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Hillary Clinton: Why is She Hated by Progressives and Right-Wingers Alike?
America's anti-Hillary Clinton alliance is growing by the day
WASHINGTON -- There is something about Hillary that raises the blood pressure of otherwise easy-going Americans - and they don't need to be Republicans. At a 4th of July barbecue, with the band working its way through the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", I made the mistake of asking a pleasant young woman what she thought of Hillary's chances. Red white and blue fireworks were going off over Capitol Hill, as she morphed into the sort of person who goes on the Jerry Springer Show. She would "never, ever" vote for America's most famous politician, she said. More than 50 per cent of Americans agree with her.
With everyone on tenterhooks over terrorism and the looming defeat in Iraq, there is a febrile atmosphere in the US. Many are taking their anger out on Hillary as she attempts to break through the last remaining glass ceiling. Something called the "Hillary Conundrum" has emerged to cause deep unease inside her party while giving comfort to the Republican party, which by now should be in disarray.
The most seasoned political honchos are uneasy about the candidate who looks like a shoo-in as next year's Democratic nominee for the presidential elections. Hillary has the war chest, a formidable political machine and she is riding highest in the opinion polls.
She is probably the most competent in the field. Virtually everyone agrees that she should have the best chance of wresting the presidency from the Republicans in 2008 and repairing the damage from the wrecking ball (omega) of the Bush presidency. She also has Bill Clinton by her side, a formidable campaigner who took to the road for the first time in Iowa this month.
But behind the scenes, Americans are deeply worried at the prospect of having Hillary (and Bill) back in the White House. While she inspires ordinary women voters, men are not so moved and she has the highest voter-disapproval ratings of any top-tier candidate in the race. She also has a big problem with left-wing feminists.
The writer and director Nora Ephron (You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle) who describes herself as a fully signed up "Hillary resister" seems to be one of them. The resisters are people "who can't stand her position on the war. Who don't trust her as far as you can spit."
They believe, says Ephron, that Hillary "will do anything to win, who believe she doesn't really take a position unless it's completely safe". This is the same Nora Ephron who some years back exclaimed: "I love [Hillary] so completely that, honestly, she would have to burn down the White House before I would say anything bad about her." That was in 1993, when America was another country and Bill Clinton was just settling into his first term in the White House.
A couple of years later, with the Republican attacks on the Clintons in full spate, Ephron spoke to the Wellesley class of 1996 (a girls-only college that she and Hillary graduated from: "Understand," she said then, "every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you."
So how did it all go so wrong for Hillary? How did right- wing America's favorite "femi-Nazi" end up being disliked as much by "progressives" as by conservatives? It's a subject being endlessly debated
"The truth is that Senator Clinton has a woman problem," said Anna Quindlen, a Newsweek columnist. "The fantasy was that the first woman President would be someone who would turn the whole lousy system inside out and upside down. Instead the first significant woman contender is someone who seems to have the system down to a fine art."
Jane Fonda says that Hillary is a "ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina. It may be that a feminist, progressive man would do better in the White House."
For Fonda, the big disappointment was Hillary's 2002 Congressional vote giving George Bush the green light to go to war on Iraq. It turns out that Hillary didn't bother to read the top-secret intelligence report, that she as a senator was given access to before the vote. The six senators who did read it all voted against, because the still-secret report seems to have persuaded them that the case for war was flimsy.
"Women sometimes bend the wrong way just to prove themselves to men," remarked Fonda. "But when we learn to listen to ourselves, that will be revolutionary."
Americans might well ask who is the real Hillary Clinton? Her potential supporters are certainly having trouble working it out. Is Hillary a liberal who has been victimized by a "vast right-wing conspiracy", or a scheming political control-freak who will stop at nothing in her bid to become the first Mrs President?
Hillary's tightly disciplined campaign team point out that for every Fonda or Ephron, there are thousands of women, neither feminist nor left wing who really admire her. She was the top choice of 42 per cent of Democrat women voters in a recent poll and is far ahead among independent voters.
The pollsters, hot-dog turners, political strategists and armchair pundits all agree that Hillary has a more than 80 per cent chance of winning the Democratic nomination. But can she win the election they ask, or is she going to bring more heartache to the party, just like John Kerry last time around?
Everyone has a different reason for predicting failure. There's the "political baggage" theory, which holds that she is fatally tainted by the scandals of her first stint in the White House. The "revolving door" theory says Americans are sick of alternating Bush-Clinton dynasties. The "woman as commander-in-chief" theory predicts that Americans obsessed with terrorism want a man to do their bombing. And there is the issue of Hillary's frighteningly high "negatives" which Gallup recently put at 50 per cent.
Many of those who are worried about global warming and America's imperial overstretch hope that Al Gore, who continues to maintain he will not run, will enter the race at the last minute. Bob Borosage is one of those. A veteran of many elections, he ran Jessie Jackson's presidential campaigns in the past, he is an organizer for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. At a reception for high-rolling donors to the liberal cause, he said he would prefer it if Al Gore won the nomination.
"Gore has every chance of becoming president," he told me, "but if he dares to enter the race, Hillary will pluck his eyes out with her talons."
This is the other part of the "Hillary conundrum". She is widely perceived as a ruthless campaigner. Her campaign team, which calls itself "Hillaryland", is notoriously secretive and disciplined.
Borosage was waiting for Hillary to arrive at his annual Take Back America conference, a kind of global gathering for left-wing Americans. It was being held in the Washington Hilton hotel, known locally as the Hinkley Hilton, after John Hinkley's attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1993 - but more of that later. The hotel has just been bought by the basketball player "Magic" Johnson and is where some of the biggest political gatherings take place in the capital.
Soon Hillary would arrive and sweep down The President's Walk, a corridor in the Hilton that leads to the main conference room where 3,000 people were waiting. The corridor is lined with daguerreotypes and photographs of every US president and their wives, from a 1789 image of George and Martha Washington to the latest incumbents, George and Laura Bush.
Among the images is a photograph of Hillary from 1993 when she and Bill first entered the White House and she was determined to make her mark as an independent woman. She wore her hair long and un-styled and was much criticized for it. She called herself Hillary Rodham Clinton. Everything she did got America's back up. Before she even opened the door to the White House, she outraged millions of ordinary moms with a catty remark that instead of having a career as a lawyer she "could have stayed home, baked cookies and had teas".
Her name was always a troubling issue. Hillary stunned her friends when she announced on her wedding day in 1976 that she would not be taking her husband's name but would remain Hillary Rodham. Bill's mother wept at the news and a campaign adviser warned presciently "Hillary Rodham will be your Waterloo."
Later on when Bill lost the election to be Arkansas governor she decided she was Hillary Clinton after all. Then within days of his inauguration as president she became Hillary Rodham Clinton and set about installing herself as "co-president". She quickly established herself as the president's most trusted adviser, and plonked herself and her "Hillaryland" entourage in the West Wing, steps from the Oval Office.
With well-chronicled and calamitous effect, Hillary then set about trying and failing to reform America's broken health care system. Meanwhile she bulldozed her way through Washington, making needless enemies for the Clinton presidency in the media and among the capital's power elite.
She created a public-relations disaster on Day One when she gave secret orders to the Clintons' press man, George Stephanopoulos, to have a corridor that gave the White House press corps access to the West Wing blocked off. Unsurprisingly the first 100 days of the presidency were marked by unprecedented hostility from the media.
Bill and Hillary Clinton had come to Washington with the ambition and determination to change the country for the better. But equipped only with a tin ear, when it came to working with people on her own side, Hillary managed to alienate some of the most powerful Democrats, starting with the New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who urged patience in reforming health care.
When Bill Bradley, then a senator, suggested changes to her plan he was dismissed. Forget about it, she said, threatening to "demonize" anyone who stood in her way.
As Bradley recounted later to the author Carl Bernstein: "It was obviously so basic to who she is. The arrogance. The assumption that people with questions are enemies. The disdain. The hypocrisy."
It was at the Washington Hilton on 30 March 1981, that the last assassination attempt on an American president took place on US soil. President Ronald Reagan had just come down the same President's Walk and was leaving the hotel via a side entrance after speaking to an audience of unhappy trade unionists. Six shots rang out as John Hinkley fired his "Saturday Night Special" into the President's entourage. One of the "devastator" bullets, designed to open up on impact, hit the president in the abdomen, almost claiming his life.
Now, some 26 years on, security arrangements for the presidential candidates appear no better organized than they were on that day. A phalanx of secret-service agents protects Hillary Clinton and her main democratic rival Barack Obama, who addressed the same Take Back America conference the day before.
But despite worries about terrorism - one of Hillary's big campaign themes - security for the candidates seems extraordinarily sloppy. There were no metal detectors, no ID checks or even cursory searches of the audience. The average inner-city American high school has tighter security.
Finally, Hillary arrived. Wearing a silk yellow top and her hair stylishly cut, she made her entrance into the lion's den of liberal Democrats, who are both excited and disappointed with her at the same time. Tightly scripted and brimming with confidence, she launched into 30-minute speech in which she accused the Bush administration of "a stunning record of secrecy and corruption, of cronyism run amok... of [putting] ideology before science, politics before the needs of families".
The crowd, putting aside whatever doubts it had, stomped and cheered as she blasted Bush. Then she moved on to the subject of the war in Iraq and the mood suddenly changed. It is only this year, as public hostility to the war became overwhelming, that Hillary, once the most enthusiastic backer of the war in Iraq, suddenly changed tack. But while she rescued her candidacy from oblivion, she has not apologized for backing the war in the first place, and remains a big advocate of the so called "War on Terror".
From the stage, she praised the success of the American military in toppling Saddam Hussein and said it was the Iraqi government which was to blame for the current mess.
The audience booed and heckled as she continued: "The American military has succeeded. It is the Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions that are important for their own people,'' she said, unable to finish her sentence because of a chorus of the uproar.
Members of CodePink, so named to mock the US government's color-coded terrorist warning system, tried to drown Hillary out. But she talked over them and by the time she finished her speech the audience was back applauding her. It was nothing in comparison to the performance of Barack Obama, the day before, when the audience would not let him leave the room after a barnstorming speech.
Some 15 years after Hillary Clinton was first introduced to America, the fascination continues. There are by one count 17,000 websites devoted to her - mostly negative - the most famous of which is the Hillary Clinton Quarterly. Her life, her name changes, her makeovers, her shifting politics and her marriage are grist to the mill of the late-night TV chat shows and morning queues at America's Starbucks. The New York Times last year assigned its crack investigative team to work out how often Bill and Hillary slept in the same marital bed and put the story on the front page.
Following "interviews with some 50 people and a review of their respective activities" the writer discovered that: "Since the start of 2005, the Clintons have been together about 14 days a month on average, according to aides who reviewed the couple's schedules. Sometimes it is a full day of relaxing at home in Chappaqua; sometimes it is meeting up late at night.... Out of the last 73 weekends, they spent 51 together. The aides declined to provide the Clintons' private schedule."
The Clintons have taken over from the Kennedys as the most picked over family in the country. As Jay Leno put it: "According to a new poll, 15 percent of Americans say that Sen Hillary Clinton gives them the creeps. The other 85 percent say she gives them the willies or the heebie-jeebies."
My neighbour in Washington, who spent his 4th of July talking politics at a local barbecue party said: "The only circumstances in which I would vote for Hillary would be if she first divorced her husband."
Another self-confessed Hillary hater explained some of the animosity: "She's hated because she personifies liberalism. It's her politics, her name, her stupid smirks and her pride. Her carpetbagger ways and her socialist tendencies. Oh, and also her husband. It's the insistence that they are always right, even when they are wrong."
This is mild compared to some of the commentary in the media. Take right-wing pundit Ann Coulter - a sometime guest on Good Morning America. She is putting it about that(omega) Hillary Clinton is gay: "I'd say that's about even money on Senator Clinton coming out of the closet in 2008," she says.
As anxious as Democrats are about Hillary, Republicans are increasingly fearful. John Podhoretz, a columnist with the New York Post has written what he calls "a wake-up call to the Right" to keep Hillary out of the White House.
He thinks she poses a huge threat: "I was in conversations with conservatives who seemed confident that Hillary Clinton could not possibly win the presidency," he wrote, "that she was too polarizing, had negatives that were too high, and that she was not likable enough to make it to the White House.
"As I examined these presumptions, they began to seem very hollow to me - and the notion that Hillary was unelectable began to seem like a delusion."
Podhoretz's view is that Hillary can win the election if she gets the votes John Kerry got - 59 million - and Republicans should assume that she can get those votes. "It will take a heroic effort to get more people to the polls," he says. "And right now, Republicans seem more intent on fighting with each other."
Despite the worries of the Left, the Democrats are - reluctantly at times - lining up to back her. Hollywood, a key source of fundraising for Democrats has been difficult to crack. Many have already thrown their lot in with Obama and there is a notable scarcity of star power at Hillary's fund-raising events. Barbra Streisand, known as a friend of Bill Clinton, shared a head table at a recent fundraiser. But even she is hedging her bets and backing three candidates, Hillary, Obama and John Edwards.
"I'm very excited about the strength of the Democratic field for the 2008 presidential election, and I'm looking forward to a lively and healthy primary debate that discusses the key issues facing this country," she said by way of explanation. But in a sign that the tide may be turning in Hillary's favor, she has recently landed some important supporters. Al Sharpton, the radical black firebrand and king of America's racial politics, says he is backing her, after a lengthy campaign to win his support. He took his radio show to the Take Back America conference and cheered her on for attacking the "plantation" politics of Republicans whereby decisions are made behind closed doors. "I absolutely back her," he said.
A major boost to the Clinton campaign came in June when Stephen Spielberg, the biggest Hollywood fish of all came out to endorse her. "I am convinced," said the most successful filmmaker ever, "that Hillary Clinton is the most qualified candidate to lead us from her first day in the White House." The endorsement from one of the most influential people in America (Time magazine named him one of the 100 Greatest People of the Century) was just what Hillary's campaign was looking for.
How soon will the man with a soft spot for stories about ordinary people coming into contact with extraordinary beings shoot an advertisement for Hillary? Spielberg may be the one to ease the worries of millions of Americans who so viscerally dislike her. s
Hillary Clinton is just an old hippie at heart. Once a make-up free lawyer, accessorizing with over-sized glasses, before falling for a man with political plans even larger than her own hair. Then meeting his mother. It is thought that Bill's mum, Virginia Kelly, groomed Hillary from the start. Apparently the immaculately fashion-conscious Kelly was shocked at how plain her future daughter-in-law was. And so Hillary's makeover began. During her husband's presidential campaign, Hillary scraped her hair back into one of her many hairbands and wore muted suits - ever the supportive, yet subservient wife (at that stage).
Once in the White House, friends, and no doubt her teenage daughter, advised her to take more of an interest in fashion. She experimented with Oscar de la Renta and a little known conservative Washington designer brand called Tamotsu. The First Lady also courted Ralph Lauren through charity work, but try as she might, she never looked polished. Even designer Carolina Herrera - a favourite of the current First Lady, Laura Bush - says simply that Hillary "never found her way". Websites were dedicated to the growth and ever-changing style of her hair, while the cruel American press nicknamed her "sausage legs" and "your thighness".
It is no wonder, then, that Hillary fails to have a sense of humor about it. On her recent presidential campaign trip to Iowa, she complained to the crowd that the press make too much of her appearance and clothing. When one journalist asked what she was wearing to one press event, Hillary's PR snapped, "What's it look like she's wearing? It's a white jacket. Just like I'm wearing a black shirt, and you're wearing a pink one."
Yet suddenly, the one-time First Lady, sometime first lady president, is looking immaculate. There are rumours of $1,000 haircuts and a $2,000 make-over from Barbara Lacy, a Hollywood make-up artist, and it has been money well spent. Yet the ever-present trouser suit is going nowhere and she adapts it for the audience. New York - dark suit and Bruno Magli heels (serious); LA - bright suit and flats (fun); Deep South - earth tones, no jacket (one of you).
Hillary treats clothes like a costume and changes them as often as her character. She wants to be taken seriously as a political figure and not as a fashion figure, but for once designer Donatella Versace has a point: "I can understand (trousers) are comfortable but she's a woman and she is allowed to show that. She should treat femininity as an opportunity and not try to emulate masculinity in politics."
* Journalist, author and socialite Tina Brown said her support of Hillary Clinton "went wobbly" when she backed the war in Iraq, but she otherwise admires her. "There is nobody with her depth and grasp; she's so well-informed. And what I love about her is she's so tough. This is a woman who never sleeps, who's had everything thrown at her, who has been so trashed and she has come back. And I do admire that," she admitted.
* Maya Angelou announced her endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president in a video tribute. "I would encourage her to be a long-distance runner. Be in this thing to win," said Angelou. "You've got a lot of help and a lot of people care for you - not just admire you, but really have profound affection for you."
* Actress Elizabeth Taylor said she was donating $2,300 (£1,150) to Clinton's campaign, confessing she admired her vast experience and outspoken nature. In a statement, Taylor said: "I have contributed to Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign because she has a mind of her own and a very strong one at that. I like the way she thinks. She is very savvy and a smart leader with years of experience in government, diplomacy and politics."
* Clinton recruited 'The Sopranos' to help her win votes. The former First Lady poked fun at the recent finale of the mob drama by re-enacting the series climax with her husband Bill Clinton for a light-hearted TV campaign ad. She persuaded 'Sopranos' regular Vincent Curatola to join her. In the spoof, the Clintons, both huge fans of the show, are browsing a menu in a diner - just like Tony and Carmela Soprano were at the end of the TV series - when Curatola, who played mob boss Johnny Sack on the show, walks past and gives the politician a filthy look.
* American rapper, composer and music producer Timbaland hosted a fundraiser for Clinton on the last day of the first-quarter fund-raising period for presidential candidates. The fundraiser was reportedly billed at $1,000 per attendee. According to election figures, Timbaland contributed $4,600 to her campaign.
* Actor Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward both donated $2,000, while 'Walk the Line' star Reese Witherspoon gave $1,000. Chat-show host Jerry Springer added $4,200 to the cause, while singer Nancy Sinatra handed over a modest $200. Other contributors include the actor Edie Falco (who played Carmela Soprano), Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and actor Danny DeVito.
*Singer Barbra Streisand, a friend and supporter of former President Bill Clinton, has previously made contributions to the successful US Senate campaigns of Hillary. This time, the singer gave money not only to the New York senator but to two other would-be Democrat Presidential candidates, John Edwards and Barack Obama. "I'm very excited about the strength of the Democratic field for the 2008 presidential election, and I'm looking forward to a lively and healthy primary debate," Streisand wrote.
© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited
164 Comments so far
Show AllShe voted for the illegal invasion of Iraq, without even bothering to read the damn intelligence report...and STILL refuses to admit her mistake.
The last thing the US needs is another non-reading, pig headed President, female or not.
GO GORE!!!
As many have said before, and as the following article illustrates, the Clintons are fascist facilitators. How any progressive can support either of them is unfathomable.
HILLARY'S MOTHER-F'ING TOUR BUSINESS
by Greg Palast
Before his untimely death in a plane crash, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown said,
"I'm not Hillary's mother-f****** tour guide!"
That wasn't a nice thing for a member of the President's cabinet to say about the First Lady, now my Senator, Hillary Clinton.
And it's probably not polite for me to bring it up now. But if I don't, surely the Karl Rovarians will - if Senator Mrs. Clinton nails the Presidential nomination.
Bill Clinton used to say that, once he became president, he finally earned more money than his wife. That was a carefully crafted bit of modesty to show Bill as an aw-shucks regular guy versus Richie Rich-kid George Bush.
But Bill's cute remark raised a question in my mind: How did Hillary get that big ol' salary? And another question arises: how has she stayed out of prison?
The story's a little complicated, involving a New Orleans power company, Indonesian billionaires, a New York nuclear plant and plain old influence peddling. But if we follow the money, we'll get the picture. And it ain't pretty.
But first, let's stop at Wal-Mart. Read an official biography of the Senator and you'll find her six-month stint on a child-protection task force. Yet you won't find her SIX YEARS on the board of directors of Wal-Mart Corporation. She may have earned a Grammy for "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child." But it takes a Governor's wife to provide cover for Wal-Mart's profiteering off systematic wage-enslavement of children in its factories in South America.
Sam Walton called Hillary, "My little lady." Sam paid her an eyebrow raising sum for a director - equal to 60% of her entire not-insubstantial salary as a lawyer. By contrast, Wendy Diaz (her real name), a 13-year-old in Honduras, was paid 25 cents an hour to make shirts for the "little lady's" label.
Hillary's rake-in was made possible by Wal-Mart's 100% union-free operation and out-sourcing of 100% of its manufacturing, some to prison factories in China. Now, you could say that Hillary couldn't hear the screams of the kiddies in Kamp Wal-Mart in Honduras. After all, she relied on the intelligence provided her by the President (of Wal-Mart).
Fast forward to 1994 and the Brown 'mother-f'ing tour guide' business. According to Nolanda Hill, the Commerce Secretary's long-time business partner and love interest, Brown, who died in 1996, endorsed a Hillary cash-for-access scheme ($10,000 for coffee with the President, $100,000 for a night in the Lincoln bedroom). However, Brown resented the discount rate the First Lady put on US executives joining Brown's lucrative trade missions. 'I'm worth more than $50,000 a pop!' he said.
One company more than happy to pony up for a cash joy-ride with Brown was Entergy International. This electric company, based in Little Rock, became one of the world's biggest power system operators on the planet under the Clinton regime. Interestingly, Bill Clinton began his political climb by running for Arkansas Attorney General campaigning on a pledge to fight Entergy's electric price hikes. His pro-consumer plan was defeated in court by Entergy's law firm - which included one Hillary Rodham.
There were more favors for Entergy. In 1998, I discovered, while working under cover for the Guardian and Observer, that Tony Blair was personally fixing the system to let Entergy to violate British policy on coal plants. Why? I picked up in my secret recordings of Blair's cronies that calls to take care of Entergy, rules be damned, had come in from the office of 'the Flotus' - the First Lady of the United States.
It gets creepier. In June of 1994, Entergy's partner in Asia, the Riady family of Indonesia paid recently-resigned Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell a $100,000 consulting fee. Odd that: Hubbell was on his way to prison for the felony crime of inflating his legal bills. Why would Asians pay a lawyer for advice on Asia who was on his way to the pokey?
Maybe it had to do with his partner in crime. I've conducted investigations of lawyer over-billing. It is nearly impossible for a senior lawyer to pad billing records unless the junior partner also fraudulently monkeys with time logs to make sure the records don't give away the game. Who was Hubbell's "little lady" junior partner? Today we call her Madame Senator.
Hillary's logs were worth close inspection by authorities, no? But the funny thing about Hillary's billing records: when requested for disclosure in another suit, they disappeared. First, her law firm's computers went ka-blooey. Then the paper printouts vanished, but not before, during the 1992 Presidential campaign, they were secretly combed over, line by line, by … Web Hubbell.
Hubbell knew his own logs were phonied, and he understood the consequences of exposure. Ultimately, bloated hours on those records caused him to lose his law license, his Associate Attorney General post and his freedom. He got 21 months in the slammer.
What did Hubbell see and know about Hillary's logs? Hubbell won't say, except for a cryptic remark, after seeing her bills, that 'every lawyer' fabricates records. Hubbell pleaded guilty, but refused to answer investigators' questions, a requirement in any plea bargain - so the judge had to sentence him to prison.
Why would Hubbell choose to do time on the chain gang over testifying about the First Lady? His prosecutors did not know at the time of the $100,000 Riady payment, the first of over half a million dollars Hubbell would receive from Clinton friends in the weeks up to his entering jail.
And those Hillary billing records? Hubbell lost them - how convenient. Then they reappeared two years later, just outside Hillary's office, right after Hubbell announced he would refuse to testify against her.
Maybe the Clintons knew nothing about the big money flowing to prison-bound Hubbell. Knowledge of the payments would suggest they were buying Hubbell's silence. In 1996, when the LA Times uncovered the payments, Mrs. Clinton's First Man Bill stone-cold denied he knew anything about it.
Then, in 2000, in a deposition by the Justice Department, the President changed his tune. Investigators confronted the President with this: on June 20, 1994, Hubbell met with Hillary. Two days later, James Riady, the Asian billionaire Entergy partner, met with Hubbell for breakfast. Just a few hours later, Riady returned to the White House, then met again with Hubbell, then made two more treks to the White House. Two days later, a videotape shows the beginning of another meeting in the Oval Office between Clinton and Riady -- but oddly, before they talk, the tape goes blank. Two days after that, Hubbell gets his $100,000 through a Riady bank.
Lying to journalists is a venal sin, but lying to the Feds is perjury. In his deposition, the President's denial transformed into amnesia. He couldn't remember if Riady mentioned the payment. Then, the President slyly opened the door to the truth. "I wouldn't be surprised if James told me," Clinton said. Neither would I.
What did Riady get? The Flotus herself, says Nolanda Hill, forced Brown to accept the appointment of Riady's bag man, John Huang, as a Commerce Department deputy. According to records of calls the Guardian obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, Huang's first order of business was to wheedle his way into confidential CIA briefings on Indonesia and China, then call Riady and his Entergy partners.
The same day Riady met the President, documents show he called on a Clinton crony at the top of the department's Export-Import Bank. "We just came over from the Oval Office," is a nice way to provide assurance of the 'political connection' required for help. These and other Riady team meetings at Commerce are marked 'social'. Yet, shortly thereafter, the department agreed to promote and fund the Riady-Entergy China venture.
Influence is not a victimless crime. Riady and his minions' visits to the White House (94 times!) included successful requests for the President to meet Indonesian dictator Suharto and to kill negative reports on East Timor and working conditions in Indonesia. Timorese and Indonesians paid for these policy flips with blood.
Has Entergy's investment in Hillary's jail-bird partner continued to pay dividends?
Code Pink and New York environmentalists have been pulling out their hair over Senator Clinton's backing of the operation of the creaky old Indian Point nuclear plant just above - and within irradiating distance of - New York City. The owner of the Indian Point nuke? Hillary's old buck buddies, Entergy.
Am I saying Hillary would arrange for a payoff to keep witnesses silent, to poison US foreign policy for the profit of corporate cronies, to vote in Washington loaded down with conflicts of interest? I would never say so. Even if the evidence will.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. "A masterpiece" (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.). "America's top investigative reporter and the funniest" (Randi Rhodes). "Palast's stories bite - so relevant they threaten to alter history" (Chicago Tribune). "Palast ... is twisted and maniacal" (Katherine Harris). www.GregPalast.com
The lady is proving too calculating, too willing to shift around to accomodate any potential voter. Worse, she has proven unwilling to clearly, definitively state her positions or convictions. Because of this, and despite her obvious potential, she's made me feel too uneasy to offer her my vote.
The answer to the article's title is pretty obvious.
This is one of the most vapid, poorly researched articles I've read in a British newspaper in a long time. I can't stand Hillary Clinton, and the writer touches on some of the reasons, but his insistence on making grandiose statements on American groups and politics, about which he obviously knows very little, is, well, annoying. CODEPINK is Cindy Sheehan's group? Since when? Chelsea wanted Hillary to be more fashionable? Has the writer seen pictures of Chelsea from the 1990s?
The progressives I know who hate Clinton do so because of the politics she represents. Many of these people also hated her husband. Unfortunately, I think many of the Obama supporters are blind to his own weather-vane politics. The day when a woman or person of color sits in the Oval Office cannot come soon enough, but I'll take a principled white man over a sellout Clinton or Obama. It's unfortunate that Dennis Kucinich is dismissed simply because he isn't well known and hasn't raised a lot of money. He's principled, has been involved in politics for decades, and says things that many progressives agree with. If people would vote their consciences rather than their fears, people like Kucinich would get elected more often.
If Bloomberg runs Hillary will win. He will help split the anti-Hillary vote. I will be voting Green regardless of who gets the Democratic nomination. However, if Obama gets the nomination, I will reconsider. If Bloomberg runs it is also possible that Obama will win. One way or the other it will be interesting.
We do have to remember that no matter what happens, the Democrats can always figure out how to loose. They will then spend the next four years blaming someone else, so that they don't have to take responsibility for their own failings.
I think the legacy of failing to impeach and jail Bush and Cheney is a group of presidential candidates who line up like varying shades of Darth Vadar or Voltimort. They try to out evil each other. It is nauseating. Hilary has shamelessly jumped onto this bandwagon. This is the reason for the distrust. All of them male, female, black, white seem far too willing to nuke, invade, blow-up, or kill someone. At this rate Hillary would be nothing more than a Margaret Thatcher. I have no doubt that one more or less the same shade of evil as Bush will win.
I'm with serop2. The Hillary Clinton who came to Washington in 1992 is not the same person we see today. She may have alienated some people with her health care plan, but the plan she offered then is THE ONE (single-payer) that would take management of (and ridiculous profits from) our health care system our of the hands of the insurance industry and drug companies.
The media appointed the "3 front runners" half a year ago, using money as their only measure of electability. We need desperately to stop that stupidity and start voting for the politicians who see the world the same way we do. Publicly funded elections with no opt-out options are the answer. A president like Dennis Kucinich would be a president who is right on every issue, who knows that public policy can help ease suffering instead of create it, and who is beholden to no corporations or their lobbyists.
As someone noted above, demand a candidate who has principles and will act on them, and not just settle for a woman candidate or a person of color (especially when it seems that the only color they respect is green).
Hillary (and her husband) are devoid of any values that would take this country forward towards a path that supports peace, justice and human rights for all.
That applies to most of the candidates (yes I know, Kucinich says all the right things, but in the last presidential election he put party loyalty ahead of core prinicples when he withdrew the day before the convention).
Hillary offers the worst type of betrayal and sellout- intentional selling out her own supporters in her personal quest for power and money. People are dying in Iraq because of her actions and statements.
She lacks honor and integrity, so maybe she is perfect politician for our current government, but I hope we can do better. We can't be sure what motivates her, but her actions are cleary not in the best interests of the public good (like most actions by 'popular' politicians).
How she got reelected in New York is also a sign of how the masses of people can be manipulated. Voltaire states, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
Wake up America, if it is not too late already.
www.NotOneMore.US - Take the Pledge for Peace
"For Fonda, the big disappointment was Hillary's 2002 Congressional vote giving George Bush the green light to go to war on Iraq. It turns out that Hillary didn't bother to read the top-secret intelligence report, that she as a senator was given access to before the vote. The six senators who did read it all voted against, because the still-secret report seems to have persuaded them that the case for war was flimsy."
Hillary Clinton didn't have to read the report. She already knew what was in it. She had pretty much the same access to the same information that the Big Dog did. The sad fact of the matter is that very few of our elected representatives believed bush*/cheney* and still voted to allow bushco* to attack Iraq. By the time the actual votes were cast, everyone already had their "plausable deniability" scenario. Hillary Clinton never read the report? Oh puhleeeeeze. Everyone who voted to attack, was either a coward or a collaborator. Some were both.
If Hillary gets the nod, the dems lose my vote. I do not trust or believe in her. She does not represent change, its high time to end the family rule over this country. If we are serious about ending Americas habit of war mongering we best elect an official who refuses to compromise his/her ideals. To quote the democratic debate, Mike Gravel states,
"The Democrats controlled the Senate on October 11 2002 and provided political cover for the President to invade Iraq [so that] political calculations trumped morality. Given the extreme importance of any decision to go to war, anyone who voted for the war on October 11 based upon what President Bush presented to them is not qualified to hold the office of President of the United States. ... We must bring our troops home NOW, not six months from now. ... The Democrats in control of Congress need to act resolutely, and I'm not talking about some mealy-mouthed non-binding resolutions. They need to precipitate a constitutional confrontation [with the President]."
She isn't whispering poitical wisdom there. A friend of mine, Sneaky Pete, overheard her. She said, "John, that is a lousy haircut".
Yes Hillary, let's exclude the candidates that REALLY represent us instead of the corporations and warmongering Zionists.
In addition, let's not allow them to participate since they'd bring up embarrassing subjects that "some" people would rather not talk about or want the audience to hear.
Is it possible that impeachment is off the table because the leadership of the corporate wing of the Dems. does not want Nancy Pelosis to be the next(first female) president?
Why the #@*%#$! are we always just handed a set of inevitable corporate candidates by the corporations who own the media??? When someone like a Howard Dean emerges, really expressing what the people want to hear, they do an ax job, like turning off the microphone on the crowd and claiming this is a maniac at a silent rally. Or trumping up a haircut.
I want the real issues debated now, not this damned horse race that seems fixed.
"Either way you look at it you lose" Paul Simon
Sang Ze July 15th, 2007 3:55 pm
"The lady is proving too calculating, too willing to shift around to accomodate any potential voter."
Bingo!
The warmth and simplicity of the slide show on your link is wonderful! Thank you.
I don't "hate" her, so this article isn't speaking to me.
However, she's too shifty for me. Iraq: "Hell, yeah!" was Hillary for too long.
She takes money from the healthcare insurance industry. That alone makes me anti-Clinton. No compromise.
Of course I'll vote for her if she is the nominee, because the neo-cons must be destroyed. But I suspect the 'cons want her running more than any other candidate.
You thought the Swiftboaters were miserable slime? Wait till you see what they've got in store for Hillary. They're champing at the the bit for this one.
Hillary is a corporatist, DLC whore who wants to run an issue free campaign as if she were running in a cheerleader contest. It's not going to happen and she might wind up in the basement with John McCain sooner than she thinks. Any Democratic candidate who accepts money from Rupert Murdoch is already dead in the water.
HATED!!! That is inappropriate.
Trusted! She isn't trusted to be on our side. Her voting record supports this distrust. Hillary is a Corporatist.... Clearly!
A KNESAL 'Liberal Warrior' ............. "Little Beirut"
Members of CodePink, Cindy Sheehan's anti-Iraq-war organization, so named to mock the US government's color-coded terrorist warning system, tried to drown Hillary out. But she talked over them and by the time she finished her speech the audience was back applauding her. It was nothing in comparison to the performance of Barack Obama, the day before, when the audience would not let him leave the room after a barnstorming speech.
The Independent needs to get it right! CODE PINK was founded by Media Benjamin and is NOT Cindy Sheehan's anti-Iraq war orgainzation. Their name was a moackery of the ridiculous terror alert code but has nothing to do with Sheehan. They obviously suppoprt Sheehan's efforts but they are not her organization. The F'ing media can't get shit right can they?
" But she talked over them and by the time she finished her speech the audience was back applauding her."
Skim-read the rest of the tinsel-talk of this report and relegate it to its proper function , at least in paper form , to the bottom of a bird cage or as wrapping for fish guts .
Americans would follow the Pied Piper if he played requests.
Both Hillary Clinton and the American non-thinking public are so vascillating they make Pontius Pilate and the cheering/booing throng sound like Martin Luther , "Here I Stand"
Americans : You get mostly bad leaders because when you do drag yourselves to the polling stations you yote with less knowledge of the candidates than condenders for American Idol
If we democrats are dumb enough to make her our candidate I will change parties. My hope is that her money does not buy her being the candidate. She is the worst thing that has happende to the party.
On the most important vote a Senator would ever make...approving going to war, sending people to die and killing more...Hillary did not take time to read the intelligence report that showed the truth about NO weapons of mass distruction. There is NO excuse for that and for that she is NOT presidential material.
I am so relieved that there are more anti-Hillary people around then I thought. . . in a political sense she is not really a woman or a feminist. . .she certainly is not really a progressive. . .not at all a liberal. . .she is pro-war and pro anything else that she thinks will get her elected. She has never taken a courageous stand on anything. . . She is not passionate about any of the causes I care about. We do not need her as the lst woman president and we certainly do not need her as our candidate. . .
THIS IS GOING TO BE A BIG PROBLEM FOR DEMOCRATS....THEY BETTER GET REALISTIC AND FIND A WINNABLE CANDIDATE THAT IS NOT PERCEIVED AS A CHAMELEON,,, I SUSPECT REPUBLICAN STRATEGISTS ARE EXPLOITING THIS AS THEY KNOW SHE IS BEATABLE AND ARE FLUSHING HER WITH FUNDS TO LOCK UP THE NOMINATION LIKE THEY DID WITH KERRY BECAUSE THEY FEEL SHE WILL BE THE EASIEST TO BEAT.
I do not think much of this is about Hillary as a woman or a person! I think it is about her being another "bought off" candidate--beholden to special interests and corporations. At least Obama and Edwards do not take PAC money. She could do alot to rehabilitate herself if she would stop doing that. And, she needs to stop blaming the Iraqis for the war. That is stupid and she knows better! All she needs to do is to say that the war was a tragic mistake and give her plan for withdrawing! No Iraqi bashing.
As for her personality, she is smart and ambitious. And her looks are just fine! No problem there. Her self-righteousness is a pain, however, and is way too reminiscent of our present President! The inability to acknowledge mistakes and move on has proven fatal for him, and could for her as well!
I don't think it is too late for Hillary. The ball is definitely in her court, though. Many of us are waiting to see if she will pick it up!
If you want to turn against Hillary fine, but all the Republicans running except Ron Paul are pro-war, pro-torture, and pro-unitary executive.
All these Republicans support big government borrow and spend fascist policies of Bu$h the inferior. Be careful not to let justified concern over the Democratic candidate give us another fascist.
Progressives arguably ought to hold Hillary accountable more so that the Shrub in my estimation. Hillary is an artificial alternative to the cynical politics as usual, a construct or automaton. If she didn't exist, to politically intercept -- AND DIVERT -- the naive rah-rah middle American well before the actual political destination was achieved, this country might actually improve before it snaps the hard way. But the chameleon democrats are insistent on diverting America from the real questions, real change, real cleanup, capturing voter distrust and shunting it into harmless directions, difusing it, sugar-coating it.
What's particularly interesting about this little debacle is that it illustrates once more (perhaps LBJ did-in fellow democrat JFK?) that the power struggles happen well before it's a choice between the two corporate parties in an election year November.
So we ought to demand extraordinary scrutiny of the ballots at the time of the primaries, or the abolishing of them altogether. Open primaries allow monkeywrenching by outsiders, whereas closed primaries can lock out participation by independents and perhaps third parties.
The American political system would be laughable if it weren't such a tragedy.
This is what gets me: How do any of us know who the frontrunners really are? Because the media only talks about money? The media downplayed Howard Dean until he was finally swiftboated, because he was just too uppity for the beltway.
It wouldn't surprise me if Kucinich isn't already leading the pack. Course the media will fall over themselves to take the stage away from him, muzzle him and overall denigrate this principled progressive. If you rely on the media to tell you who's the favorite progressive-you're niave.
As a man who hopes he won't have to vote for Hilary, I feel she s neither "a liberal who has been victimized by a "vast right-wing conspiracy", or a scheming political control-freak who will stop at nothing in her bid to become the first Mrs President", but something in between. She is a shrewd politician, and generally (though not always) a dependable liberal. But, as Nora Ephron charges, "... she doesn't really take a position unless it's completely safe". Her health plan in Bill's administration was convoluted by complexities that sought to offer something to everyone; her 2002 vote allowing Bush to invade Iraq was an unprincipled cave-in; her position on Israel/Palestine a surrender to the pro-Israel lobby; her flag amendment vote inexplicable; her stance on Cuba a patent effort to be safe rather than right; and on and on. I would love to see a woman president in 2008. But I'll work hard to make sure Hilary isn't the Democratic candidate. Obama or Edwards have more curage and more steadfast principle.
Interesting - the two issues that top my list of 'why I will never vote for Hillary, or Bill for that matter', are Health Care Reform and Welfare Reform.
Now, those are issues that concern me greatly, and yet, the MSM and DLC have given the Clinton's a clean slate - Like they've never said anything about either subject.
..."Uh uh! No Way! That was some other great LIBERAL !!!"...
Remember when Hillary told voters at a town hall type meeting back in 1994, that Single Payer health care was "off the table' as far as HER Task Force was concerned!
Then there was Bill crowing about ending Welfare - Without making any provision whatsover for all those kids on ADC.
You do remember ADC don't you? It stood for Aid to Dependent Children.
Back when Eisenhower was President, and Langley was Rep. Governor of Washington State, The ADC program carefully calculated the least amount of money a woman and kid could survive on, and then they took 20% off the top so there'd be an incentive to go out and get a job.
The State also had the right to come in and check for men's shoes or shaving gear, so they could throw you off ADC - and if you did get a job, the caseworker could forbid you to go to work if he thought your kids would be uncared for - funny, that ass cared more then Clinton isn't it.
I know all this stuff because I was on ADC off and on from 1959 tll 1965, when a true 'Miracle' occurred.
President Johnson invented both the War on Poverty, AND "Welfare as [most of] you know it."
Not only were they not allowed to cut ADC benefits below a livable amount, but they couldn't any longer look for evidence of co-habitation. In fact, families were encouraged to stay together... [How Strange!]
Better yet, they enacted the ManPower Development Training Act [MDTA}. It actually trained people to meet the requirements of job fields that were short-handed.
Boeing had refused me employment as a "woman" Draftsman in 1959 - Said I'd need a minimum of 2 years of college Engineering, no matter how I did on the tests.
They couldn't keep me out of the MDTA School tho, and I graduated at the top of my 8 week training class. I had triangles and a pen and was ready to go.
Oh, over 80% of the trainees were guys - I hired in to Boeing with a bunch of red-necks from Montana and good 'ol boys from Oklahoma.
Anyway, I came out of the 50s and 60s a confirmed Socialist, working within a fairly progressive Democratic Party in Washington State. I quit the Democratic Party in 1994-95 [Resigned from the State Central Committee and as PC]because of Bill Clinton's Welfare Reform!
When Clinton ran in 1992, I told people I had turned down the chance to vote for Rockefeller for Prez, back in 1972
I've never changed my mind!
I don't care if she wants to be President so much that she'll do and say anything to get elected. Dems are going to need someone with that attribute to win in 2008. If Al Gore felt that way, he'd be completing his second term now and there probably would not have been an Iraq War. It takes that attribute to defeat this lawless bunch around the Bush's.
My problem with Hillary is that she's a hard core neo-liberal, supporting the corporatist agenda and, despite the attempts to make her appear omnipotent, a mediocre thinker who surrounds herself with Ivy League mediocre thinkers.
Her votes on the Iraq War demonstrate both profound poor judgment and an inability to know with whom to surround herself to get competent advice. Her position today means the Iraq War will continue if she wins -- exacerbating her poor judgment and mediocre thinking. Add to that that she ducked combat herself and opposed the war when it was her butt on the line and that she would be as progressive as Cindy Sheehan if Chelsea was one of those on the front lines, and you have someone too incompetent and with too little integrity to be trusted for President.
In short, from my perspective, even though my family got back from the war zone unharmed, Americans (including me) can't trust her with lives and limbs of our family members. Her votes on the Iraq War and her current position make her too incompetent and mediocre to be President, not that fact that she will say and do anything to be President.
Hillary Rodham Clinton does have a serious problem - she is a woman. Make that an independent woman.
She is subjected to the kind of scrutiny no man would be, from head to toe literally. Many people don't think she's "nice" enough for a woman, too outspoken and abrasive and not demure enough or grandmotherly enough (think Nancy Pelosi) to be liked. No wonder she is down in the "likeability" polls as compared to say, Laura Bush (CNN 2005 poll placed her popularity at 73%). Now Laura Bush gives me the creeps, the willies and the heebie-jeebies at the same time - with her eyes and her forcibly extended upward smile, she reminds me of Jack Nicholson's Joker from the Batman movie. Compared with Hillary, Laura is well liked although she has no other merit except that she legally sleeps with the current President of the country, that and the fact that nothing seems to bother her beautiful mind (just like her mother-in-law's) which is what the country expects from a woman who really knows her place in the White House. Did anyone suggest that Laura divorce her husband for his ongoing high crimes and misdemeanors as some have suggested Hillary should do for Bill's infidelity? Apparently not, since we all know that marital infidelity is a higher crime than war crimes, crimes against humanity and even the trashing of the U.S. Constitution.
So, what is wrong with Hillary's "too calculating, too willing to shift around to accommodate any potential voter" attitude? Isn't that what politicians do in general when they shake hands, kiss babies, try to placate everyone at the same time? Should she be more shy, more timid, more giggling, better dressed, less calculating, less interested in power, less interested in money, maybe crying in public just to show that she is a woman after all? The same qualities she gets vilified for are the same qualities that look good on a male candidate. Even her change of name from Hillary Rodham to adding Clinton to dropping Rodham gets the scrutiny that no man would get, after all men don't change their names - it is only women that are asked to observe this fine tradition from the times when women were indeed chattel.
Many of those who are quick to point out that they would want to see a woman in the White House but not Hillary are only using that poor excuse heard when one tries to hide their bigotry or racism or sexism - "some of my best friends are..(insert group they actually despise)."
Conservatives don't want to see Hillary become President because: A) women have no place in leadership positions, unless under the command of a man (Condi Rice); B) she is not the kind of woman who would make a good male apologist; C) she's s centrist who looks like a vicious liberal to most conservatives.
Left wing feminists are against her not because she voted for the invasion of Iraq (although that seems to be the general consensus), but because she scares them precisely the same way she scares conservative Republicans - she's an independent woman who craves power and is not ashamed of it. To hard-core feminists that is anathema since they believe in "consensus" - the kind of groupthink that emphasizes the evils of individual leadership while glorifying the decision-making process by an all-agreeing community where the closest one comes to being a leader is by being nominated to the position of "facilitator" for that particular consensus-building meeting. But I digress...
Hillary (Rodham) Clinton is competent, intelligent, and has the determination to run to win. She has learned much from being previously vilified for just about anything. Now she has to be careful what position she takes, almost like a fine balancing act on the political high wire. Instead of fearing her "calculating" ways, why not admire her for running a tight ship that will sail all the way to the White House? She is our best candidate so far.
I hope she does become our next President.
Yes but...somebody with a lot of money---enough to decide ---has decided she is going to be the next president.
When George said he was the decider most of us missed the point.
Barring the exposure to sunlight of some previously unearthed skeleton (and, my, oh my, how deep and wide her political enemies, and even friends, have dug!), Hillary has the Democratic nomination locked up. As much as I would love to believe otherwise, she has already been anointed heir-apparent by the powers-that-be, and all this campaigning is just preparing for her post-February 5th run for the presidency. And if the Republicans indeed put up their worst candidate, Giuliani, against her, she'll win. I wish it were otherwise, I wish that candidates such as Kucinich and Paul would get a fair shake in the MSM, but the reality is that the table has already been set, and for we the people there are no seats.
For a story from a British paper, this is the pits. Where do these jokers get such absolute misinformation about this jack ass, Hilary Rodham KIanton, as in the Klan, having a snowball's chance in hell of taking the presidency, That's ludicrouus and the polls are saying that already. Obviously, Dennis J Kuninich is the best shot the Democrats have, not of capturing the presidency, but of getting a second term. None of the rest of the Democrats would ever get a second term, as they're too far to the right. Oh, and as far as left goes the USA doesn't have a political left, as the left begins with socialists, and Kucinich is no socialist, but we'll have to back him anyway, but Bernie Sanders, who is a socialist would make the ticket unstoppable were he Kucinich's running mate.
Because she is a you and eye for an eye, Iraqiranistan bombo eruption personified.
"Hillary Rodham Clinton does have a serious problem - she is a woman. Make that an independent woman."
My God, look who's back: Helen Reddy.
If it isn't neo-con trolls, it's this gender garbage.
Note:
SENATOR Clinton. Still female, still independent WOMAN. Pray tell: Where was that "serious [female] problem" when she was elected by popular vote in New York? Explain it, please.
I really hate it when people like you leverage a non-issue like this and have nothing to back it up with except attitude and some make-believe gender war.
In many ways, you're worse than the neo-con trolls because you take serious conversation and issues, and reduce them to this junk. Pitiful, really.
Ms. Clinton's problems have, at least IMHO, nothing to do with her gender or that she's specifically "an independent woman". She waffles, she weasels, she changes position based on what group is around or what seems most popular at any given time - and there's always all that Clinton baggage. Plus, her "ideas" for "reform" are nothing more than Republican-lite (like her most recent propositions for "health care reform"). If I wanted to elect a Republican, or to get the Republican party's agenda in place, I'd be voting for Republicans - not Democrats. At this point in time, I really couldn't care less if she was a he, what party she aligns with or that she'd suddenly been exposed as the one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater made famous by the ancient song. I don't like her, nor do I trust her.
Surely, somewhere in the Democratic party is someone who's willing to run AND who has the honest potential for winning not only the party's nomination but the Presidency itself; someone who has ideas that might honestly save this nation and its people, someone who's not willing to sell out to the Republicans or to corporations but to do what's really right and necessary - that person is definitely NOT Ms. Clinton.
"This is mild compared to some of the commentary in the media. Take right-wing pundit Ann Coulter - a sometime guest on Good Morning America. She is putting it about that(omega) Hillary Clinton is gay: "I'd say that's about even money on Senator Clinton coming out of the closet in 2008," she says."
Why is Ann Coulter so homophobic? Her strategy for criticizing any Democrat she dislikes is to call them "gay". First it was John Edwards, now Hillary Clinton. Me thinks she doth protest too much!
What angers me most about her is that she knows she's a hugely polarizing figure and yet, even at this critical time, when a Democrat MUST win, she risks the whole shebang to satisfy her own hubris. In this she is like Bill who also risked all of us for his personal needs.
It's personal with her too--the Bourbon restoration after her husband's humiliation. They both know that even if she wins it's going to be a return to an endless Tabloid Presidency --all sex all the time, hers, his, and theirs--because the right hates her so much. They both KNOW this is how it will be.
A great woman would sacrifice her own power lust for the good of the country at a desperate time--she'd step aside for the candidate who can guarantee a Democratic win in 08. Instead we're all caught in this unhealthy, selfish politico-psychological calculus she carries in an attempt to undo the trauma of the Impeachment.
Fifty percent would "never, ever, vote for Hillary?"
This is why Hillary is the GOP's favorite Dem candidate.
Just as George McGovern was Nixon's favorite, and we know how that turned out. (McGovern: a "lily-livered peacenik" who piloted 36 bombing missions over Nazi Germany and earned a Distinguished Flying Cross. Plus ca change...).
As for the Repubs who "fear" Hillary, it's a B'rer Rabbit bluff. "Don't throw me into that briar patch!"
I adored her years back until she agreed to have her brain transplanted by senator schummer's entourage -metaphor only?
She lost her voice in a faustian deal.
Mike Bloomberg is not bribe material and he is a natural born 'fixer'.
exactly what the planet needs.
Democrats, beware! If ever we needed to win the White House, we do now. So how could any thinking person support a candidate with a 50% negative rating?
If we nominate her, she will lose! And we Dems will have shot ourselves in the foot again.
So the anti-Hillary alliance is growing? Great, and let us continue to get the ball rolling in the right(or rather "left") direction. I believe the idea that Hillary is the Democrat with the best chance of winning the nomination and presidency was invented by the media establishment. Repeat it enough, and people will believe it.
It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they just get enough people to believe she can win, she will win. Doesn't matter if they get enough people to actually BELIEVE IN HER. I would rather lose supporting a candidate that is truly a progressive, than "win" with someone like Hillary who is so compromised that she is just a right-winger pretending to be a liberal. You have already lost the moment she wins the nomination. She is not getting my vote for sure.
The country at this time has the potential to move a lot farther to the left, but the establishment is preventing it. From the looks of it, due to the war primarily, the Republicans are supposedly "finished", for now. And yet, the Republicans loss is supposed to be the Democrats gain, even though there is virtually no difference between the parties. If anything, because of the positions of the various corporate appointed Democratic "front runners", the Democrats should be going down along with the Republicans. Out of the wreckage of 2 discredited parties, logic would dictate that a 3rd party should rise up and challenge the system. If the Democrats should survive at all, it should be due to a progressive resurgence, with Kucinich, Feingold and Gravel as front-runners, not the corporatist right-wing of the party. This is what happens when money, not logic, dictates things. If it wasn't for money, and the establishment, we would all be seriously talking about Kucinich, Feingold or Gravel for president. Come and join us, let us all talk about their chances very seriously, screw the MSM.
"America's anti-Hillary Clinton alliance is growing by the day"
Where do I sign up? I actually liked Hillary early in the Clinton administration, despite the fact that she obviously was being groomed to be president. (Something I predicted at the time.) Hillary the candidate and Hillary the Senator are a nightmare.
Why you don't have to support Hillary, in her own words.
"If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from." ~ Hillary Clinton (February 2007) That was this year.
I was thinking the same thing. Not that we needed her permission, but choose someone else who already knows that the war is a mistake and is willing to admit it and take steps to correct it.
And believe me, if she and her voting record were scrutinized (and where she gets her funding from), most of her 'supporters' would flee in the other direction.
We don't need another bush in the white house.
thebigkate,
Obama is supported by AIPAC.
CODE PINK precedes Cindy Sheehan's AntiWar Campaign - Try Medea Benjamin & others for forming this admirable group. Godspeed Cindy, none the less. JANE FONDA(?) - the KISS of DEATH to any politician. The rest of the gliteratti mean NOTHING to me, short of Maya Angelou. A really fluff, pointless, very poor article for a COMMONDREAMS piece. BOOOOOOOO!
At some deeper level I think America has become like
a child. A child who has been abused by a "bad father" for the past 7 years and who now cries out for a "good mother"
to save us and make everything OK again?