The Clintons?
Hi. It’s Christy from BuzzFlash.com. Steve is doing the trial thing, so here’s another entry.
What’s in a name? Hillary Clinton’s name has undergone several transitions* (see below) in her long career, all of which have been duly noted by pundits and criticized. She seems damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t. Apparently her campaign had settled on “Hillary.” I’m not sure that was a wise choice since it kind of leads one to “Bill” just as “Ben” leads to “Jen.”
Listening to pundits in recent days, though, and reading a lot of print news reports, leaves me believing Senator Clinton increasingly is being referred to in a new way. To me it’s not a way that seems likely to help her bid for the presidency.
It’s “The Clintons.”
Why is the widely disliked Mark Penn still a top consultant for Hillary? It’s his long history with “The Clintons.” Why does Hillary have high negatives? It’s “The Clintons’” baggage of scandals and investigations. How will Hillary prevail in Pennsylvania? She has the residual love for “The Clintons” of blue-collar voters.
Earlier in the campaign, I feel like Senator Clinton had established at least the perception that she was her own person, and that she would relegate Bill Clinton to doing good deeds overseas if she assumed the presidency. Has that perception been lost?
Democrats backing Hillary now often say other Democrats must be nuts not to see that she represents a return to the prosperity and compassionate government Bill Clinton’s administration stood for.
Democrats not backing Hillary say we must get away from “dynasties” and suggest Bill’s presence means no vice-presidential nominee could do much of anything in her administration.
Is this shift in nomenclature that I describe real and have others noticed it? If so, what does it mean for the Hillary Clinton candidacy or presidency?
* Hillary Diane Rodham, Hillary Rodham, Hillary Clinton, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, The First Lady, Senator Clinton, HRC, Hillary, Billary?
April 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Oh please. I was one of those who defended the Clintons in 1992, 1996, and even Bill’s legal fund during impeachment. I fired off a (half) dozen letters to the New York Times when Arthur Sulzberger and his editors published William Safire’s grotesque “Hillary is a Congenital Liar” column. No one, since that time, has exceeded me in regarding the Times’ reporting from that era as an example of reprehensible ‘reporting’ - of putting profit and blaring headlines, smearing Democratic leaders and sneering at democratic principles ahead of fair, objective news reporting.
But through it all, no matter how often or vocally I defended Bill and Hillary, every time a new shoe dropped, some new petty or faux Clinton scandal accusation by the Repubs came up, I coudn’t help but wonder, “Is there any substance to THIS attack?”
Some of the Repub and right-wing media accusations were just silly - Hillary had every right to fire the Bush’s private travel agents (i.e. the “White House Travel Office ‘SCANDAL’) - but that was the ’scandal’ that drove Vince Foster, in a fit of despair that he couldn’t protect the Clintons from the ghoulish long knives of the DC establishment, to shoot himself.
The “Lincoln Bedroom scandal” was just plain silly (the same media gives George W. Bush a FREE PASS for hosting Ken Lay, Jack Abramoff, and even gay male hustler Jeff Ganon, who got a WH Secret Service press-pass despite his REAL NAME being Jim Guckert, and despite having an up-and-running gay male prostitution web site, complete with photo of his “physical assets”!) Some of the accusations against the Clintons - allusions to Conflict of Interest - had more substance, like the Marc Rich pardons, and Hillary’s brothers getting fat fees from those who won pardons. And other accusations were just plain ugly and harmful - the Roveian manufactured “White House Trashing” ’scandal’ drove Al Gore from Washington in disgrace, tarred and feathered by accusations that Clinton-Gore staffers trashed the White House… WITHOUT ONE PHOTOGRAPH OF EVIDENCE!
WHERE were the Clintons to DEFEND THEIR OWN former staffers???
WHY was the Clinton’s political capital so low, that they couldn’t STAND UP for their staffers against the NYT, WP, Fox ‘news’, and major-media LYNCH-MOB accusations?
WHY could not Hillary defuse the other absurd “scandal” accusations with grace and wit? Can anyone imagine Rosalyn Carter being subjected to those attacks? I remember “lefty” scorn vs Nancy Reagan - the “she bought fine china!” lament seems mild and harmless compared to the vitriol aimed at Hillary!
The above is just the (historical) preamble to what I have to say. (!)
My complaint with Hillary is not her “baggage” from the 1990s… it is her record since Jan. 2001.
#1. Hillary HOARDED her million-dollars campaign funds in late 2006, instead of HELPING outside DC challengers take on Repub. Party well-funded incumbents (davids vs goliath)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/hillary-clinton-and-the-g_b_75327.html
#2. Hillary ENERGIZES republicans like no one else in the world -not even Bill!
(all the more ironic, since she is such a two-timing, issue-splitting, multi-millionaire Republican herself)
(read the comments to Jake Tapper’s blog, below)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-sword-fal-1.html
#3. She voted for the FLAG BURNING AMENDMENT, trying to suck-up to the WingNuts! (who STILL despise her) RIGHT THERE, her PANDERING to REACTIONARIES, is DISGUSTING and single-handedly DISQUALIFIES her for the presidency. (Maybe she could run as the Repub candidate, but NOT as the Dem cadidate!)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121401887.html
#4. She VOTED FOR THE WAR AUTHORIZATION bill, and WILL NOT express regret for her miserable vote!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/13/hillary-clinton-defends-2_n_81261.html
#5. SHE VOTED FOR Kyle-Lieberman “bomb Iran now” bill!
In helping Lieberman & neo-cons label Iran’s Republican Guards (or whatever you call them) “a Terrorist Organization” she OF COURSE gave the Bush-Cheney-Lieberman warmongers LICENSE, in their view to BOMB that ‘terrorist organization’ AT ANY TIME OF THEIR CHOOSING - an open-ended invitation to EXPAND the war, regardless of what Hillary may lamely protest.
- she has been AWOL at STANDING UP for Democratic voters vs Repub VOTE FIXING machines…
- she has been AWOL on other issues, like SURVEILLANCE, VETERANS’ care, equipment for troops..
- she CLAIMS that she was AGAINST NAFTA from the beginning.. but a look at her White House records, and talks to people who were there, say that Hillary most assuredly was SUPPORTING passing of the NAFTA bill!
That, right there, is DUPLICITY!
- She CLAIMS to support Children’s health care issues, but she WON’T MAKE A BIG FIGHT for ANY of those specific issues, NOT if if requires CONFRONTING the Republicans in Congress & White House !!
That is the bottom line of Hillary: She will use any power she has already amassed to take a position on an issue, but once her political INEPTNESS hardens “the opposition lines”, she REVERTS to her Good Republican Girl upbringing, and just goes along with the flow - even if that means acceding to the WORST, most war-mongering, most police-state, most abject corruption policies of the cheney-bush White House.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
VVVCI, you said what I’ve felt all during this campaign - far better than I ever could.
Thank you.