>>Hillary: No
>>SheÂ’d be better than McCain, but thatÂ’s not a good reason to support
>>her
>>
>>© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
>>
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp
>>5/4/08
>>
>>
>> If there is one advantage to the protracted campaign of this
>>strangest of elections, itÂ’s that weÂ’ve gotten to see how either of
>>the Democratic candidates perform under fire.
>>
>> This is particularly true of Barack Obama, who has had to face
>>hostile fire, not only from the far right, but from the sad joke that
>>is known as “the mainstream media” and the Clinton campaign. So far,
>>itÂ’s been harsh, but not beyond the normal boundaries of roughhouse
>>presidential politics. Later this summer, when the right wing
>>smear-and-hate machine kicks in with the cheerful acquiescence of the
>>mainstream media, acting as an echo chamber, it will get far worse.
>>But both Democratic candidates have demonstrated that they can fight.
>>
>> One sneer from the right that weÂ’ve heard since the early days of
>>the Clinton presidency is that if they canÂ’t handle the Republicans
>>then they canÂ’t handle the demands of the presidency. Actually, the
>>opposite is true; Bill Clinton never had to endure as much animosity,
>>treachery and savagery from al Qaida, China, or North Korea as he did
>>from the Republican party.
>>
>> It was during the Clinton years that we learned that Republicans
>>will cheerfully destroy their own country in the name of more power
>>and money. During the Putsch years, theyÂ’ve gone a long way toward
>>doing just that.
>>
>> If Bill Clinton had one big mistake that hurt his presidency, it
>>wasnÂ’t Monica Lewinsky or gays in the military. It was that he tried
>>to accommodate the far right in the first year of his presidency. He
>>wanted to reach out and embrace them, and pull them into his grand
>>vision for the country.
>>
>> The right, seeing this as weakness, whipped around and smashed
>>him, destroying his plans for universal health care and forcing him to
>>back off on issues such as gay rights. Had Newt Gingrich not badly
>>misstepped with his ham-handed efforts to seize total control of the
>>budget from the White House with his “train wreck” shutdown of the
>>government, ClintonÂ’s presidency would certainly have been a failed
>>single term, and the social and national carnage of the Putsch years
>>would have started four years earlier. If you assume that Republicans
>>really didnÂ’t have anything to do with 9/11, they would have come up
>>with some other way of getting their tax cuts which so empowered them,
>>and their stacked judicial system and “homeland security” in place.
>>
>> They did everything in their power to try and destroy Clinton, and
>>did so in the name of “conservatism,” despite the fact that Clinton
>>was, in fact, the most conservative president America had seen since
>>Coolidge. The extremists of the GOP are not conservatives; you can
>>barely even call them Americans. They are contemptuous of most values
>>America stands for, particularly decency and fair play.
>>
>> ThereÂ’s no guarantee that Obama knows this, or that he can really
>>face it if he does know. He might turn out to be a weak, vacillating
>>mistake like Thomas Jefferson. Or he could turn out to be a
>>brilliant, strong leader like Lincoln or FDR, and face down enemies,
>>both home and abroad.
>>
>> But with Hillary, itÂ’s become impossible to give her that benefit
>>of the doubt. In her eagerness to take support wherever she can get
>>it, sheÂ’s gone to some of the leading figures of what she once named
>>the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” in order to try and curry favor.
>>
>> Soliciting, and getting, the endorsement of Rupert Murdoch was
>>disturbing enough. Kangarupe, head of the far-flung News Corp media
>>empire which includes Faux News, was no friend to the Clintons during
>>the 1990s, cheerleading the efforts to politically assassinate Clinton
>>through a junked-up impeachment case from a pipe dream of the
>>crack-brained right into a political reality.
>>
>> Still, itÂ’s possible to see such an arrangement. Murdoch
>>personally is a pragmatist, often out of step with the far-right bias
>>of his “news” network. By way of example, even as his blow-dried
>>whores on Faux assure their teleprompters that global warming is just
>>a socialist conspiracy, he has become one of Al GoreÂ’s strongest
>>supporters in his efforts to address climate change.
>>
>> ItÂ’s a miserable coalition, but going by the ancient law of
>>stained bedsheets that “politics makes for strange bedfellows” it’s
>>feasible.
>>
>> But when Hillary decided to cozy up to Richard Scaife, that went
>>beyond what my own cynicism about politics was prepared to accept.
>>
>> If MurdochÂ’s Faux News was the mouthpiece for the VRWC, Scaife was
>>one of the main creators of it. He poured millions into private
>>investigations of such ginned up scandals as Paula Jones, “Arkicides”
>>and cocaine running. None of them turned out to have any merit at
>>all; the only one to even reach trial was the Paula Jones fiasco, and
>>it was summarily dismissed.
>>
>> Above all he pursued, with lunatic determination, the notion that
>>Hillary Clinton murdered her good friend Vince Foster. He contributed
>>lavishly to a magazine, American Spectator, and used that to bully the
>>editor into running ever more ludicrous stories supporting this and
>>his other hallucinatory conspiracy theories about the Clintons.
>>
>> Vince Foster committed suicide. Scaife used it to try and hurt
>>the Clintons, particularly Hillary.
>>
>> HeÂ’s a pig, and worse than a pig. A pig, after all, acts
>>according to his nature. Sciafe was simply a vicious sociopath with
>>power and money. Indeed, given that there have been a couple of odd
>>deaths around him, he may have been projecting a bit when he tried to
>>portray Hillary as a harridan who murdered one of her best friends.
>>
>> This is the man Hillary decided to cozy up to by giving his
>>newspaper a nice, friendly interview. She used it to blast Obama and
>>Reverend Wright, of course. The right wing, sensing a new Clinton
>>weakness, was ecstatic.
>>
>> That goes beyond pragmatic political expedience. That is a
>>willingness to sell her dignity and honor in an effort to curry favor
>>with people who have no dignity and honor to begin with, and who view
>>“reaching out” as a weakness.
>>
>> ItÂ’s the same mistake Bill made, only unlike Bill, you canÂ’t
>>simply say that she had good intentions or underestimated the
>>viciousness and dishonesty of people like Scaife. She knows. Much of
>>that trial by fire she went through came, not from Putin or
>>Ahmadinejad or Osama bin Laden, but from the likes of Murdoch, Scaife,
>>and “Reverend Moon.” At least, unlike the disgraceful Bushes, she
>>hasnÂ’t tried kissing up to Moon yet. Maybe if she loses Indiana this
>>week.
>>
>> If sheÂ’ll sell herself out like that as she did in March when she
>>sat down to talk to ScaifeÂ’s minions, then I donÂ’t have much hope that
>>she wonÂ’t do the same once in office, only on a far larger scale,
>>selling America to her enemies on the right.
>>
>> I canÂ’t support her.
