Hillary Clinton, Joyless Uniter
“The fact that a lot of people dislike you is troubling,” says the director of the Quinnipiac University poll, talking about Hillary Clinton (D-Carpetbagger, Slept Her Way Into National Prominence, NY). She scores 47 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, leaving Barack Obama (21 percent) and John Edwards (12 percent) in the dust. This is supposed to make her inevitable. Why bother to hold primaries? But a funny thing happens when Democrats and Republicans talk about 2008: they find common ground.
“I can’t stand Hillary,” the Republican opens.
“She’s disgusting,” the Democrat agrees. At last, a Uniter.
Half the electorate hates her–and not just members of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. She’s a juggernaut, at least in a Howard Dean-in-November 2003 kind of way. Liberals will vote for her if she’s the nominee. But it’ll be a chore. She epitomizes joylessness. Win or lose, who cares?
She’s the time-to-make-the-doughnuts candidate.
Every voter has his or her limit, a moment or an act or just a general sense about a politician that makes the idea of voting for them feel so unpleasant they’d rather cross party lines, or stay home on election day. For me, and for a lot of people, it was Hillary’s vote to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a “foreign terrorist organization,” unleashing new sanctions and U.S. military “instruments”–a step toward war–against Iran.
I forgive easily. I could have let Hillary off the hook for supporting NAFTA, screwing up healthcare in 1993 and voting for the proto-fascist USA-Patriot Act. I could have overlooked her Reaganesque cluelessness about the lives of ordinary people. (Reneging on her “baby bond” proposal that Americans receive $5,000 at age 18, she now wants to give everyone a 401(k) and have the government match it “up to $1,000.” Thanks to this windfall, she says, “they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that down payment on their first home.” Lame idea, obviously. What I want to know is: Where can you buy a house or a college education for $1000? On the moon?)
I might have even have forgiven Hillary’s vote to authorize Bush to start the unprovoked war against Iraq, though she never apologized for a cowardly (and miscalculated) act of triangulation that contributed to the deaths of more than a million Iraqis. As Tim Grieve wrote in Salon: “She has gone from 1) voting for the use-of-force resolution, to 2) questioning the intelligence that formed the basis of that vote, to 3) arguing that the Bush administration distorted the intelligence, to 4) saying she didn’t regret giving Bush authority to use force but did regret the way he used that authority, to 5) saying the resolution never would have come to a vote if Congress knew then what it knows now, to 6) saying that Congress wouldn’t have voted for the resolution if Congress knew then what it knows now, to 7) saying that she wouldn’t have voted for the resolution if she knew then what she knows now.”
Hillary’s October 2003 speech to the Senate is a fair summary of her defense: “The idea of giving our president authority to act…against Saddam Hussein, was one I could support and I did so. In the last year, however, I have been first perplexed, then surprised, then amazed, and even outraged and always frustrated by the implementation of the authority given the president by this Congress.” Good idea, fouled up by hyper-aggression and lousy implementation. Well, what did she expect? Bush was a warmonger, a liar who’d already attacked Afghanistan, where Osama wasn’t, and sucked up to Pakistan, where he was, after 9/11. She gave him a blank check. She can’t have been surprised when he cashed it.
As I said, I’m the forgiving type. I get it: Hillary can’t apologize for her Iraq vote. It would make her look weak. As she said in September 2006 on ABC News, “I can only look at what I knew at the time because I don’t think you get do-overs in life. I think you have to take responsibility. And hopefully, learn from it and go forward. I regret very much the way the president used the authority he was given because I think he misled the Congress, and he misled the country.”
Except…except…she did get a do-over. The same president who misled her, Congress and the country, asked for her vote on yet another resolution based on phony intelligence that starts us down the path to war–this time against Iran. She had a chance to prove that she’d learned her lesson. She voted yes. Again.
President Hillary won’t close Gitmo. She won’t stop torturing. She won’t stop listening to our phone calls. She won’t stop the war in Iraq, much less in Afghanistan. Heck, she might even start a new one.
Fool you once, shame on Bush. Fool you twice, I stop thinking how cool it would be for the United States to finally elect a woman president.
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
16 Comments.
Ted, you forgot about how Hillary tried to do her best "Mammy" imitation at a black Baptist Church in the south earlier this year! Nothing says "uniter" like craven, race-baiting and poorly executed attempts at pandering to your audience.
Anyone who opposes her would be wise to replay that clip over, and over, and over again on national TV.
My own epiphany regarding the competance of Ms. Clinton was when she was cross-examining Rummy at the Abu Ghraib hearings. She called this what it was, an attrocity. Immediately interrupted by the chairman on the audacity of someone to call anything we do an "attrocity", I watched as the perfect opportunity arrived for her to show she wasn't just another Lemming. Needless to say, I was disappointed. She apologized profusely, when she should've stood up like a real leader instead.
There are other women (like Barbara Boxer) I would vote for in a heartbeat, unfortunately they aren't running.
The Presidency isn't about gender, it's about competance and leadership, which Hillary simply does not possess.
I simply voted for the best of worst choices. When are "We The People" going to make a choice we aren't spoon fed?
If Hillary gets the nomination, I hope the Greens field a candidate so I can at least lodge a protest vote.
I don't care who the Republicans run against her, I'll never vote for Hillary.
If the Dems where bright (ha!), they'd pay attention to the polls showing that Hillary ISN'T the strongest nominee when considering the general election–she's polled to lose against Rudi and McCain. She's actually the weakest candidate among the top tier Democrats…
…and to think, I was actually afraid that Rice might be the first woman prez. Well, at least Rice never voted for the war. The problem is that none of these people actually care about what they do, they are trying to get ahead. The failed constitution made it that way.
and we should probably stop talking about a vote, since there really isn't going to be one?
god this country is f*cked. theres nothing more to say.
If she's the nominee I will definitely vote for her and wish her the best, because for all her faults, Bill is an awesome guy to have in the spotlight again, she's a woman and it's long past time, because all current Republicans save Paul and Huckabee are evil rotten bastards who should be disqualified on constitutional grounds, and because I will be proud of my country for electing her.
I stand by my (and your's, Ted) call on John Edwards getting the nod though, with Richardson hopefully as a running mate…it will be a partial return to at least a feeling of sanity in this country Ted.
Ted, you forgot about how Hillary tried to do her best "Mammy" imitation at a black Baptist Church in the south earlier this year!
A couple of months ago, columnist Walter Williams wrote that during her appearance at that church, Clinton insulted black people by using stereotypical black dialect, namely "I don't feel no ways tired." What he failed to mention was that she was quoting a famous hymn. He couldn't have missed that she was quoting a hymn because she said so before quoting it, meaning Williams's column was probably a deliberate lie.
That's the problem with the way the media covers Clinton. As Rall points out, there are plenty of real reasons to be wary of her candidacy, but the media would rather focus on minor problems, her personal life, and outright fictions. If she becomes the official candidate, the stories we heard about her and her husband back in the 1990s are going to return. Already Kathleen Willey has written a new book in which she brings back the old idea that the Clintons might have been involved in the murders of several people.
As for her vote on the Iraq war, she tries to excuse it by saying she didn't know at the time what would happen and that Bush misled her. But while no one could've known exactly what would happen, plenty of people in 2002 knew that Iraq was not a threat to the US, that it had no connection to the terrorists who attacked the US, and that trying to take over the country would be disastrous and lead to an increase in terrorism. Also, it was obvious in 2002 that the Bush Administration was indeed misleading Congress and the American people about Iraq, and that its claims about weapons and the threat posed to the US were inaccurate or simply untrue. Sure, a lot of ordinary people got suckered, but a senator should have known enough to know better. If she was truly fooled by Bush, she has no business having a job in which she decides the fates of millions of people.
Hillary killed the A.B.B. doctrine. Anyone remember what that was?
Somebody bring up Iran-Contra!!!
Well, nobody running is absolutely appropriate for the job in White House. Why can't we talk about the one who reflects Americans' aspirations more than anybody else in the field?
Ted, it is high time you wrote about Kucinich. Or at least consider mentioning him while you write about the race to WH.
Hillary, is a weak choice. Which only goes to show, the Dems really don't want the White House in 08. Think about it, why would they want to inherit the pile chimpster is going to leave?
I was holding my breath (and bowels) waiting for Pat Robertson's endorsement of a presidential candidate. One would think Giuliani has the tiniest bit of dignity left, but this is not so. Earth to Pat Robertson: you were irrelevant when you lied about your military service in Korea, you shameless dog, and you are irrelevant now. Please, Pat, do the honorable thing. You know what that is. Make sure you wind the rope eight times around the loop. Have fun in HELL!
Ted.
be the first to make a comic about that sculpture of famous women with one last unsculpted portion set aside for the first woman prez.
She said the Petraeus report requires a "willing suspension of disbelief" and then voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which included findings from the Petraeus report.
"Every voter has his or her limit…a moment…about a politician that makes the idea of voting for them feel so unpleasant they'd rather cross party lines, or stay home on election day."
Please don't forget voting for a third-party candidate. Why we must media commentators always forget that other options are available. (Of course I'm in a non-swing state where my vote doesn't count, maybe I would feel differently if I were in Ohio.)