And no thank you, Hil
by George SeldesOctober 15th, 2007 at 16:15:50
Jack Bog’s Blog has a great post highlighting the GOP love for Hilary — good reason for progressives to know which candidate to avoid. Today’s sign was a valentine to Hilary by the execrable Charles Krauthammer. That the GOP and the right wing are falling in line for her says one of two things:
1) They know she is the most beatable of the top-tier Democrats — perhaps the only one capable of rallying their dispirited base to make one last stand for the Fatherland;
and/or
2) They are being honest about the fact that she is far and away the most GOP-friendly of the Democratic candidates, bar none (since Joementum isn’t running).
Either way or both together she should lose big in every contest.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:12 am
OTOH, I read an article on a blog somewhere that argued that Hillary would win handily, for the following reasons:
1. The Democratic base is more energized than the Republican base and will vote for her no matter what.
2. Women are strongly Democratic and women also vote at lower rates than do men. Hillary’s candidacy will bring many more women out to vote and they will vote overwhelmingly Democratic. IOW, Hillary will do more to *expand* the Democratic base than any of the other candidates.
I’m no fan of Hillary, but this argument is certainly plausible…
October 25th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Sam Smith, a true progressive, has been documenting Hilary’s unfitness for a long time:
THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE CLINTONS
EMMETT TYRRELL - 1. Every Clinton scandal of the 1990s had a precedent in the Clinton governorship of the 1980s in Arkansas. Just as the Clintons abused the presidential pardon power when they left the White House and took property that was not their own, so did they abuse the pardon power and pilfer from the governor’s mansion upon leaving it in 1981. Just as they have been caught taking money from the shadowy Norman Hsu this year and from other dubious Asian figures in the 1990s, so too were their 1980s campaigns marked by financial irregularities. The first Asian donors entered their political lives in 1986, with the Chinese-Indonesian Riady family. In 2001, the Riadys paid more than $8 million in Federal Election Commission fines for their munificence in the 1990s. Hsu’s donations are of a piece with what might be called the Clintons’ “Chop Suey Connection.” The Clintons dismiss all this as old news, but that is only because they are what law enforcement officials call repeat offenders.
Even Hillary’s health care fiasco of 1993-94 had a precedent in her statewide education reform in Arkansas that left Arkansas still at the bottom of the heap in national education ratings.
2. For years, the Clintons have bullied the press, political opponents, prosecutors and those women who caught Bill’s eye. Their successful efforts to suppress the recent GQ story by Josh Green show that their bullying continues. Since the 1980s, the Clintons have employed private investigators, for instance, Terry Lenzner, Jack Palladino and Anthony Pellicano, the latter of whom is a convicted felon. Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky and Kathleen Willey are but the most famous of the many women who have been harassed by the Clintons’ private detectives. In my recent book, “The Clinton Crack-Up,” I report that at least one independent counsel in the 1990s took to carrying a gun after being harassed on Washington streets. The harassment was very similar to harassment my reporters experienced in Little Rock, Ark., in the mid-1990s.
3. Rumors of Sen. John McCain’s temper have haunted his campaign. Hillary’s temper is even more widely documented, by disaffected Secret Service agents, military aides, Arkansas state troopers and others. Hillary repeatedly has been in rows with agents whom she importuned to carry her bags despite Secret Service regulations against the practice. While first lady, Hillary threw a book at the back of an agent’s head, as reported to me by White House military personnel. She repeatedly has thrown temper tantrums in front of staff, used foul language and hit her husband, as reported by security and other staff members.
4. Hillary is given to what the historian Richard Hofstadter termed “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” In 1998, she famously claimed that a “vast right-wing conspiracy” had mobilized against her and her husband. . .
5. The Clintons have, to use the words of President Harry Truman — who, while president, scrupulously insulated the White House from fundraising and, in retirement, refused speaker’s fees — “commercialized the presidency.” They used the White House, most notably the Lincoln Bedroom, to reward donors. Bill Clinton himself has earned more than $43 million in speaker’s fees since leaving the White House, including millions from the Red Chinese and the United Arab Emirates. . .
6. Very little of this has escaped the notice of journalists and of Democratic leaders. Yet after every scandal, they forget their public denunciations of the Clintons. . . After the Clintons and their siblings were caught in the 42nd president’s last-minute pardon scandal, Jimmy Carter called them “disgraceful.” Robert Reich opined that “Clinton is utterly disgraced.” Al Hunt called Clinton the “albatross” of his party who should “drop dead.” Al Gore’s campaign manager, Donna Brazile, wrote in The New York Times, “It’s time to let Bill Clinton go — go on and live the rest of his life and allow a new generation of Democratic leaders to renew their fight on behalf of working families in America.” New York Times columnist Bob Herbert affirmed that “Bill Clinton has been a disaster for the Democratic Party. Send him packing.”. . .
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/EmmettTyrrell/2007/10/18/seven_things_to_know_about_the_clintons