Why Am I So Afraid
Why am I so afraid that the Democratic Party is shooting itself in the foot?
The Dems are far from perfect--in any time--but here we are in what has to be a Democratic year and it looks again like we are self-destructing.
We have two great candidates--one a hard working, never give up eager beaver, and one an inspiring, heart-leapingly brilliant stallion. Both have their merits. Both care for what Democrats are best at caring for--working people, children's and women's rights, financial realism.
Both acknowledge the health care crisis, the environmental depredations of the GOP, the huge lurking menace of a war that costs 12 billion dollars a day and gives us nothing--unless we are war profiteers or blow-yourself-up fundamentalists. Both are poised to take back the country from the plutocrats and their endless tax cuts for each other.
And yet we have had great candidates before--think Al Gore--and lost to the low-level conniving, smearing and swift boating of the GOP (Grandiose Old Plutocrats).
The GOP stands for nothing today but looting the national treasury for the rich. George Dubya Bush once addressed them as the "haves and have mores"--clearly he is one of them--but maybe he will have less now that the Carlyle Group is running out of money. Maybe he'll have a little rachmones for the have-less and have-nots, though I doubt it.
If anyone in Washington read history, they'd understand that any empire that spends more in war than on its people eventually goes down in flames. The Persians, Greeks and Romans proved it--see Herodotus--and the British, French, Belgians, Dutch and Germans proved it all over again in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But does anyone care?
Apparently not. It's a rule of history that when an empire gorges on guns and forgets butter, that empire winds up on the scrap heap of history.
Dubya could have learned this at Yale had he not been drunk or stoned all the time and figuring out ways to avoid going to 'Nam.
But he doesn't know and doesn't care. He thinks, "The surge is working." Dick Cheney and Condi Rice tell him so. And now McCain echoes them. And our idiot corporate press--which has no time to read or think or dig for information (too busy getting pix of Kristen-Alexandra's tattoos) doesn't give a shit either. Leave that to the book-writers. That's safe enough since Americans don't read--especially not big thick books about history.
Meanwhile our two clever candidates have been sucked into the rigors of campaigning. They're tired. Dog-tired. The stallion makes heart-stopping speeches. And the beaver just beavers along. remembering how she won over upstate New York when everyone called that impossible. And called her a carpetbagger. And the stallion is drunk on his own rhetoric. Why not? It's great rhetoric.
We need beavers and we need stallions. Beavers get the work done. Stallions inspire us. And they both have limitations. Stallions have fragile legs (think Barbaro). And beavers are nothing without their teeth.
It's not a matter of choosing between inspiration and hard work. We need both. We need to be inspired and then we need those who will never give up till they execute the inspiration.
Any fool knows that. The Democratic Party ought to know it too. And the sooner they bring the beaver and the stallion together, the better off we'll all be. There is no choice here. There ought to be no ego, no genderizing and no racializing.
Americans are neither black nor white. We are all as mixed as Brazilians. We are a honey-colored race--with Africans, Europeans, Asians and Native Americans intermingled in our DNA. That's the glory of America. If Dick Cheney is genetically related to Barack Obama, what more do we need to know? DNA only goes so far politically.
So let's stop talking about race and gender and let the beaver and the stallion both serve our country--in their own inimitable ways.
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Erica, Have you truly examined their actual bill sponsoring and voting records? Try it, it is informational to say the least.
Erica,
I don't think there is any doubt that Bill Clinton attracts eager beavers!
Ain't that the truth!
Is this a turning point in America? Will this country become greater than it ever was? Will the world look up to us again? We already know what John McCain's administration will be like because he told us( big Bush like government, making Bush tax cuts permanent, more war with Iran...etc) We can do better and we need to do better. We can not only make history we can turn this country around and get it back on track. GO OBAMA!
Seriously, I am beginning to think that the Clintons would prefer McCain to Obama, if Senator Clinton cannot get the nomination!
Of course, they do. If she isn't the nominee this year, they want to keep the seat open and warm for her in '12. All of the sliming and dirty politics isn't aimed solely at her getting the nomination. They also want to hobble Obama so badly that he can't run again, at least while Hillary still thinks of herself as a viable presidential candidate.
They declined to campaign for Democratic presidential candidates in '00 and '04 as well,, perhaps in the hopes that Bush would win. And we all know how THAT turned out.
If Hillary is so hardworking, how come she hasn't passed any laws?
Slowly but surely, People are beginning to question all of these lies that we've been force fed by Hillary and her supporters. First, she was the "inevitable" candidate, but when she started losing, she quickly became the underdog. Then, she became the foreign policy experience" candidate, but a quick review of her trips proved that her experience was spray painted on. Problem is, Hillary simply hasn't been vetted. but once she is, we'll see just how weak of a candidate she really is.
Yes, the image may never leave my subconscious mind -- and for that, I am very afraid!!!!
worst analogy ever!
Ms. Jong: what were you imbibing or smoking when you wrote this drivel?
You want the Hillary "beaver" to work with the Obama "stallion" but you don't say what kind of animal MR. Clinton might be.
No matter! If the beaver and the stallion snuggle up to each other, as you suggest they should, old Billy Goat will be in on the action to make it one heckuva menagerie à trois.
Hahahahahaha
Really, Erica. Obama has worked very hard and does not simply rely on "rhetoric."
Obama can choose Kathleen Sebelius, Janet Napalitano, Diane Feinstien, Jane Harmon, Claire McCaskill -- or many other women politicians if we Dems "don't need to deal with gender issues."
nice try erica, the 'dream ticket' isn't going to happen. for one obama would be a fool agreeing to be v.p. especially with slick willie in the white house. second he would never have hillary as his v.p. she needs him alot more than he needs her. now, i would like to see a woman v.p. perhaps mccashill, or whatever her name is, just not hillary. i don't trust hillary, and her 35 yrs. of experience isn't proving all that credible now is it? her bosnis yarn she is spinning is just an outright lie, she describes in detail a meeting she supposedly attended, that never happened, etc. etc. or maybe bill richardson, he'd be great with his foreign policy experience. if hillary doesn't get the nomination she better hope the voters of n.y. still want her which i doubt. but, she can always carpetbag to another state and try her luck there. the clintons are yesterdays news erica, get used to it girl.
Wait, stallion & beaver? I just learned the last set of pre-school talking points & now you want me to learn new ones? I thought they were Obambi & the Monster...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAVYYe87b9w
It's times like these when I wish I could draw so I could illustrate Ms. Jong's wonderfully evocative metaphor. Busy Beaver vs. the Drunken Stallion - it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? All I can say is, thank Jeebus we didn't have to pay money to read this trenchant analysis.
We' ve already got a monkey in the White House and now we have to choose between a beaver and a stallion?? I've heard of the Washington Zoo but this is ridiculous. What is McCain, an old goat?
no "Stallions have fragile legs "? where did you gre\et that notion? by looking at Thoroughbreds race?
what you most likely were looking at were fillys, or geldings. the reason the don't use stallions for running is they're used for breeding purposes. they're like jhonny appleseeds spreading little seeds that will grow....everywhere they can.
what was that racehorse's name? you know--the one who won and then broke his leg. oh, that's right: barbaro.
Liveand learn:
Not Barbaro, it was Ruffian. In a match race, the filly that never had lost a race was passed by the stallion and saw she would lose for the first time. She stumbledand was taken behind the barn and destroyed.
Perhaps Hillary will accept being put out to pasture.
and you have a blod cuz why???????
cuz she can
This article is bunk based on the writer. Erica your blind feminism makes you Hillary's servant. Especially based on some of the articles you have written in the past.
She is the one responsible for some of the dirtiest and worst tactics on the democratic side. Some things she said should have had her expelled from the democratic party. Namely the time when she said that she and McCain were ready for commander in chief and all Barack Obama had was a speech. SHe said that 3 times And now Bill is up there saying it now. Asking people to question Barack's patriotism. Are you freaking kidding me? To throw your party member under the bus for a republican, basically saying if you don't vote for me my democratic comrade is not a good choice. Vote republican if I am not the nominee. And to question the guys loyalty to this country is outrageous. And that's ust the tip of the ice berg when it comes to her. You can look all over the Huff post now for detailed looks at her lies to the public about her experience. Her over inflated stories about her so called foreign policy experience.
No one has said that a woman isn't good for the oval office, but Hillary's own actions have forced many women, many people to take a hard look at her and not like what they see. It's not a sexist issue, it's a Hillary issue. She is the one dividing the party as we speak.
I believe your premise is wrong. "We have two great candidates--one a hard working, never give up eager beaver, and one an inspiring, heart-leapingly brilliant stallion." You sound like the qualities are mutually exclusive. Can't you hard working and inspirational? Look, this race has gone a long time, but the only way to end it now is with a stake in the heart. Bloodletting has become necessary and it will symbolically "cleanse" the party ridding it of those who don't belong. The party will survive.It just has to play out. It will make the party stronger.
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