I’m beginning to think I was right. Hillary might have been the better president.
During the election I was a Kucinich man until it became quickly apparent he didn’t please the powers that be. Then I cringed a little and supported Hillary. Why Hillary? Not because I was a fan of DLC type candidates, or thought the pro-big-corp policies of her husband were a good thing, or because her being part of that odd political-religious cult The Family was a good thing. No, because I knew Hillary and her husband knew these bastards and knew just what they would do. Bill had already been through it.
I don’t know for sure she would have been tougher: wiser. But I know now that Obama isn’t wise enough to handle this. In what one could term a concession speech he basically tooted the same tune: we need to work together. Hasn’t he figured out that simply isn’t going to happen? He’s still doing the college professor bit.
The common analogy has been “he’s playing chess while they’re playing checkers.” Supposedly that means he’s plotting and planning moves ahead of time. But, to be honest, if this election proves anything it proves he sucks at chess and it doesn’t matter how clever he plays anything if they simply refuse to play.
Coming out a few weeks before the election and blaming everything on the “professional Left?”
Not engaging until the last few weeks?
Letting them tell lies over and over, like the whopper that Obama was refusing to work with… them? That’s not just the cart before the horse. That’s shooting the horse and then claiming he tried to shoot you.
I predicted that as soon as they won at least one investigation would begin: I’m sure many more. Damn, I hate being right.
Maybe some kind of attempt at judo? Bad press delivered by means of bad boy and girl behavior. Might work… if we had an actual media anymore instead of sheep following the Right Wing bullshit propaganda machine. The next day Katie Couric was asking if he had learned his lesson and was now willing to work with the other side.
Wait a minute, Katie. Who was refusing to work with whom?
I was told over and over during the Left’s battle: Hillary vs. Barack, that she would be too controversial. The Right would use her as a rallying point. That they would go back to what they did during Bill. You would think the way they behave Hillary was elected. They did it anyway because this has never been about Bill, or Hillary, or heath care, or Monica. Not in the slightest. It’s been about a movement willing to do anything to create, essentially, a one party system. And they’ve damn near done it as our Dem leaders keep shifting Right to accommodate, to capitulate, to try to please those who will never be pleased.
All I can think of is the president in Independence Day. When he asked the invading alien what they wanted of us the alien simply said…
“Die. Die.”
Barack Obama has a great speaking voice. In kinder times he might have been the best president we’ve ever had. But we don’t live in those times.
Some of the more negative assessments of Hillary I willing admit have at least a grain of truth. Not really my kind of candidate. Too DLC. Too willing to veer to the right: even if it means running over her base. Of course many of these assessments are also true of Obama. He just has the vague, say something that sounds meaningful but really isn’t, pol thing down better than Hillary.
Very talented, if that’s what you like.
One of the most consistent knocks against Hillary is, simply put: “She’s a bitch.”
I never found Hillary to be a bitch.
But in a time when a president’s only answer to those who will never compromise is a Rodney King-ish…
“Can’t we all get along?”
We certainly don’t need Mr. Rogers
Maybe that’s exactly what we need right now: a “bitch.”
-30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
©Copyright 2010
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
All Rights Reserved
I don’t know, Ken. Like Obama, Hillary would have been subjected to the same kind of vicious smears and loaded questions — instead of her birth certificate, the righties would have dredged up all that nonsense about Vince Foster and accused her of being a lesbian. And, as you say, if she had been too forceful in confronting it, she would have been denounced and dismissed as a bitch.
Like Obama, and Bill, most Dems would not have had her back and I think she might have shied away from healthcare after her last encounter in the early ’90s.
Dems need to fight back and support their Dem president and progressive positions without apology, whether it’s Obama or Hillary in the White House. That, to me, is the major problem with the Dems.
You’re right. Of course she would have. The question is did she learn enough last time to not play nice and compromise everything hoping they will. I suspect she would at least have done a damn sight better than Barack O’ Rogers. But we don’t get to play this out again, so we’ll never know.
I agree: Dems need to fight back. That is a major problem. But Barack needs to be sure they know he’s in their corner. All this “professional Left” crap, and nicey, nice to the other side who stabs him no matter what while compromising so much, or even standing with presidential powers he railed against, does the opposite.
Some of us wonder, sometimes, who he does stand with.
If Barack doesn’t get that he’ll be one term and go down as a failure.
I agree if he doesn’t start fighting back and drawing a stronger distinction between himself and the Republicans, he’s toast in 2012, unless the GOP runs Palin. I disagree that Dems need to know Obama is in their corner; I think it’s the other way around: Obama needs to know the Dems have his back and, like Clinton, most Dems seem disinclined to fight for their own president or ideology. The Dems in Washington these days remind me of that Robert Frost quote: “A liberal man is too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.” As long as that’s the case, and Dems don’t seem to stand for anything, we’re going to have to rely on the GOP to screw up to get progressives elected, as we did with Junior Bush. In the meantime, the politics of the country keep sliding to the right, and that will eventually result in fascism. At that point, it’s too late to stand up, as it was in Germany in the 1930s. Remember, Hitler was only able to take power thanks to conciliatory liberals, and the in-fighting betwen the various liberal factions in the democratic parliament of the time. It’s was all academic after the Nazis consolidated their power.
I agree. But perhaps it’s both. Look, if you’re going to stand up for no more tax breaks for billionaires and then cave in because it’s inconvenient to politically continue to do so, people are going to naturally wonder if you’re still in their corner.
This is a great blog. Im glad I Found onto it. Have a good day mate!