A Simple, Desultory Philippic

Look, it's simple: if Hillary's ready and experienced, why the hell is she losing ground, credibility and support day by day to her lesser equipped, less experienced, hollow dreamer of a rival?

And if restoring the reputation of America, if unifying its disenfranchised, underrepresented and undervalued citizens, if taking the reigns of power back from the profiteering special interests, if reinvigorating America's youth and giving them cultural values that are meaningful rather than base and disposable is what she is dedicated to, then she should realize that Obama's growing popularity is due only to people recognizing he is the solution to what's been ailing them and their country; that the possibility of an Obama presidency is as restorative and inspirational as anything that's been proffered in decades; that after years of being statistics, people are awakening, their hopes stirring and forming the soul of an ineluctable and gloriously American movement.

If Hillary -- necessary, brilliant, vital Hillary -- wants the best for her country, then she can help accomplish her goal by throwing her support behind Obama. With unity like that, we can finally face the obstacles that lay ahead. And overcome.

Comments

[jeskiley]

Uh, no. Suggesting Hillary throw her support behind Obama is a nice, sexist cop-out. Clarifying what Obama's appeal is, is right on. Hillary is following a stable, tried and true method and we don't trust it because it hasn't worked in so long. (Plus, the entertainment media floods us with "new" and "next" so we drool at the possibility.) How flattered did I feel when Hillary saved her "this one's for all you women out there..." until this prime moment. It would've insulted us at the end of the race, and it would've thrown her completely off course if she'd used it at the beginning.

I'm intrigued by that specific position, however, and wonder why in the hell we can't have two presidents.

[DLSteinhardt]

Or, "How I Was Barack Obama'd Into Submission"

[seepee]

The Audacity of Dupe

Michelle Obama:
Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we"re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond." Faced with that reality, she adds, "many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management."

What she doesn"t mention is that the helping industry has treated her pretty well. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama"s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office. And that does not count the money Mrs. Obama receives from serving on corporate boards

Full story:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTViZjhhNGI1Y2QxYjE0ZDc0YmMwMjJiNmUyZjQ3MmU

[democraticjack]

I love this. Isn't it remotely possible that any of this can be said about any candidate who is winning the bulk of the primaries. "Reaching all demograhics", "Uniting the party", "a movement for change", "hope" - all apply. The only thing different now is the Myspace and YouTube folks are chiming in because they have a new bright shiny object to play with, for awhile.

[morris1030]

What a lovely sexist cop out. Obama has a lot to answer for, and whether it catches up with him now or later, your hubris Mr Weber, is not impressive.

You should try thinking yourself through this, if possible.

[lgillooly]

The difficult thing is we have 2 great candidates and no matter who wins we need to support the Democrat. I honestly think our Country cannot survive another Bush-like President.I would prefer a Clinton/Obama 08' ticket and then Obama in 2016,but whoever wins will be MY nominee.

[transendentilist]

Steven, at least you could give credit to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Plagiarism!

[transendentilist]

I've lost my harmonica Albert!

[stormy7]

THE REASON HILLARY IS LOSING GROUND IS BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE SEXISTS THAN RACISTS. BUT JUST YOU WAIT. IF OBAMA GETS THE NOMINATION THE RACISTS WILL COME CRAWLING OUT OF THE WOODWORK IN DROVES.
HILLARY IS THE ONLY CANDIDATE THAT CAN BEAT THE REPUBLICANS!

[Selam]

Steve, you nailed it!

I would not say that experiences don"t count because they do. His experience as community organizer, his vision for America and its people, his strategy and his hope, has more value at this difficult time that the nation faces. Most of all, he is believable; he resembles American, and he makes us feel that we are somebody.

Obama is an excellent Executive, and the prime example is how he is managing his campaign.
It would be a gift to us and for Clintons" if Clintons bless Obama and rally behind him. Soon or later that is what is going to happen but they could of facilitate it, and that would be a patriotic act.

[Simone]

Crazy logic!

You could say they same thing about John Kerry or Walter Mondale when they ran against Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Since when does getting elected mean you're the best person for the job?

[BillMcKern]

"...If Hillary's ready and experienced, why the hell is she losing ground, credibility and support day by day to her lesser equipped, less experienced, hollow dreamer of a rival?..."

You've got the cause and effect wrong.

The media has built up Obama and torn down Clinton minute by minute, day by day, week by week since before the Iowa caucus.

It's not that Obama is causing a movement which the media is passively reporting on -- it's that the media is reporting positively on the creation of an Obama movement, thereby creating favorable coverage and generating momentum. It's a self sustaining echo chamber.

The amazing thing about Clinton isn't that she's losing ground to Obama. What's amazing is that she's still viable at all after the constant negative press to which she's been subjected.

[JudyGee]

The media during the McCarthy era did the same exact job as they are doing and have been doing since the beginning of this campaign regarding obama. They love monsters. they love anything that creates what they consider excitement. That translates into readership and viewers. Glomming onto a younger demographic gives them the advertisers they crave so desperately. If nazis were marching down fifth avenue they would love that, too. The media has reached its zenith in this campaign and possibly can't go any lower. Of course, one never knows. With Joe McCarthy, when he held up a piece of paper and said "I have here 223 (or 187) names..." no one in the media disputed his claim, or even asked to see the paper. They reprinted his crazy accusations verbatim, and made headlines out of his despicable words. The obama tulipmania created by this media is no less craven and guilty of subverting the very foundations of our democracy. Hillary Clinton is a remarkable candidate, for every good reason, not the least of which is her courage as the first and only political figure to attempt gaining universal health coverage for the American people and putting her political future on the line to do it. She and Bill Clinton have been inclusive and among the strongest supporters of blacks, and they have been doing that for quite a bit longer than Mr. obama. Indeed, black seperatism is more up his alley than inclusiveness, a peculiar bit of business the media has chosen to ignore. Hillary Clinton is strong, brilliant, resiliant and capable of real leadership. Mr. obama, tragically is full of crap. And, by the way, if the Democratic party chose delegates on the same basis as the Republicans, Hillary Clinton would have already won the nomination.

[Merin]

Kudos, Mr. Weber. Very well said.

[stellanoir]

I posted this a few times over the last week or so.

As a semi fanatic for Tudor history I keep being reminded of how Queen Elizabeth the first's leadership was so enhanced by the caliber of most of her advisors.

OTOH Mary Queen of Scots really was surrounded by duplicitous, conniving, power mongers. That lack of discernment cost Mary her head.

Just saying.

[bellecloche]

I have to quote Jon Stewart on this one: "You know why Hillary Clinton is losing? BECAUSE PEOPLE AREN'T VOTING FOR HER."

[westview]

Since the election started this has been the Obama story line. Lets try a different one on instead. The American people all had a chance in 2008 to have their voices heard. For once every vote counted right down to last primary. Both candidates had huge followings and both had good wins. The voters of Florida and Michigan had their votes counted too. Wisely the contest was not called before every vote was in and every voice was heard thoughout the nation. At the late season convention there were serious doubts about the Obama campaign. By the time the convention was held in August, many voters were petitioning their superdelegates to back away from the controversial candidate Obama. Obama's negatives shot through the roof after the American public witnessed months of the Rezko trial and its daily drip of unfortunate connections to Mr. Obama. The democrat's long convention season saved them from making an irrevocable mistake in backing a hopelessly flawed candidate for the presidential election.

[gregpanfile]

It's a tale of three parents:

McCain: Get that bicycle off my lawn!

Hillary: Wear your helmet or no dessert for a MONTH!

Obama: Let's work out some limits so you can ride safely.

I take door #3. McCain is ridiculous, has no clue about the economy, and no strategy in the foreign policy realm. Hillary has baggage problems, tone problems, and strategic problems (her currently dire situation results from choices she made... who to hire, how to proceed... if she runs the country like she ran her campaign, all of us will be on the bus in the ditch).

If Obama had lost 11 states in a row and was behind by over 150 pledged delegates, what would the Clinton campaign say he should do? What would the national media be saying? Fact is Hillary is getting a free ride at this point, and she and the pundits might lower the bar yet again on Tuesday, which would never happen for Obama.

What the media, the Clinton supporters, and all the pundits (notice how actual American citizens with jobs other than elected official, 'strategist' or some sort of reporter/blogger, are NEVER on TV, NEVER asked their opinion), are not paying attention to is this incredibly crucial number which has been consistent for over a year:

Percentage of people who disapprove of Bush=percentage of people who disapprove of the war=percentage of people who think the country is headed in the wrong direction=

70%

70%! That is the story here, after 20 years under two dynasties, and of the three remaining viable candidates, only one represents real change. Hel-LO!!!!

[seepee]

So ... so we sould be looking for a father figure---- and we are all children --- mmmh --very telling

[AWest]

Great post! great analogy.

I did used to have respect for Hillary, but this awful campaign, inept and straight from the gutter, is just shameful. We've had enough of that, that's the point. And that we''ve got someone who can inspire a large segment, hopefully the majority, of the country in the work needed, the challenges we face... that we can believe in hope again? Yes, we can.

Hillary may be capable in many ways, but she apparently doesn't understand that we need to move forward from winning through divisiveness. More than anything, that's what's tearing this country apart.

[Liberal2]

The point is there is more to politics than winning an election. There's being an administator or legislator. Obama has the "winning" part down pat, I'm not certain about the "administering" (as president). Clinton stinks at the "winning" part and may be no better at the "administering" part, she's sure *NO* great shakes at legislating.

McCain, despite four years at Annapolis, clearly doesn't understand military strategy (see: Phyrric victory) and admits he doesn't know squat about economics (he plans to bring back all the reichwing economists whose concepts have gotten us where we are). Kinda makes one wonder what *his* notion of "administering" the nation's business consists of. Just more "rape and pillage"?

[newunderground]

It's like Rip Van Winkle.... After 30 years, the people are funally waking up to see the 'fiscally responsible, low tax Republican party has been lying to them for the last century. Thomas Jefferson once said a deficit is nothing more than a deferred tax. It has to be paid by someone, sometime.
When Reagan came in, the national debt was 1 trillion, taking or leaving a few billion. Now, it's close to 10 trillion. The only time we ever came close to balance (yes Clinton's surpluses were phony in that they didn't count Social Security.

[elkabong]

Women really, really, really want a woman to be elected POTUS. I understand their frustration but they do their cause a grave disservice by acting like party-over-country Republicans.

[fullkelly]

"Why the hell is she losing ground?". Why Hillary is losing ground is simple, its called "the dumbing down of America".

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

I dunno...I think America had to be pretty dumb already to give her the ground she had

[ChimpmasterDJ]

She's losing ground because the "dumbing down" is not yet so complete that we can't correctly interpret her Senatorial record and her egregious prevarications in attempt to justify it.

The Clinton's have always been experts at exquisitely timing their flipping the bird to the public, to work well within the cycle of public attention spans. Now, in the age of the internet, this wonderful talent is no longer their greatest asset, and we can readily inform ourselves, and remind ourselves of their numerous betrayals.

[definitelyNOTmisterRIGHT]

Duh...........What? I don't get it. I guess i'm too stupid. Oh well..... Go Barack!!!

[standforpeace]

So it's not because she spent all of last year writing her victory speech instead of noticing that one of her competitors was raising a helluva lot of money (mostly from small donors) and developing a strategy for a drawnout fight rather than a coronation?

[mutron]

fullkelly, you have failed to perceive the true dynamic of the situation at hand. Hillary Clinton is losing ground because the more educated an individual is the more likely that individual will vote for Obama. People are tired of Clinton's finance shenanigans and her machiavellian machine, it's stuck in the 1990's. This is the 21st century and you need to get up to speed.

[newunderground]

She's losing ground because she comes across as a shreiking harridan. Most people don't want that comng into their living room for the next 4 years. I know I don't.

[JasonEverettMiller]

There you go. It's OUR fault that Hillary can't run an effective campaign.

[Clarabell]

You only get part of the credit -- the rest goes to the MSM that feeds you.

[JasonEverettMiller]

The media covers the winners and losers alike. Just because Hillary has been losing doesn't mean we don't get information elsewhere. You did notice that you were on an Internet site? This place is hardly the Corporate Media.

[Geoffreys]

Let me see if I can understand you. Sen. Clinton is losing ground because Obama supporters are dumb.

Did I get it right or am I not capable of understanding the outpouring of your superior brain?

[BlueBoomer]

All three of you are righ, at least partially:

fullkelly: WAY TOO MUCH of America IS pretty dumb... some naturally and some because the media has done such a sterling job of feeding them dumb stories vs. real information, along with mass quantities of kool-aid.

Geoffreys: And many of Obama's supporters are suseptible to the mass-fervor-fever that certain types of preachifying rhetoric foments...Just look at all the people who fill these mega arena-"churches" AND fill the collection plates passed around by some slick hick on stage. (Before you get your panties in a bunch, I AM NOT INFERRING THAT OBAMA IS A SLICK HICK)

JasonEverettMiller: You are correct that Hillary has screwed up her campaign -- BIG TIME -- ESPECIALLY since she got the endorsement of that BET guy Bob Johnson with his slimy comments alluding to Obama's less-than-perfect teen years...And then the next day allowing her spokesperson (and now campaign manager!), the equally slimy Maggie Williams, try to sell a load of BS that Johnson didn't mean anything negative by his inference... (a completely unbelievable and undefendable bit of cynicism that HRC actually repeated, until pressed HARD in the following night's debate.)

It's MAGGIE WILLIAMS that is the main reason why Hillary should NOT be POTUS... I fully expect that she would be Hillary's Cheney/Rove, but with the "shield" of being able to claim "racism" if challenged too hard.

[newunderground]

Am I wrong? The demographics I've seen show that Obama supporters are better educated and make more money than Hillary's supporters, Over 60 women and high-school graduates and drop-outs. Yeah, I guess we're the dumb ones. Thank-you for showing me the error of my ways. All hail queen Hillary.

[Liberal2]

Ummm, according to the record, Bush 1/2 is a graduate of Yale and Harvard. Maybe US schools are worse than anyone can imagine.

[sufi0828]

Matt Gonzalez over at BeyondChron.org wrote a brilliant exposé on Barack Obama that must be shared. The hardest part of trying to get Democrats elected to power is vetting them, especially during election years in which people are so desperate for someone who can deliver on a promise of change that they fail to look past the campaign rhetoric to see the truth. I've explained on other blog sites that Barack Obama is a DLCer in progressive's clothing. Mr. Gonzalez hammers the point home.

It has been claimed by uncritical supporters that Obama's record in the U.S. Senate is progressive, but this is far from the truth (a fact easily verified by going to GovTrack.us and doing some homework). It is undeniable that the senator from Illinois has consistently voted to fund the Iraq war, with the sole exception being that he was shamed by Christopher Dodd of Connecticut into voting against last Summer's appropriations bill. Matt Gonzalez writes:

Since taking office in January 2005 he has voted to approve every war appropriation the Republicans have put forward, totaling over $300 billion. He also voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State despite her complicity in the Bush Administration"s various false justifications for going to war in Iraq. Why would he vote to make one of the architects of "Operation Iraqi Liberation" the head of US foreign policy? Curiously, he lacked the courage of 13 of his colleagues who voted against her confirmation.

The senator from Illinois has been less than enthusiastic in advocating for a full withdrawal from Iraq. Obama has also, as Gonzalez points out, voted to re-authorize the USA PATRIOT Act -- one of the more heinous attacks on civil liberties in this decade -- in stark contrast to his prior work as a civil rights attorney. Somewhere along the way, Obama was either corrupted on the issue of civil liberties, or else he has been fooling people on where he actually stands from the beginning. Either way, his record on the occupation of Iraq and on civil liberties are not consistent with his rhetoric on the campaign trail.

On class action lawsuits, Gonzalez writes:

In 2005, Obama joined Republicans in passing a law dubiously called the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) that would shut down state courts as a venue to hear many class action lawsuits. Long a desired objective of large corporations and President George Bush, Obama in effect voted to deny redress in many of the courts where these kinds of cases have the best chance of surviving corporate legal challenges. Instead, it forces them into the backlogged Republican-judge dominated federal courts.

And on credit interest rates:

Obama has a way of ducking hard votes or explaining away his bad votes by trying to blame poorly-written statutes. Case in point: an amendment he voted on as part of a recent bankruptcy bill before the US Senate would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent. Inexplicably, Obama voted against it, although it would have been the beginning of setting these predatory lending rates under federal control. Even Senator Hillary Clinton supported it.

Are you seeing anything to suggest that Obama is a progressive, yet? I'm not. I've written about this before, but it's worth repeating: health care "reform". Given Obama's record of gutting actual health care reform in the Illinois state senate, one can't help but nod in agreement when Matt Gonzalez explains:

Obama opposed single-payer bill HR676, sponsored by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers in 2006, although at least 75 members of Congress supported it. Single-payer works by trying to diminish the administrative costs that comprise somewhere around one-third of every health care dollar spent, by eliminating the duplicative nature of these services. The expected $300 billion in annual savings such a system would produce would go directly to cover the uninsured and expand coverage to those who already have insurance, according to Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Obama"s own plan has been widely criticized for leaving health care industry administrative costs in place and for allowing millions of people to remain uninsured. "Sicko" filmmaker Michael Moore ridiculed it saying, "Obama wants the insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan-the same companies who have created the mess in the first place."

And as Gonzalez points out, Obama went to bat for Joe LIEberman for re-election in 2006 against challenger Ned Lamont (whom blog web sites such as Daily Kos supported) and referred to the turncoat as his mentor. Yeah, real "progressive" of Obama to try to prop up a party traitor who has consistently enabled the Bush-Cheney regime at every opportunity, and who endorses Republican John McCain for president.

I realize