When you win, say nothing.
When you lose, say less.
Paul Brown
Nostalgia for Hillary Clinton?
I have never really gotten this obsession with Hillary Clinton. She isn't a natural politician: she doesn't have charisma or oratorical skill (like Michele Bachmann, Hillary Clinton doesn't have a natural cadence and comes across more like a news anchor shouting out dry text for emphasis). Her progressive views are run of the mill, and like Bachmann, she has a paper-thin resume, no administrative experience, and no distinctive competency. She's not a particularly nice woman: she's elitist and dismissive in a stereotypical way, e.g., the uncivil incessant Bush-bashing while Obama was still in his post-partisan politics phase, the infamous "vast right-wing conspiracy" and the "I'm not sitting here – some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette"
[FYI: Tammy Wynette was married and divorced twice: the Wynette song was never really about giving men a blank check to do whatever they wanted: cheat on their spouses or whatever. In my view, it was a reminder that you marry someone "for better or for worse". What if they make a terrible mistake, say, break the law? One of the things I find somewhat endearing is when a spouse or family doesn't throw the other spouse or child under the bus under difficult circumstances--say, for instance, abandoning a spouse on her deathbed or in prison.
Take Bernie Madoff. I know what he did was wrong, but he was still someone's father and husband--someone more than his criminal acts. I think his wife has now disowned Bernie after the loss of a son, and I find something profoundly sad about that. I'm sure the people he swindled aren't losing sleep over it and if anything are probably angry that his family didn't disown him sooner. I think these are the times that test a family's mettle: you may not approve of what your spouse or child did, but he or she is part of your family, and you do not abandon your family. This is different from aiding and abetting a wrongdoing.
I remember seeing some pictures after the infamous blue dress made clear Bill Clinton's infidelity; Hillary and their daughter Chelsea were all but posing for pictures, walking visibly apart from Bill. I thought that was quite frankly disgraceful; I agree what Bill Clinton did was sinful, but a public rebuke was unconscionable. Hillary Clinton already knew the truth about Bill Clinton long before Monica Lewinsky.]
Hillary Clinton, in fact, has a rather polarizing personality, which resulted a near-obsession among certain conservative groups; I recall during the 1990's there were bumper sticks saying that they wouldn't brake for Hillary Clinton, and I found a related bumper stick reference when Hillary was "exploring" the idea of running for President: "Run, Hillary, Run"--on the front bumper. I was rather ambivalent about Hillary Clinton.
I thought it was quite humorous when Hillary put on a blatantly manipulative sham pretense of the highly offended, cheated-upon spouse in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. It was particularly pathetic given the famous 60 Minutes Tammy Wynette quote. I remember thinking at the time that she was going to try to exploit this my-man-done-me-wrong for political purposes. I was surprised when I saw even social conservative women responding to Hillary's playing the victim card. PLEASE! I have sat through multiple employee orientation sexual harassment sessions during the past 20 years, and there were notorious corporate sex scandals; not only was Bill Clinton an Ivy-League trained lawyer and an administrator expected to enforce sexual harassment policies, but he was politically supported by ideological feminists behind such policies. Paula Jones was an Arkansas state employee; Monica Lewinsky was a White House intern. We aren't speaking of a Nevada brothel. What led to the impeachment was NOT a marital infidelity scandal; a bachelor doing the same things with Jones and Lewinsky and then misrepresenting the facts to an Arkansas judge would have also been impeached.
But as to Hillary "I'm not Tammy" Clinton playing the victim card: any regular of this blog knows I've cited a half dozen times the Cherokee legend of the little boy and the rattlesnake, which concludes:
When [the little boy] got back down to the bottom of the mountain, [he took out] the snake [from his shirt], and the snake bit the young boy. The boy replied to the snake "Hey! You bit me, you said that if I'd help you out, that you wouldn't bite me!" The snake replied "But you knew what I was when you picked me up!"Clinton's infidelities were an issue during the 1992 campaign. Don't forget, the Clinton campaign was making the argument GHW Bush couldn't be trusted because he backed off the "no new taxes" pledge; the Bush campaign responded, in effect, "How can you trust a man whom couldn't even live up to his marital vows?" Clinton, during the famous 1992 interview cited above, in effect said, "Look, less than 15% of the American people care whether a Presidential candidate has been unfaithful." That is, political infidelities are more equal than marital ones.
I had to roll my eyes as Hillary and Barack engaged in some serious smoke and mirrors trying to argue "experience"; they barely had 2 Senate terms of experience between them and no administrative experience. PLEASE: Hillary trying to take credit for Bill Clinton's experience as Arkansas governor and US President?
Don't get me wrong: for someone who votes the wrong way 90% of the time, Hillary Clinton was reasonably competent and studious a Senator. Of course, she was a carpetbagger and her biggest asset was being a popular politician's spouse. For some reason, spouses are considered particularly able political candidates; it's the name recognition, of course. (Ask South Carolina Democrats how stupid they now feel for last year nominating someone to the US Senate they thought was a well-known soul singer. Everyone knows that soul singers, whatever political beliefs they hold, make the best politicians.) There's Sonny Bono's widow, Benazir Bhutto's widower, and various other "widow effect" politicians, including the former Missouri US Senator Jean Carnahan; Ted Kennedy's widow was solicited to run in his place, and of course Caroline Kennedy, late President JFK's daughter, couldn't make up her mind whether to seek nomination of Hillary Clinton's successor after becoming Obama's Secretary of State; of course, Caroline was a particularly astute candidate, knowing her policy preferences: she tool a "politically courageous" stand in favor of gay "marriage", inconsistent with her Roman Catholic beliefs.. Her vote on that issue would have been important if--the US Senate ever dealt with the issue of gay "marriage". (Perhaps instead of trying to rename domestic partnerships "marriage", Caroline Kennedy might consider a far more salient issue: the unsatisfactory status quo of two-parent households in many urban African American communities, despite spending huge amounts of government money over the past 50 years.)
What got me started on a discussion of Hillary Clinton? Dick Cheney is out promoting his new book, and one of his talking points is the speculation that things would have been a lot different and better if the Democrats had nominated Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama for President.
Let me first say that there's a reason Dick Cheney isn't mentioned often in this blog: I'm not a big fan; if I had held George W. Bush's hand, I probably would have selected Gen. Colin Powell or Senator John McCain; a follow-up choice would have been a governor from the Northeast, like Governor Pataki or Ridge. A choice of McCain would have been magnanimous, just like Reagan's selection of his father; the more moderate views of McCain and Powell would have strengthened Bush's appeal to independents and moderates and firmed up his defense credentials and Washington street smarts. But there was an even more important reasons: just a famous heartbeat from the Presidency, Cheney suffered his fourth heart attack the month Bush and he were elected for the first time; Cheney's health was a legitimate issue.
As to the 2004 election (and one of the talking points is that Cheney had offered to leave after one term in office), I just don't understand what Bush was thinking. It was clear that Cheney would not run for the 2008 nomination; Bush needed to set up a VP as a potential successor in 2008. To me, it was a no-brainer: Bush could have nominated Rudy Giuliani, "America's Mayor", at that time probably the most popular politician in the US. If not Giuliani, I might have gone with McCain, whom was so highly regarded for his crossover appeal that John Kerry seriously considered offering him his own VP spot, or perhaps even a bold choice, like Condi Rice, particularly in the context of a surging Democratic star, Illinois US Senate candidate Barack Obama. I do think, particularly after the Howard Dean phenomenon, that Bush needed to signal a change from Cheney/Rumsfeld on Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush's failure to take proactive steps in 2004 or at least 2005 I think set up the debacle of the 2006 mid-terms.
I don't want to give progressives ammunition for an internal dispute among conservatives over Cheney. I will say one thing: he is one of the most unflappable, confident politicians I've ever heard. I recall when blowhard Senator Leahy went after VP Cheney over Halliburton. (Cheney is a former CEO of Halliburton, which is primarily in the energy services sector, although it has subsidiaries like KBR which do government contracting, including overseas. Leahy was attempting to imply, with absolutely no basis, that Cheney was attempting to steer lucrative Iraq contracts to Halliburton subsidiaries. Leahy felt this was only right because some Republican senators had accused Democrats holding up the nomination of a Catholic federal judge as being anti-Catholic; Leahy is what I sometimes call a Catholic-in-name-only or "cafeteria Catholic". Let's quote a Wikipedia essay:
Some examples would be Catholics who dissent from Church teaching in regards to abortion, birth control, divorce, premarital sex, masturbation, or the moral status of homosexuality. It is sometimes a synonymous phrase for "Catholic-in-name-only (or CINO)", "dissident Catholic", "heretical Catholic", "cultural Christian", or "liberal Catholic".So when VP Cheney suggested that Leahy engage in a particular type of sexual activity that is not only physically impossible but would violate Catholic moral teachings, Leahy was unhappy: what right did the VP have to do that over Leahy's harmless use of the bully pulpit to smear the VP?
I also dislike pathetic jokes from Letterman, Leno (to a lesser degree) and others, whom can't seem to make a joke about Cheney without talking about his heart condition, his hunting accident with a friend, and the alleged 'real President' behind Bush.
I simply don't see, on policy, where Hillary Clinton would have done anything substantively different on the basis of principle than Obama has: Obama borrowed heavily from economists and others from the Clinton Administration which, no doubt, would have also been done by Hillary. I'm fairly sure that there would have been some stylistic and minor differences: for example, I don't believe for a second a former NY Senator would have even considered trying KSM in a New York City courtroom, and I don't think Hillary Clinton would have dithered forever on the Afghanistan surge decision. I also think that Hillary Clinton would not have been "leading from behind" like Obama and probably would have played a more assertive role with the Congress. Perhaps she would have dealt with the Bush tax cuts before a landslide mid-term election.
But I think Hillary Clinton would have run up the score on the GOP during the 111th Congress just like Obama did--including nailing down sharp budget increases, HillaryCare v. 2.0, etc. I also think that Hillary would have made far more polarizing choices than Obama, say, for SCOTUS. And there's no doubt in my mind Hillary's rhetoric would have been even polarizing (the "vast right wing conspiracy" stuff on steroids) I think the only reason Obama is above 40% approval right now is because of his personal style; Clinton would be sub-40 under similar circumstances.
I would turn Cheney's argument on its head: what if Obama had actually had delivered on his early promises for a post-partisan politics? What if he had toned down the red meat rhetoric? What if he had made significant concessions to the GOP on his own terms, playing for the second half when he would likely have a weaker hand? In Obama's place, I would have played a shrewder hand and learned to pick my moments to go long. I would have drawn as much GOP support towards my initiatives as I could even if for no other reason than to co-opt them and vest them in the underlying problem. Right now, Obama can't claim that the stimulus bill, the financial "reform" bill, the spending, and the health care bill are shared responsibilities.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Air Supply,"Sweet Dreams". I love the orchestral arrangement of groups like the Moody Blues (which will undoubtedly make an appearance later in my Favorite Groups series). Air Supply has written so many adult contemporary classics, I don't have a clear favorite, but probably my top 4 include this one, "Two Less Lonely People", "All Out of Love", and "Making Love Out of Nothing at All".
