As the Clinton campaign continues its long day's meltdown into night, one of the sadder chapters of history being written is the tarnishing of Bill Clinton's legacy as a pretty good president.
Clinton governed in the middle, without the ideology and the tautology that we've all come to loathe in the current malAdministration. He met most ideas on their merits, accepted both sides of arguments, formed a consensus and moved on. Then he made illicit love, not illegal war. Oh, for THOSE good old days.
But the seamy political underside of these characteristics are the Clintonian tactics we've all come to loathe in the current campaign: the triangulation, the run to the middle to embrace the Right, the selling out of the entire Democratic undercard in order to concentrate on building the heavyweight champion. And the embrace of the worst of the Rovian tactics in furtherance of their own careers.
It is the Clintonian hubris that fuels this political engine, but Bill's "Bubba" persona kept the mixture from getting too explosive. Hillary's hard Midwestern edge turns that fuel into a more volatile mix, while her campaign's hour of desperation has distilled it into an unstable jelly. Disdaining Kool-Aid as just for kids, this Clinton napalm is the beverage of choice among her supporters, that is, until hemlock becomes available.
Ambassador Joe Wilson has drunk the napalm and is belching fire!
One of the sadder footnotes currently being written to history is the damage to Joe Wilson's reputation as a pretty good public servant. Of course, in a footnote to a preceding chapter he became the Pancho to his wife's Cisco as they fought the forces of the Evil Ranchero. But it appears he has subsumed their legitimate victimization to Clinton's Cult of Perpetual Martyrdom.
Contrast his brave and principled stand against Saddam during Gulf War I and his brave and principled stand against the Bush Administration in Gulf War II with his craven attacks on Obama. What's worse, he smears by association, as he attacks Obama for being supported by people whose only crimes appear to be supporting Obama and... criticizing Hillary!
Wilson is immolating his honor and reputation in the Clinton Gotterdammerung by firebombing the principled stands taken by Zbigniew Brzezinski, by John Kerry, by Bill Richardson, and by General Tony McPeak on behalf of the most transfiguring person in American politics since Franklin Roosevelt.
And what is the unspeakable sin that all these people have committed? What horrible crime against humanity caused this career diplomat to act in so undiplomatic a fashion? What horrendous affront to all that is good and holy in the world can possibly have caused Wilson to throw up his deep grounding in realpolitik to quaff the napalm of Clinton's lite version of Bush's weltpolitik?
Brace yourself, and I'll tell you.
Brzezinski accused Hillary of lying about her vaunted experience. Kerry identified Obama, with his deep family history in Islam, as having an advantage in future diplomacy with Muslim nations. Richardson failed to discuss policy because he was too busy dodging Clinton smears. And McPeak drew a parallel between Bill questioning Obama's patriotism and Joe McCarthy's "un-American" attacks.
Why, those bastards! Heat the tar! Pluck the feathers! Saddle up the rail!
This is the heady side effect of drinking the Clinton napalm. Not only do you lose your inhibitions and your judgment, but you also burn all your boats behind you and every bridge in front of you while turning your political viability into a crispy critter, another burnt offering on the Altar of Almighty Hillary.
Bill Clinton's chapter in history is thick. It will survive the fire and, decades down the line, his Presidency will be judged independently of his wife's failed candidacy.
But when Joe Wilson's footnote goes down in a chapter of history, it just goes down in Plame's.
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It is a puzzlement that WIlson cannot comprehend that Barack Obama is the real article. Republican Senator Chuck Hagle believes he is and so stated in an interview with Charlie Rose that was broadcast a few days ago.
Each post of Joe Wilson's was filled with ill feelings for Obama and steadfast approval for Hillary. If he took a different pill, he probably would have indignation for Hillary and a sense of duty for Barack. Of all the name calling the Obama's supporters have endured----Obamites, Obamabots, Obamazoids.....etc, Joe Wilson, Taylor Marsh, and the conservatives(Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingram) come off as unfair, robotic, and unrelenting.
Joe Wilson is the link between the DLC and the PNAC. He sits at the intersection of neo-liberal, and neo-con MILITARY THEOLOGY. Once a career foreign office mole, he is now a guard dog for the "military-inustrial-congressional-complex" who pays alliegence to only one master:
THE CORPORATION. (He's not a Democrat, he's a CORP-O-RAT.)
"Over the years, Wilson has made contributions to the campaigns of Democratic candidates, ... and to Republican Congressman Ed Royce of California. In 2000, he donated US$2,000 to Gore's presidential campaign and US$1,000 to Bush's presidential campaign ... Though he voted for Gore and criticized the flawed election, he believed that Bush would nonetheless be a responsible president once in office--a belief he would later call "naive"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson#Political_views_and_involvement
But, check out his neo-con buddie Ed Royce from CA, (his home state)
"In every year from 2003 to 2006, he has voted in favor of the annual supplemental spending bill to continue funding for the Iraq war. ...voted against Amendment 214 ...which called on Bush to develop a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq; in favor of Amendment 488 ... to keep troops in Iraq; and in favor of HR 612 opposing a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. In 2006, he voted for... a resolution labeling the war in Iraq as part of a global war against terrorism."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Royce
Very nice, I'm glad someone said it. I'm pretty sick of Wilson's constant and shamelessly biased attacks on Obama. Like Krugman (who I'm surprised you didn't mention), he has shown himself to be nothing more than a total hack, Hillary's personal lapdog, vomiting out talking points straight from her lips like it is going out of style. I agree that his reputation is going to take a big hit, and I think Krugman's will too, but I also think that Bill isn't going to get out of this unscathed. Who knows how the history books will be written, because they are notoriously full of shit, but I think Americans won't soon forget how shameless and pathetic the Clintons have acted throughout this campaign, from their red-faced lies to their "shame on you's". I know I've lost all respect for either of them, and I know I'm not alone.
What constant andshamelessly biased attacks on Obama are you talking about. Wilson very effectively showed how much real gravitas Hillary Clinton has as compared to Obama. Krugman should certainly not be described as a "hack" and you'd be hard put to explain that one. He is reknown economist and writer on economics and he has written many books on the subject. He does clearly back Hillary Clinton because he believes her positions on health care and the economy are more sound that any of the candidates now running. Does that make him a "hack" in your frame of reference?
Chip seems to love using picturesque language and throwing all sorts of comments around with no semblance of truth in them. But the people he so denigrates have a significant history and reputation that will survive even this blustering blog. Wilson was and is considered a very important piece in the Bush run-up to war in Iraq and his support of Hillary Clinton is real and principled. There were no "craven attacks on Obama"; just someone who knows her record and the importance of her experience. That may gall a Collis but Wilson was right on.
Makes you wonder what promises of prosecution were made to bring Joe Wilson on board. Joe Wilson will not rest easy until someone from the Bush Administration is punished for what they did to his wife. It is not beyond the Clintons to promise anything, or say anything to win this election. The Clintons want to be the most powerful couple in the world.
Tit-for-tat.
Just because Joe Wilson does not agree with you and others and criticizes Obama, does not make him a napalm drinking misfit.
"One of the sadder footnotes currently being written to history is the damage to Joe Wilson's reputation as a pretty good public servant" - Your claim is that what he states damages his reputation. What a buch of BS. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't make make your statement fact.
I'm tired of hearing the common theme of how Hillary is damaging the Democratic Party...It takes two to screw up a relationship.
I totally agree. I guess we Hillary-ians have to defend the ramparts, as it were. Obama is riding on this evil process of hijacking the Democtratic Party by the radicals. Why don't they just bolt the party and go with Nader?
To claim there's any similarity between Obama and Franklin D. Roosevelt is completely outrageous. To claim such a thing is like admitting you have no clue what that great leader of the forgotten man accomplished. Roosevelt took the US out of a depression by launching the gigantic New Deal program and he fought fascism around the world in the form of Nazism and even the British Empire.
Obama is not coming close -- even in his or other persons' promises about him -- to anything that Franklin D. Roosevelt actually did and succeeded in doing.
It took FDR three terms to do all that. He didn't start out as the FDR of history. He started out as an ordinary, if obscenely wealthy, man with good ideas. But for being white and rich, there isn't much difference between FDR's first run and Obama's. Transformational presidents start out as transformational candidates.
There was an assassination attempt on him by the financial establishment before he was inaugurated. Now, Obama hasn't said anything so far that has made the financial establishment angry or even worried.
This country needs a president that's not afraid of the financial elite. Obviously, that is not Obama. He took their money. Now he's even flirting with Bloomberg.
FDR was the establishment. Perhaps Barack knows that to get elected today he has to walk a fine line between revolution and status quo. If he had played it any other way, we wouldn't be talking about his eventual nomination. I think Barack has been quite open in how he views the status quo and its affect on America. His legislative feats speak to that as well.
Joe didn't drink the napalm, he ate the yellowcake. that's why it couldn't be found in Niger.
Joe Wilson, the dirty bomb nuking the Billary campaign. So much for that sweet Bahamian ambassadorship.
Gotta Love the doggie positions male candidates assume when they running for office.
All these many words because one is offended by Wilsons' backing Hillary ? The losers of the past need a winner from the anti Clinton group to embolden themselves. Obama is a nice guy and a good man but we need a President that can win in the pits even if the Congress is not heavily Democratic. And besides, how many are hoping for a spot in the Obama cabinet ?
I just don't understand why you think she would "win in the pits"... Her tactics of 'my way or the highway' is what ended universal healthcare in the early 90's. we could have had a form of it and began to revolutionize it from there... but her tactics and unwillingness to reach out even to other democrats and make some concessions to get it done, buried it. Fellow Dems like Jim Cooper of Tennessee. Scorned by her. Ridiculous behavior. THis is the mediator? No,... her tactics and failure in diplomacy amongst the congressional members is what turned her aspirations of a copresidency into "sorry you are now resigned to normal first lady duties because you can't work well with others." and then the congress turned far right and we didn't get it back til 2006. Their tactics are not what it takes to get stuff done. The dogfighting imagery of congress is exactly what is wrong with congress and why things just do not get done.
No, it's America that's losing, as they castigate the most honorable people in America, the Clintons. They gave Bush a free ride--they were dead wrong. They're the same group who beat up on Clinton before, while he rose to a 65% approval rating. Joe Wilson is right on, and though it's stacking up to be a short term loss, some of us still hold out hope that there will be a wakeup call before we see the party go down in flames with Obama as nominee, or the country go down in flames with him as president.
Honorable, how honorable was it to use Mr & Mrs. Lewinski's daughter the way that Bill did, or the way that people were cheated out of their savings in the White Water scandal, not to mention the shredding of the Democratic party which is taking place at this time. If they were truly honorable people they would just stop the attacks on Senator Obama, and help him beat the Republican't Candidate in the fall.
If the Internet was a few more years advanced, Clinton would have been skewered on his DLC "accomplishments" and poisonous presidency.
Here are a few facts from Bill's "progressive" presidency:
- War on Drugs http://www.mapinc.org/newscfdp/v01/n087/a05.html?6793
- Welfare Reform. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/truthdig
- Media Consolidation http://www.mediamouse.org/features/061407bill_.php
- Trade Policy
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DB1131F931A35751C0A965958260
- Crime Bill
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n10_v58/ai_15783391
- First Anti-Terror Legislation
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8375.html
- War on Domestic "Terrorism"
http://www.constitution.org/ruby/ruby.htm
- War on Terror
http://www.slate.com/?id=2060941
Hillary has been no better in what she has championed since arriving at the senate. Sorry, but the Clintons are no fan of the common (wo)man.
"the most honorable people in America, the Clintons"
That is some purple Kool-Aid.
Everyone insists Hillary say "exactly" what her experience is so that they can fact check and discredit it. On the other hand, we know that Obama has done very little and much of what he claims as experience is actually someone else's product. Experience is a funny thing. It's not easily passed on, just ask any parent of a teenager. It tends to develop over time and it requires effort and sometimes dedication. Hillary has years of experience in a variety of venues. Her knowledge of far-reaching issues is amazing. She cares deeply about her work and the future of this country. But instead of celebrating a woman who has worked her way up, the media wants to destroy her. The pundits judge her by standards that they don't apply to Barack. If Hillary were involved in a real estate deal with Rezko, she would already be gone. If she belonged to a church where the pastor preached hatred, she would not be absolved with one speech. If the she was ahead by the same margins that Barack has right now, I venture to say not one pundit would expect him to drop out.
Some of us, like Joe Wilson, have a different perspective and it has nothing to do with drinking any beverage. It has to do with OUR assessment of what's true and what we want. Your attack on Wilson is despicable. He has as much right to express his opinion as you.
There is so much more depth to the one-dimensional caricature of Barack that the media and the Clinton campaign provides.
Beyond twenty years of excellence and activism at the local and state level, http://thomas.loc.gov/ has all the legislation Barack (as well as Hillary) has sponsored or co-sponsored since arriving at the senate, including;
- 570 bills in the 109th and 110th Congress.
- 15 bills that have become LAW since he joined the Senate in 2005.
- Introduced amendments to 50 bills, of which 16 were adopted by the Senate.
His bills that are now law include:
Two addressing foreign policy:
- Promote relief, security and democracy in the Congo (2125)
- Develop democratic institutions in areas under Palestinian control (2370).
Three addressing public health:
- Improve mine safety (2803)
- Increased breast cancer funding (597)
- Reduce preterm delivery and complications, reduce infant mortality (707).
Three addressing openness and accountability in government:
- Strengthening the Freedom of Information Act (2488)
- Full disclosure of all entities receiving federal funds (2590)
- The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (S. 2590)[
Two addressing national security
- Extend Terrorist Risk Insurance (467)
- Amend the Patriot Act (2167)
One addressing the Armed Forces
- Wave passport fees to visit graves, attend memorials/funerals of veterans abroad (1184).
Finally, he was involved in pushing and crafting legislation to drastically reform the Senate"s ethics standards and curtail lobbyist influence. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011802176.html.
Barack is more than qualified to be president.
"On the other hand, we know that Obama has done very little..."
You're blind. Haven't you been following the campaign? Obama is attracting, inspiring, leading. Hillary is repelling, dividing, lying. Obama's support comes from little donors everywhere, Hillary's comes from a few big-bucks donors. Obama's leading. Hillary's losing. Reasons abound.
Don't smoke when the Ambasador farts or speaks. You could start a great explosion of the methane he emits & creates in his body. I don't know if the fatulent gas we emit when farting is lighter than air; it it's lighter than air- it would be a good idea to teather Ambasador to an object which weighs at least 100 lbs more than he does to prevent him from floating to the ceiling when he's inside or becoming a danger to avaition when he's outside.
Excuse the typos. My spell-check isn't working.
larry lynch
Obama may very well elect another Republican.
electress, your profile show a monologue about how women should come before blacks to win the presidency...you may want to think about that.
bias re color or sex has squat to do with who's electable. if you're so liberated, what's the difference who gets there first?
Next november, we have to run the most electable candidate we have, not the one who was most electable in december of 07. If Obama's candidacy implodes in the next few months, due to his 20 year membership in a radical black church, the super delegates are obligated to vote for who can beat McBush. The neocon attack dogs are going to have a great time with Obama's baggage. The neocons can't comment on the weather, without trying to blame it on Hillary. They've got nothing left to throw at her. All they can do is re-cycle the old bs, that didn't stick the first time.
The beautiful thing about the internet is it provides context to sound-bite media. The impact of this has been over-estimated , because as the truth comes out it will go away.
Perhaps you would take the time to listen to the entire sermon instead of buying the spin: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lonnee-hamilton/placing-reverend-wrights_b_92738.html.
There was nothing to repudiate. Reverend Wright has a long history of serving both his country and his community. Many Americans are embarrassed about America. Any American with a heartbeat and an ounce of empathy should be embarrassed about this country. In fact., they should be ashamed of this country and the actions it has taken in our name - from killing the Native Americans and stealing their land to killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and stealing their oil.
Most moderate voters disowned much of what this country stands for a long time ago. They are living in America's nightmare. Once they get a chance to see the entire sermon in context and hear his bio, as they will have plenty of time to do between now and November, many will applaud Reverend Wright for the true American hero that he is.
Clinton has 100 times the baggage Obama has' with her lying and insulting barbs. She has a lot of Chutzpah which won't get her far.
As a Jewish holocaust survivor and a Democrat, I find Obama like a breath of fresh air. Quite different from Hillary Clinton who is a "business as usual" Democrat who who is practically committed to accommodate all her corporate sponsors, who are going to cash in their chips......No more Clintons for me.
On the contrary, and contrary to her usual self, she is talking about Rooseveltian measures to save the citizens of this country from foreclosures and the financial hell out there. If you're a holocaust survivor, I think you would appreciate anything that has any resemblance of FDR.
Joe speaks for himself, and makes it very clear. I am very glad to hear his voice, and share
his support for Hillary.
Joe tells it like it is!
see above my further comments
and so you're sure Joe isn't telling it like he's told it is?
Whoops, sorry to have lost a "t" there-
desertblues, you might go down with the old ship
Joe Wilson reminds me of someone who is in a bar room fight. He has had a few too many to understand that you don't just grab the nearest barstool and brain someone. Wasn't he in with Bush the Elder when a causus belli was conjured for the evil Saddam Hussein who had just been our ally? It was "heroic" to start the Gulf War by kicking off the New World Order. Since when was Kuwait the model of Democracy? Didn't we give Saddam the go-ahead and then use that as a trip wire? Cheney was involved in that one, too. I just think that Joe knows too much about Yellowcake and the CIA but forgets whose side he is on in the bar room after a few stiff ones - he just likes the fight but forgets the rules, like the Good Shepherd; only he knows what's best for the rest of us. I know that Joe saved some people back then in the Gulf War but did he object to doctored photos of a troop build up given to the Saudis a justification for the first invasion of the oil-rich country called Iraq? Rep. Henry Gonzales thought that foul play occurred back then in that glorious war called the first Gulf War.
If I'm in a bar room fight, I want to know who has my back.
Posted March 27, 2008 | 10:43 AM (EST)