‘I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President’
Jan 14th, 2008 at 3:44 pm by Susie
A little reminder from the late, great Molly Ivins:
AUSTIN, Texas — I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.
Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.
The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It’s about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.
If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, “Look, the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.” Bobby Kennedy — rough, tough Bobby Kennedy — didn’t do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy’s sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do “whatever it takes” to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway (”First, you have to win elections”). Can’t you even read the damn polls?
Here’s a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, “There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008.”
This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by “a string of bad news from the Middle East … into calling for premature retreat from Iraq,” versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman.
Oh come on, people — get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war — from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.
You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I’m telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven’t got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.
Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I’m serious as a stroke about this — that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who’s ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.
Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I’ve said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were “German dogs.” They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless “string of bad news.”
Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can’t get up and fight, we’ll find someone who can.
[...] Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President’ January 14th, 2008 The Richmond Democrat wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe majority (65 percent) of the [...]
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As “Terminuns Est” posted in the comments onthis posting at Lawyers, Guns, and Money [slightly edited]:
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Senator Clinton:
- did nothing to prevent the Senate confirmation of John Ashcroft.
- did nothing to prevent the Senate confirmation of Alberto Gonzales.
- did nothing regarding the failed Senate confirmation of John Bolton.
- voted FOR cloture on the nomination of corrupt corporatist Priscilla Owen, clearing the way for her confirmation to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
- voted FOR cloture on the nomination of unqualified fascist Janice Rogers Brown, clearing the way for her confirmation to the DC Court of Appeals.
- voted FOR cloture on the nomination of religious zealot and homophobe William H. Pryor, clearing the way for his confirmation to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
- voted FOR cloture on the nomination of John Roberts, clearing the way for his confirmation as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
- said little or nothing during the Senate confirmation of Samuel Alito.
- did nothing to prevent the Senate confirmation of Michael Mukasey.
- said nothing during this summer’s vote on the Iraq War Supplemental.
- said little or nothing during the vote to extend FISA.
- said little or nothing on the Walter Reid scandal, even though she sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
- has said nothing during the current debate on Telecom Immunity.
- has said nothing on the possible impeachment of Dick Cheney.
- has said nothing on the possible impeachment of George Bush.
- has said nothing on the myriad scandals surrounding the current administration.
- campaigned for Joe Lieberman against Ned Lamont
- did nothing to stop Medicare Part D
- did nothing to stop the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill
- voted FOR the 2001 Bankruptcy Bill
- proposed legislation to ban flag burning.
- voted FOR the USAPATRIOT act.
- voted FOR the reauthorization of the USAPATRIOT act.
- voted AGAINST an amendment that would prohibit the use of cluster bombs against civilian targets.
- voted FOR the Iraq War Resolution.
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And, I might add, Sen. Clinton stood by and did nothing to help Sen. Dodd in his single-handed fight to kill retroactive telecom immunity.
This is why I oppose Sen. Clinton as the Democratic candidate.
Not because of her negatives, or supposed lack of electability, or because I don’t like her campaign staffers, or her attitude, or her cleavage, or her husband, or her tears or lack of tears :
Sen. Clinton has had years of urgent, once-in-a-political-lifetime opportunities to lead in the struggle to defend our rights and our republic against the worst executive administration in U.S. history. In that fight, she has done nothing, except to enable and empower the enemy.
Either she is not a leader, or she is not a Democrat.
I’m sorry, but this is just idiotic bullcrap. Molly Ivans has this rather insane vendetta against the Clintons, and her vitriol is partly to blame for the reason we have Dubbya in the office now. With friends like her…
Anyone who doesn’t support the Democrat in the general is an idiot. Period. No matter which Democrat gets the nomination, they’ll be light-years better than any of the Republicans.
Don’t take your eye off the ball, people. THink about judicial appointments. Think about the last seven years. And stop this divisive bullcrap right now.
Support whomever you want in the Primaries (I’m going with Edwards personally), but you’d better damn-well get out there and support the eventual nominee in the general, no matter what. It’s too important not to.