cnn: Which is to say, high-minded ideals, lowered execution, half truths, outright lies (and imaginary flights), take-no prisoners politics, some very good policy ideas, a presidential spouse given to wallowing in anger and self-pity, and a succession of aides and surrogates pushed under the bus when things don’t go right. Which is to say, often.
And endless psychodrama: the essential Clintonian experience that mesmerizes the press, confuses the citizenry, confounds members of both parties in Congress (not to mention the Clintons themselves, at times) and pretty much keeps the rest of the world constantly amused and fixated.
clinton has sparked every speck of controversy and fake-outrage during this campaign. obama, who's been called a terrorist, an elitist, someone who hates jews, and on and on, has run an incredibly clean campaign. he gets derailed everytime the clintons act out and who loses out? we do because we can't get to the real stuff. the clintons represent the ways of old, good old-fashioned politics. the name of the game: distortion, distraction, exploitation.
i know there are many women out there who would like to see the first woman president. i would too. but i would rather see one who isn't married to a former president. bill and hill go together. just ask any "lunch-box" worker in pennsylvania. they'll tell you.
do we really want to find out what happens with the first man has another affair? clinton has represented the negative stereotypes of women. i say this as a woman.
we need a woman who comes into the presidency through her own merits, not by her husband or her associated political meanies. we need a woman who rises through the ranks. clinton has mismanaged her campaign at every level -- financially and staff-wise, even intellectually.
besides, she's already in the wings working on a job.
more:
In many ways, the characteristic tone, secrecy, and resilience of the Clinton political march have been determined more by Hillary Clinton than by her husband, reflecting her deepest attributes and attitudes, fermented in recognition of the antipathy held against both of them, and often, the foul tactics of their enemies. As an aide put it (quoted in my book, A Woman In Charge: the Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton):
“She doesn’t look at her life as a series of crises but rather a series of
battles. I think of her viewing herself in more heroic terms, an epic
character like in The Iliad, fighting battle after battle. Yes, she succumbs
to victimization sometimes, in that when the truth becomes
too painful, when she is faced with the repercussions of her own
mistakes or flaws, she falls into victimhood. But that’s a last resort
and when she does allow the wallowing it’s only in the warm glow
of martyrdom—as a laudable victim—a martyr in the tradition of
Joan of Arc, a martyr in the religious sense. She would much
rather play the woman warrior—whether it’s against the bimbos,
the press, the other party, the other candidate, the right-wing.
She’s happiest when she’s fighting, when she has identified the
enemy and goes into attack mode. . . . That’s what she thrives on
more than anything—the battle.”
