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Not all that long ago I defended Hillary Clinton from low blows thrown by the official-unofficial water-carrying apparatchiks of the Corporate Mass Media.
Now sadly I have to stand fast and full square against her faction in its ill-considered targeting of Barack Obama, presumably for the sake of somebody's idea (Mark Penn?) of political advantage. Although one would be hard-pressed to call this wave of Hillary's "Surge" against all comers a rip-roaring success.
If the Dems split in '08 and the sick, decrepit, virtually bed-ridden GOP wins the White House (and by unexpected rout retakes the House and Senate in the bargain ) because of it the Clinton name will live in INFAMY. Because it would have been their fault!
Flashback:
It's not like Bill Clinton was so great a President or Hillary such a great sidekick or senator. Or Muse.
A super-salesmen? Yes. A young W.C. Fields (juggling everything including the kitchen sink) closing some crazy barroom deal, putting over some convoluted scheme to the detriment of some poor discombobulated boobs? Yes. With Mother-Lover-Crone Hillary making it all possible by her steadfast loyalty devotion and deep star-crossed affection for her "very bad, very naughty boy".
But--and I've asked this question many times--what of singular note did the Clintons actually accomplish? (And if anyone believes they are something less than dyadic allies they had better think again. Their power is the power of two.)
They blew the Universal Healthcare initiative; signed on with the GOP in the anti-labor NAFTA Treaty facilitating the destruction of America's manufacturing base and fostering a weakened socio-economic atmosphere with dire national security consequences; attacked the Social Security Act's Federal guarantee for Aid to Families with Dependant Children; cause a backlash culminating in the loss of the Congress by the Dems for most of the decade of the 1990s and beyond; the Whitewater Scandal; the Lewinsky Affair and subsequent Impeachment Debacle. As a U.S. Senator Hillary has been nothing more than a competent administrator, propping a disintegrating system and preserving and protecting her own political ambitions.
In this current struggle between the candidates according to the Law of Tooth and Claw, what exactly caused Hillary (her husband and surrogates) to flare up?
Obama referenced King and Kennedy. Big frigging deal. He didn't compare himself to them. Hillary acted as though Obama didn't have a right to even mention them!
Overnight a rift developed between the African-American and Women's wings of the Democratic Party. And leave it to media midgets like Chris Matthews to do everything possible to widen that rift in the endless pursuit for ears and eyeballs.
Is the current impasse merely a preview of what we can expect from another Clinton term? Can we really afford any more such private nightmares of public policy (to borrow a phrase attributed to James Ellroy) ?
Time to do a little factcheck. Refresh your historical memory for clear recall of the Clinton period. Let's not over-romanticize those times. Bill Clinton was 'Huckleberry Finn Gone to Washington' not by Frank Capra but by David Lynch.
There was relative peace and generalized prosperity? Good. Those are things that are a credit to any leader.
But today there are better choices available: Obama, Kucinich, Edwards. They're not saints. But they do carry less baggage.
The 'Third Way' is a Dead End! (Maybe it is that realization what spurred Sid Blumenthal's little sojourn the other night down his own dark lost highway when he got busted for being plastered going 70 in a 30 mph zone.)
It would well behoove citizens to give all candidates a second look, seriously considering what drives certain personalities to crave power in the first place and whether they are indeed worthy of the trust.
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