn’t a question of her being able or not able to negotiate. The reality is that Saudi Arabia’s leadership doesn’t dare lose face to a woman. That’s a cultural issue. And a smart woman would know that and realize the limitation her gender places on her DUE TO THAT CULTURE.
But HRC thinks she’s superb. She genuinely thinks she’s the woman who’s going to lecture the Saudis about how they treat their women and change all that because, in her mind, she’s really that good. It’s a classic case of narcissistic delusion.
And when it fails, the responses won’t be, “Jeez. We really didn’t understand the situation going in, did we?” It will be “They hate her because she’s a woman.”
Duh. Anyone with a functional brain could tell you that. It’s like the kid on Halloween who sees someone else clean out a candy bowl left on its own. “But the sign said ‘take one’!” And the reply? “So? Like I care about your set of rules?”
Lecture is right. She is such a scold.
There’s no question in my mind she truly thinks of the presidency as her birthright. As if she somehow deserves that place in history. The ego and hubris and I would go so far as to say solipsism. To her, we’re all just objects, accessories in her world.
It’s sadly ironic that all the “-isms” that the Left has used to great advantage have come home to roost. The Big O is a shitty president, you say? You’re a racist! Hillary Thatcher isn’t qualified, you say? You’re sexist! And the lefties who live in fear of being tagged with those (and other) labels hold their tongues rather than hold their politicians feet to the fire.
Sadly? They dragged our whole culture through the mud. About time they got muddy themselves. If only karmic justice were swifter, harsher, and more frequent.
Sanders is probably the only American politician who doesn’t read himself to sleep every night with Niccolò Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.
You do Signore Machiavelli a disservice. He was not evil. At any rate The Prince doesn’t apply well to republics.
I did not claim in any way that Machiavelli was evil. As for us being a republic, maybe in name. In practice we’re more of a de facto dictatorship- with our freedoms watered down or outright illusory.
Ah. You seemed to imply it by associating him with America’s self-evidently evil political class. True that we are not all that free, but a population that believes itself to be free is trouble enough for a “prince.”
When Secretary Clinton said Sanders was unqualified to run for the Democratic nomination, that was a simple fact. Sanders was never married to one of America’s greatest presidents, one who helped African-Americans more than any other president by pushing laws through the Congress that resulted in many, many more of them being incarcerated than the laws signed by any other president, and 90+% of African-Americans who are not incarcerated and are able to vote are very, very grateful to the Clintons (not grateful enough to vote for Hillary instead of Obama in ’08, but he’s not running this year, so now Secretary Clinton is getting a larger share of the African-American vote in the primaries than Obama did).
When Senator Sanders said Secretary Clinton was no more qualified than he to be president, the US press had a field day. Unlike Senator Sanders who was unpatriotic and failed to support Bush, jr, Secretary Clinton voted correctly as Senator, giving her full and unqualified support to Bush, jr so he could transform Iraq from an impoverished, backward nation ruled by an evil tyrant into a peaceful, prosperous democracy from which Europe has absolutely no obligation to accept refugees, since there is no longer any war or poverty or personal danger to anyone in Iraq. Also, as one can read in the gocomics comments, many, many soldiers found Saddam’s massive nuclear arsenal pointed at the US with the fuses lit (Iraq uses rockets like the ones sold in the US for the 4th of July), but Bush, jr, always the compassionate president, ordered all mention of those nuclear rockets classified so they would not terrify the American people. And it is proven that those soldiers were really soldiers, because all record of their military service was classified, so the fact that the records show that they were never soldiers is irrefutable proof that they WERE soldiers who found and snuffed out Saddam’s massive nuclear arsenal.
And then Secretary Clinton found out that the dictator of Libya was also responsible (along with Saddam) for 9/11, and forced the wimp Obama to do the right thing and transform Libya from a horrible country where all citizens got free health care, into a peaceful and prosperous democracy, from which no European country need admit anyone, since Libya is now peaceful, so no one from Libya qualifies as a refugee.
Not only is Clinton eminently qualified to be president, all of Europe and the MENA are eternally grateful to her for the great work she’s done to help them.
And she’ll free Syria, then Iran and North Korea, boot the Soviet Union out of Eastern Europe, free Georgia and the Ukraine, replace Putin with a good Soviet who was born and raised in the US, boot China out of the East Sea and the South Sea, replace Xi with a good ABC, and leave the world very, very peaceful.
I’m detecting a faint whiff of sarcasm.
I’m identifying a dash of understatement.
Don’t worry. All the rotting bodies will cover that smell right up.
Well, Michael, when you put it like that, I guess she is «qualified» after all…. 😉
O brave new world. That has such people in’t !
Henri
There was a good scene in “Better Call Saul,” a couple weeks ago. The main character’s girlfriend, who is a lawyer, is trying to get a big client. That client says something to the effect of, “It’s a lot of work for one person.” And her response is, “If I couldn’t handle it, I wouldn’t waste your time. Or mine.”
And I think that HRC is going to discover that she’s in over her head. She fought and fought to win this (if she DOES win this), and she can’t look at the big picture: She will NOT be able to get anything done against the Republicans and their insane obstructionism. She isn’t “loved” by enough people to fire up the masses. Bernie could have; Clinton can’t. And as the shitstorm grows, that’s the thought that will keep going through my head: “If you couldn’t handle it, why did you take it? How could you not have seen that you weren’t capable? It’s the same stupidity that had you voting for the Iraq War.”
If she wins and then fails, I don’t want to hear a word from any of her supporters for the rest of time.
Me too also.
Well, I understand an icepick to the eardrum is very effective. So is total isolation.
But other than a limited number of unpleasant options, you are most definitely going to hear, “But it’s not her fault” a lot.
Which will be at least partially true, however it’s not the whole story as you pointed out.
One last thought on this. …
Sanders actually could win Indiana. He might even win California. What does that tell us, the electorate, about Clinton’s viability if the Sanders people are STILL showing up to vote against her in what is, almost certainly, a contest that they cannot win? The chart of the Sanders and Clinton campaigns shows that one campaign went up, up, up in popularity, and the other went down, down, down. Does anyone think Clinton’s favorable rating is going to magically start reversing?
It’s not Ms Clinton’s favourability ratings that worry me – it’s her record and her policies. On the other hand, perhaps these latter two are not entirely irrelevant to her low score on the first-named….
Henri