Brass Tacks

Over the weekend I made the serious mistake of linking from Slate to an op-ed in the Washington Post by a Fellow named Peter Wehner about why Republicans like Obama. It reminded me of the old expression "Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas." I mean, that's how I felt after I read it -- itchy, squirmy, and a little disgusted at how I had contaminated myself by reading the piece. The gist of the Fellow's argument was that Republicans dislike Hillary Clnton because they remember the "mendacity and ruthlessness of the Clinton machine." He called the Clintons "unprincipled." My God! Compared to whom? Those lions of integrity, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice. Michael Mukasey, Alberto Gonzalez, Karl Rove, Michael Gerson? For sheer mendacity and ruthlessness, not to mention actual lawbreaking criminality, you can't really beat any Republican you can name. (For real outrage, I recommend Glenn Greenwald's Saturday column on the subpoena issued against James Risen of the New York Times.)

Anyway, Wehner yammers on about Obama transcending divisions and moving away from the "politics of rage." But Wehner has a warning for Obama -- if he continues to adhere to all the the views that have defined him in the public mind, and all of the beliefs that he has hitherto demonstrated, Republicans won't be able to support him. In other words, Obama is a great guy, and all he needs to do to get elected is to become a Republican.

Now, no one is surprised when a Republican advocates political and personal corruption -- that's what Republicans live for. That's why they can write pieces like this one for the Washington Post and still work for thinktanks such as the one the Fellow Wehner works for, "The 'Ethics' and Public Policy Center." From his op-ed, you know that the Fellow Wehner, Senior though he may be, wouldn't recognize an ethic if it whacked him in the face.

Here is why Hillary Clinton is mistrusted by liberals. It has nothing to do with ruthlessness or mendacity, except insofar as she has done exactly what Wehner advocates for Obama. In his HuffPost blog on January 30, Robert Scheer put it better than anyone:

"Isn't it disturbing that Sen. Clinton has received more money than any other candidate of either party from the big defense contractors? Why have the war profiteers given her twice the campaign contributions that they sent to McCain, if not for the expectation that she is on their side of the taxpayer rip-off that has seen the military budget rise to an all-time high? It's for the same reason that the bankers, Wall Street traders and other swindlers who produced our economic meltdown fund Clinton."

And this in addition to her continued lack of shame over her support of the Iraq war. In other words, Clinton did do what the Fellow Wehner advocates -- she failed to fight for liberal principles and she accepts money from enemies of liberal policies. Not content with one corrupt Democrat, the Fellow Wehner wants the other, more charming one to corrupt himself, too.

That at this late date there exists a human being, such as the Fellow Wehner, who admits that he once accepted blood money from the Bush administration and helped the administration promulgate lie after lie and crime after crime, does boggle the mind, and in fact is sufficient reason in itself for the "politics of rage" to last, like McCain's Iraq war, for a hundred years, or at least until the mess the Fellow Wehner and his cronies have managed to make of the government and the world while in power is cleaned up. Can Clinton do it, in spite of being in the pocket of the war machine and the finance machine? We don't know. Can Obama do it, in spite of not really seeming to understand the vicious ruthlessness and mendacity of the Republicans?

We don't know that either.

The underlying question of this primary and this election and the next four years is this -- was it the Clintons themselves who aroused the ire of the rightwing to such an extent that the administration they formed was unmercifully harassed from before the inauguration of 1992 to after the 2000 election, or were the Clintons simply the Democrats who happened to be there when the rightwing decided to take over? Everything the rightwing (and the media) latched onto about the Clintons, from Travelgate to the runway haircut to Monica Lewinsky seemed to me at the time to be merely a gambit in a slow-moving coup d'etat that was crowned in 2000 with the Supreme Court selection of the unelected George W, Bush. The one virtue of the Bush administration has been that their policies are so bankrupt and their members so incompetent that all but a few Americans can now understand the emptiness of the Republicans and their avid desire to destroy the U.S. in the pursuit of corporate power. The real danger of the next four years, as I see it, is that the election of any Democrat will trigger the rightwing deathsquads in all their different guises -- the media deathsquad, that hounds the president with nonsensical stories of scandal and distracts him from his business; the survivalist NRA deathsquads that pull off home-grown terrorist attacks, like the Oklahoma bombing; the lobbyist deathsquads, that gut all socially conscious or beneficial legislation, such as universal healthcare; the religious deathsquads, that harass and torment anyone who doesn't conform to a narrow and authoritarian social model; the thinktank deathsquads that propound deadly theories about the perfection of the "free market" or the horrors of "islamofacism" or the non-existence of climate change. It would actually be nice if the Fellow Wehner is telling the truth, that it is the Clintons personally that are the problem, because then the election of Obama would indeed signal a change. But if the goal of the corporatocracy is what it has seemed to be -- the permanent replacement of American democracy with a global imperialist empire and oligarchy of wealth, then Obama doesn't have a chance -- he will either be corrupted or destroyed.

The Fellow Wehner and his cronies are warning us already, but the warning is hard to read. A lot depends on your sense of how ruthless they are. My sense is that they are deadly ruthless. I hope I'm wrong.

Comments

[ibivi]

Correction: It should be "brings" not begins.

[ibivi]

Ms Smiley has very astutely pointed out the dirty tricks the Republicans are prepared to unleash on Obama if he becomes the democratic nominee for president. It begins to mind the specter of what happened to JFK, MLK and RFK. It is too horrible to think that it could happen again.

[TheKiddy]

No Jane. "The underlying question of this primary and this election and the next four years is this -- "

why did the media systematically destroy the Edwards campaign?

[jeanniem]

What moves Ethel Kennedy, the elderly widow of RFK, to speak out and endorse Barack Obama? What is it that moves Caroline Kennedy to make her first public endorsement of a presidential candidate speak out at this moment? What is happening when Maria Shriver, daughter of Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy, but now wife of the sitting California governor, stands to endorse Barack Obama? It is spirit of hope that this nation can have a leader who does truly understand the many crises we face, the devastation they are causing among us. It is palpable, and people who dearly love this country want to add whatever effort they can to achieve this dream. It grabs us in our hearts, minds, and bodies, and takes us into the battle.

I pray for Obama, that God grants him the tremendous strength, supernatural strength, he needs for the fight. I observed him last night on TV on stage with Ted Kennedy. Kennedy made a gesture to shake his hand, but the timing was less than perfect, and their hands failed to meet. Obama displayed such quiet grace in manner as he placed his arm on Kennedy's, directing him to extend his hand, and the two confidently shook each other's hand. I pray that God miraculously spares him the self-importance and arrogance now so commonplace. I pray for us, that we recognize his humanity and stand with him when he disappoints us. The Republican tool kit needs a total overhaul to take this down, and I honestly foresee clumsiness as the same old tricks are called to play for an entirely new game. I honestly do not think the new tools can be developed, manufactured, and delivered quickly enough.

[jpshotwheels]

The Republicans don't like Obama because he is Black, don't kid yourselves. Then the Man is Inspiring, Brilliant, and a threat of everything they are not.

They would prefer Hillary, with her comes Bill, Baggage, and this would be better to beat down with their attack machine. Don't get me wrong here because I think they did wonders in the White House, but its time to move on. Obama will be allot tougher to beat, they have no dirt on him. The only thing they could do with him, is his teenage Drug use and his Muslim father, and I think America will see through that pretty quickly. If Obama and Edwards can get on a ticket together, well Good-bye Republicans.

[Boadicea]

There are ruthless actors out there, yes. But I think we fail because we see them all as one entity.

As you point out, we already know that Hillary has failed against all the various anti-progressive efforts.

As progressives, our best option is to give the different approach of Senator Obama a chance.

Otherwise we have only one choice - to give up. I hope you're not advocating that.

[provgrays]

You're saying in many more words that money has corrupted this government and those politicians who claim to want only the public good are only servants of big money.

Even the Supreme Court has ruled that money is a form of speech. By that logic, the First Amendment can't possibly apply to those with little or no cash.

I have been using the non-word, Corptocracy", for years. It's similar enough to your word. This government is for the express comfort of corporations and defense contractors. The "People" are nothing but creatures who work most of their lives for the benefit of a few insiders.

[S1m0n]

Hilary has been abandoned by liberals not for any of the reasons you name, but because on the most important question of her era--Iraq--she was not only wrong, but she's STILL wrong, shows no sign of understanding her error, even now, and most damningly, was wrong for the worst of reasons: personal ambition. She voted for the war to prove she was a tough as the boys. She can't even claim that the intelligence she received on the matter was false, because she never even read that intelligence package. She voted the polls.

On a matter as grave as war and peace, that's a shameful dereliction of duty. If she's wondering why so many of her party no longer thinks of her as a leader, its because of this refusal to lead.

[oldpotsmuggler]

The choices posited are that Democratic Presidents "will be either corrupted or destroyed", and I couldn't agree more. With one small caveat. While I believe that Slick Willie was eventually corrupted, my personal calculation is that he waited until some time just after the beginning of his last year in office to strike his bargain. In doing so his negotiating position was "I'm worth every penny that I'm going to charge because fail to pay and you'll get nothing but the level of grief I was able to exact until now, and meeting my price will pay off handsomely for your side also." This approach could only work if Pres. Clinton had refused any number of smaller offers earlier and kept all the pressure on the fat cats that he could muster before swinging over.

My only point in raising this issue is that I believe that it did happen this way and that Hillary and Bill both know how to get the big payoff because of it. Or, put another way, with Hillary we get seven years of her being our president and THEY only get the last one.

Barack appears to me to be well smart enough to keep himself from being destroyed so one can only hope, with no evidence to determine how well founded the hope is, that he also is bright enough to understand the strategy for getting to the really big bucks.

[Rosanneofpgh]

The rethugs must be licking their chops, waiting to rip him apart in the general election.

hilary wont fare much better with all her bill baggage.

John Edwards was the only candidate who didnt take money from big corporations. His lack of funds and lack of exposure due to the corrupt msm, did him in.

Or did it??? He said he was SUSPENDING his campaign, he didnt actually say he was quitting. Hmmmmmmmm.­.. Something to think about.

[BoulderSue]

Unfortunately, Jane. I think you are right about far too many of them.

[itmaybetoolate]

I wish I could say you are wrong, but I don't think you are. One danger of the cult of personality that is forming around Obama is the desperate denial that will set in if he cannot bring the two sides together (as I really doubt he can). If only we had a candidate who wasn't taking money from corporate cronies (what was that guys' name? Oh yeah, Edwards). Clinton is ruthless enough but strongly connected to the neocon agenda. Obama seems to be able to deliver inspirational speeches but is, I suspect, a very charming "republican lite." America has become New Orleans - who has the courage and strength to rebuild it? I have no answer.
P.S. I have to say that your idea about the slo-mo coup d'etat is striking. It also makes me wonder, again, if bushie will ever willingly give up power.

[Merlin7]

Republicans like Obama only because they think he will lose the general election. Hence their gushing over what a fine fellow he is.