Monthly Archives: January 2008

Does anybody realize what alternating dynasties and revolving door presidencies say about our country? I think that our history, our country, and the world deserve so much better.

Unfortunately because we’re in the primaries, a certain degree of decorum (and party loyalty) impedes Obama from raising this fundamental question about the state of the American democracy when the role call of four consecutive presidents could potentially be “Bush Clinton Bush Clinton”.

I am trying to change course, but I just can’t give it a break. I promise I will do better, but it’s just that I was reading these lines from an article in The Economist,

In a remarkable exercise in doublethink she claimed on one of the Sunday talk shows that “you have a woman running to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling. I don’t think either of us wants to inject race or gender in this campaign. We’re running as individuals”.

The other reason why the debate will continue is that the Clintons’ main aim at the moment is to drive up Mr Obama’s “negatives”. They desperately need to reverse polls that show that, despite his failure in New Hampshire, Mr Obama is picking up support in a large swathe of demographic groups.

This will involve attacking his political record and picking apart his personal biography (it is striking that two Clinton supporters have already brought up Mr Obama’s admitted cocaine use). None of this is likely to go down well with Americans who regard Mr Obama as one of the most talented politicians of his generation, and who hope that he will become America’s first black president.

The first part of the quote simply shows the Clintons’ love for double-talk and pretty-sounding contradictions. But the second part reminds me of how the Clintons were always so enraged whenever their characters or pasts were brought into question. And whenever that happened, they always blamed the inquiries on some “vast right-wing conspiracy” to shame and undermine them.

So if the Clintons’ goal is to now do to Obama what the Republicans tried to do to them, then I suppose, by logical deduction, there is now a “vast Clinton-wing conspiracy” against Obama. If Shakespeare were alive today.

I will try to give this whole topic a nice, long breather for a while, but please indulge this addtional post on why I am in favor of Obama and against what I see as the tiresome legacy of Hillary and the Clintons, as if they were a once fashionable but now long-outdated 50’s pop group.

The farce of the Hillary New Hampshire comeback is something that I still can’t quite understand. How someone who has been in the lead for months, has 35 years of both real and derivative experience, has former president Bill Clinton campaigning for her, and has the most sophisticated campaign team in the world can only pull off a two point win in pale white New Hampshire is astonishing. It is much more of a shocking loss than a comeback victory.

There are even some conspiracy theorists out there who believe that the final New Hampshire results were related to computer error or to voter fraud. I won’t go there, but I will say that Hillary and Bill are besides themselves that a neophyte like Obama would even think of posing an obstacle Hillary’s presidency. It is even claimed that Bill is “furious, outraged, angry and utterly dismissive of Obama” for challenging Hillary’s entitlement.

So to give it a little rest (I know ReWrite is growing bored with the elections), here is Christopher Hitchens’ “Case Against Hillary” (thanks, William): Continue reading →