We're told that when the Wehrmacht poured across the frontier, the first thing that froze was Stalin. As the news of the losses came in he, on a purely personal level, shut down. Closed up shop. Pipe on, but nobody home. Not what you're looking for in a dictator, really. No one expected heroism, but they'd been promised a little decisiveness, a little ruthlessness, at least. Instead, while the whole world was watching, the Boss announced that he needed a few days to think about things and fucked off to Kuntsevo to stare out the window.
He was supposed to be so tough -- such a leader -- but on that day in June, the worst and most important day of his political life, instead of doing something -- anything -- his official response was that he really owed himself some time to consider his options. "It's over? I'll tell you when it's over."
Almost makes you lose all your warm feelings for the guy.
--
I guess it's a little graceless for Hillary to declare that the loser gets four days to let reality to settle in, but what the heck. Remember, this isn't about her. It's about the cause to which she's dedicated her entire adult life: Making Us Sick of Her.
--
One good thing about Hillary proclaiming her right to a four-day national non-concession? We'll never have to wonder what it would have been like if she'd been elected and that phone in the White House had rung at three AM.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Hello?
KIM JONG IL
All your base are belong to us!!! You are on the way to destruction!!! You have no chance to survive make your time!!!
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Can I call you back? I need at least a week for this to sink in.
--
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
You'd better get up, Bill. That was Pyongyang. The missiles are coming.
BILL
That's really disappointing. After all the hard work you put in.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
I know. They owe me better than this.
BILL
You deserve better.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
I know.
BILL
I'm red-faced with rage. Do you want me to come over?
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
No, stay where you are.
BILL
Gina Gershon says to say hi.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Give her a kiss for me.
--
What does Hillary want? What's she waiting for? I guess it would be nice if some scandal destroyed Barack Obama. Or he could just drop dead; he is a smoker. But I think it goes deeper than that.
I think she's waiting for us to appreciate the dirt she's had to eat. I think she wants a little recognition for the time she disgusted herself, and did a horrible, base and vile thing to save her party. I think she's waiting for a little gratitude for voting to authorize the Iraq War.
She gave a monster permission to kill children. Do you think she liked doing that?
But it had to be done. What would have happened if she'd voted no? He would have invaded anyway, and he would have found the anthrax, and the Democratic Party would have been swept away like the Federalists when they didn't get on board for the War of 1812.
After all the hard, hard work she had done to get to where she was. Can't you people see? It was a perfect trap. He was daring her to say no. If she didn't vote for the invasion not only would it prove she wasn't a patriot, or a realist, it would prove she didn't have the cojones.
Bush would be right, and she would be history.
Sure, some losers voted their conscience. Boxer and Byrd, Feingold and Kennedy and Leahy and Wellstone. (It's like welfare reform. There's no helping some people.) But they didn't see the Big Picture. The Real Issue. Why we were all put on Earth in the first place: To Preserve the Clintons' Viability.
So she gave him his war.
Bush could empty the treasury, and murder thousands -- tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands -- but he wasn't going to trick Hillary Rodham Clinton into hurting her shot at the next gig.
Because once she got that job, she could start doing some real good.
--
What's Hillary waiting for?
She's waiting for Bush to find the WMD.
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Hilarious.....you know,,,,at least we as Americans have had THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE Sick of her. The poor Russians never had it with Stalin.
But Hillary still fights, god bless her - to a point. Hopefully she still stays within the Democratic framework and rules that hold this Country together. But you see, even this, I'm worried about, or trust her to do the right thing. You know, her sketchy character - you just don't trust. Look what happened in 2000 with the Republicans - taking it to the limit!!! to hold on to power. And if she takes it to the limit, then we all in America might as well be saying....................Dasvedanya, Comrade.!!!!.
Btw, we need a little more Ann Coulter spoofing out of you, and where is Vicki Iseman?
she is just not being nice!
Wow I wasn't aware Hillary Clinton singlehandedly started the Iraq war.
Sympathy for the devil? Not so much. As she continues to tell the lie about winning the popular vote while readying herself to "suspend" her campaign the repubs are just ramping up. They cannot depend on their brain dead candidate to open his mouth w/out putting both his feet in it so here come the 527's, the quotes from helpful Hillary and Tom "the exterminator" Delay. Not to mention the ever assinine Joementumless Liebster.
Our Lady of the bad pantsuit portrays herself as a shot downing swaggering she man but when it comes time to suck it up and concede which she should have done long ago, suddenly she plays tragedy queen.
Please, this hardworking, white woman of a certain age just wants her to go away!
Chris kelley - dedicated to keeping the hate alive!
Chris,
Your description of Stalin shutting down sure brought back the 9/11 memories. Fortunately for Shrub, the Secret Service took note of the shocked glassy-eyed stare as he read in front of the elementary school class for seven minutes and then whisked him away for several hours until he had a chance to compose ( medicate) himself.
A born leader in a time of crisis. Ya mon.
I probably dislike her as much as anyone. But I honestly think this article is a bit over the top. References to Stalin are only slightly less excessive than references to Hitler. I agree that her speech on Tuesday was utterly dreadful. But I believe our energies are better spent savoring the victory rather than kicking the runner up when she's down. Yes, she behaved badly. But she paid for it by losing the election. Isn't that enough?
You missed the point...It has been 3 days and no concession speech. I just read in the paper today how McCain is gearing up to woo Clinton backers. I am also reading how the Republicans are now planning to use Clinton campaign attacks on Obama in their adds and talking points...you know the ones where she has said Obama is unelectable, that he can't win the general election, that all he has is a 2002 speech, etc. These have been 3 damaging days.
thanks I guess. Regardless of her perceived personality. She has done an incredible job as a Senator. Sure I wish we would have all had the wisdom to fight the war effort. It was a unique circumstance. We'll see how the rest of America perceives this idea of we should have known better. God Bless Hillary Clinton. God Bless America
Yes, its over the top --its called satire, a form of humor.
with all this media attention to her there is no one watching the chicken coop. just get on with it and remember, negative attention in politics is as useful as positive and irrelevant, attention! that's the ticket.
Another classy blog post. Yes, it certainly is Hillary who lacks grace, isn't it.
This is ugly, and getting uglier by the minute.
Congratulations on starting it, Chris.
Well written piece. You're right that everything is a political calculation with the Clintons, and then repackaged for public consumption. Sometimes things get repackaged multiple times.
There is an expectation of honor, while dishonorable behavior is Hillary's legacy. It seems like something she can't understand, she has the expectation that she will be held up on a pedestal and when she isn't, she cries foul, or more recently, cries sexism. Ironically, this kind of blind devotion is what she cultivates in her supporters. Some, like the ones at the DNC meeting disrupting and disrespecting, are Clinton true-believers, and will say or do anything Hillary says. They are her true reflection and represent what she is, a spoiled brat.
You don't give a spoiled kid more and more attention. You ignore them.
Let's be blunt about this: Hillary is demanding something before she gives the heads upo to her 18m. So what is she blackmailinmg him about? Certainly NOT the VP slot which has to be vetted and it just wouldn't go through. There is something sinister in the secrecy about this meeting. One has to connect the dots and put your shoes into the mind of Hillary. Hillary probably had some sort of deal with Bush who thought she was a shoe in, but now Obama needs to be reckoned with. Remember Bill was blackamiled about Don't Ask Don't Tell right at the start. Here it's worse. Bush would never ever ever ever ever allow an untested inexperienced idealistic young president loose toihave all the investigations against war crimes and a million other things we know but cannot even whisper. The crematorium at Abu Ghraib is enough to put him away for the rest of his life.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/24/080324fa_fact_gourevitch
He has asked Hillary to get some sort of guarantee that there will be no accountability WHATSOEVER. To me that makes sense. If there is no accountability, we can always surmise what I suspect is true but we'll never know for sure.
And then again, maybe HRC and Obama were discussing her campaign debt, her future role in the party, etc.
I had though of that also, it's true, that may well be the reason, maybe both, who knows? The irony is that many of those 18million Hillary supporters will vote for McCain anyway regardless what she tells them to do, the reason being that many are extremists who regard Obama as too balanced and fair with both the Palestinians and Israelis-- and he probably will be -- but they don't want that, because any peace and two state solution is the last thing they want. To them the current conflict at least allows Israel to have better control over he Palestinians. Obama should consider this and maybe let them vote for McCain without any blackmail. He is so smart I would imagine and hope that
he will do what he thinks is right for the country.
For a moment I thought I was reading a right wing blog. Hillary haters are spewing venom that, in the long run, will hurt their own cause. I guess sexism is blinding.
Paranoia will destroy you. "blackmail"..."sinister"...
Posts like this trigger mixed feelings. Imho, Clinton has EARNED every bit of scorn you heap on her, and if she's really as tough as she claims, she should be able to take it.
But is it PRODUCTIVE to be so snotty and unkind? Does it really make sense to go out of your way to make fun of her? For reasons I can't fathom, a number of women my age or older seem to have adopted Hillary as their heroine, and they take ANY criticism of her (even pointing out factual errors in her "popular vote" math) as personal insults to them.
Childish rants like this make it so much harder for them to vote for Obama. Is that what you want?
Whether or not you think Clinton deserves it, would it hurt so much to bite your tongue and be polite?
Mandy, when hillary supporters bite their tongue, I'll be glad to bite mine. It seems like hillary and her supporters want some type of special treatment regardless of how they act. If most of hillary supporters would stop blogging about "how much they are needed" and start blogging about "how much America needs a democratic President" things would be a lot better. A lot of people don't like to be threaten, hillary supporters are demanding respect like their leader does and for some strange reason they think this method is logical.
This commentary is a laugh riot, and all too-too-too-too-too-too-too true! It's just one of the many, many, many, many reasons why she wears a mask, and as it gets heavier, and heavier, and heavier to carry around, sometimes it slips . . . whoops!
Hillary needs to go and see Dr. Phil. It is beyond politics now, it is personal psychology.
Like it wasn't when Bill was trying to work out his problems with women, as though the White House was a rehabilitation clinic?
I was sooo clueless to believe in the Clintons.
Belief in Bill Clinton in the 90's was reasonable in a relative way. He replaced the Reagan-Bush team. That was definitely a step in the left direction. It is also true that Clinton governed to the right of Nixon. As president, Hillary would have seemed to be a move to the left but only relative to extreme rightwing Bush-Cheney.
What is needed is a systematic dismantling of the fascist apparatus constructed after Reagan declared war on everything FDR stood for. Re-regulation of the corporate owned and controlled media is the obvious and necessary first step.
Who deregulated the banks so they could play games with the mortgage brokers??BILL!
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Posted June 5, 2008 | 12:10 PM (EST)