Hillary Rodham Clinton

[rollhead]

Two books out on Clinton that certainly won't dim the fires of her haters.

While I don't HATE Hillary Clinton, she certainly leaves a VERY BAD taste in my mouth. If she gets the nomination, I think I will vote for a third-party candidate, as a protest vote, secure that she will take New York State regardless of how I vote.

Books Paint Critical Portraits of Clinton
2 Biographies Detail Marital Strife and Driving Ambition

By Peter Baker and John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 25, 2007; A01

Two new books on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York offer fresh and often critical portraits of the Democratic presidential candidate that depict a tortured relationship with her husband and her past and challenge the image she has presented on the campaign trail.

The Hillary Clinton who emerges from the pages of the books comes across as a complicated, sometimes compromised figure who tolerated Bill Clinton's brazen infidelity, pursued her policy and political goals with methodical drive, and occasionally skirted along the edge of the truth along the way. The books portray her as alternately brilliant and controlling, ambitious and victimized.

The Clinton campaign has nervously awaited publication of the books for fear they would include a bombshell revelation or, at the very least, revive memories of less-savory moments in the couple's rise to power. The books, both by longtime journalists and both obtained by The Washington Post yesterday, include a number of assertions and anecdotes that could confront her campaign with unwelcome questions.

"A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Carl Bernstein, reports that Clinton as first lady was terrified she would be prosecuted, took over her own legal and political defense, and decided not to be forthcoming with investigators because she was convinced she was unfairly targeted. While in Arkansas, according to Bernstein, she personally interviewed one woman alleged to have had an affair with her husband, contemplated divorce and thought about running for governor out of anger at her husband's indiscretions.

"Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., reports that during her husband's 1992 campaign, a team she oversaw hired a private investigator to undermine Gennifer Flowers "until she is destroyed." Flowers had said publicly that she had an affair with Bill Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas.

The book also suggests that Hillary Clinton did not read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in 2002 before voting to authorize war. And it includes a thirdhand report that the Clintons had a secret plan after the 1992 election in which he would have eight years as president and then she would have eight years, although last night a key source disavowed the story.

The Clinton camp hopes to brush off the books as mainly rehashing old news. "Is it possible to be quoted yawning?" asked Philippe Reines, her Senate spokesman. If past books on Clinton were "cash for trash," he added, "these books are nothing more than cash for rehash."

Howard Wolfson, a campaign spokesman, pointed to previous reports on some of the elements in the books to make the point that there was nothing new. "The news here is that it took three reporters nearly a decade to find no news," he said. He added: "Two overwhelming Senate victories in the toughest media market in the country demonstrated that voters have put these issues behind them."

Unlike many harsh books about Clinton written by ideological enemies, the two new volumes come from long-established writers backed by major publishing houses and could be harder to dismiss. Bernstein won national fame with partner Bob Woodward at The Post for breaking open the Watergate scandal, while Gerth and Van Natta have spent years as investigative reporters for the New York Times.

Their publishers have engaged in a race to the bookstores, moving up publication dates as the presidential campaign heats up. Alfred A. Knopf has printed 275,000 copies of Bernstein's "Woman in Charge," which will be available June 5; Little, Brown and Co. plans to put 175,000 copies of "Her Way" on sale June 8, after June 3 excerpts in the New York Times Magazine. The size of the print runs mean both publishers expect their books to be major bestsellers.

In the works for eight years, Bernstein's 640-page book is the more extensive biography and, while not unsympathetic, includes some damning observations from people once close to the senator.

Bob Boorstin, who worked for Clinton when she was pushing her plan to restructure the nation's health-care system in the early days of her husband's presidency, blamed her for its collapse. "I find her to be among the most self-righteous people I've ever known in my life," he told Bernstein. "And it's her great flaw, it's what killed health care," along with other factors.

Mark Fabiani, who as White House special counsel played a key role in defending the Clintons, said she was "so tortured by the way she's been treated that she would do anything to get out of the situation. . . . And if that involved not being fully forthcoming, she herself would say, 'I have a reason for not being forthcoming.' " Her logic, he said, was: "If we do this, they're going to do this to me. If we say this, then they're going to say this. You know, [expletive] 'em, let's just not do that."

Fabiani said Clinton personally directed the White House defense, telling Bernstein that private attorney David E. Kendall dealt mainly with the first lady and met only rarely with the president until the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal. "He was easy to deal with compared to her," Fabiani said of the first couple. The only time he saw Bill Clinton lose his temper, Fabiani said, was when the president saw his Whitewater partner, Susan McDougal, taken to jail in an orange jumpsuit and shackles for refusing to testify.

At one point, Hillary Clinton was convinced she would be next, worried that Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr would indict her for perjury or obstruction of justice arising from statements she made under oath about her work for Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, the Whitewater investment or long-missing billing records. "When I say there was a serious fear she would be indicted, I can't overstate that," Fabiani told Bernstein.

Bernstein reexamines the most sensational aspects of Clinton's life -- and to his subject the most painful -- namely her decisions to marry and remain married to Bill Clinton. She waited two years before deciding to become his wife and move to Arkansas, and Bernstein points to a little-known factor that may have contributed. Hillary Clinton failed the D.C. bar exam after law school, something she hid from her best friends for 30 years until disclosing it in passing in her autobiography, "Living History." Bernstein suggests that blow to her ego may have played a role in her decision to move to Arkansas, where she had passed the bar.

The women who also figured in Bill Clinton's life in Arkansas make a return appearance in the book, most notably Marilyn Jo Jenkins, a power company executive he fell in love with and almost left his wife over, according to Bernstein. Jenkins has been linked to Clinton before -- she was spirited into the governor's mansion at 5:15 a.m. for a final, furtive meeting with him the day he left for Washington to assume the presidency -- but Bernstein's account makes clear her pivotal role.

Bill Clinton wanted to divorce his wife to be with Jenkins in 1989, Bernstein reports, but Hillary Clinton refused. "There are worse things than infidelity," she told Betsey Wright, the governor's chief of staff. The crisis frayed Wright's relationship with Bill Clinton too, and she told Bernstein that she arranged for the two of them, Wright and Clinton, to see a therapist together.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, turned to her best friend, Diane Blair, obliquely raising the prospect of divorce during a long walk. "She was thinking that they had not made much money," Blair told Bernstein before her death in 2000, and she was concerned about her daughter. "Chelsea was there now. What if she were on her own? She didn't own a house. She was concerned that if she were to become a single parent, how would she make it work in a way that would be good for Chelsea."

The Clintons stayed together, but out of "anger and hurt" she considered running for governor in 1990, when he presumably would step down to prepare his 1992 presidential campaign. The idea ended after consultant Dick Morris conducted two polls showing she had no independent identity with Arkansas voters and compared her to George Wallace's wife, who ran to succeed him in Alabama -- an analogy that offended her.

By the time Bill Clinton was running for president, Hillary Clinton suggested to Blair that victory would be good for the marriage because her husband's sexual compulsions would be tempered by the White House and the ever-present press corps, Bernstein reports -- a flawed assumption, as it would turn out.

In Bernstein's account, both Clintons went to great lengths to keep the lid on his infidelities. At the behest of Wright and Hillary Clinton, two partners with Hillary Clinton at the Rose Law Firm, Webster L. Hubbell and Vincent W. Foster Jr., were hired to represent women named in a lawsuit as having secret affairs with the governor. Hubbell and Foster questioned the women, then obtained signed statements that they never had sex with Bill Clinton. On one occasion, Bernstein reports, Hillary Clinton was present for the questioning.

Bernstein also reports that Bill Clinton, with Morris's help, pressured Wright to issue a false statement denying comments she had made to David Maraniss, a Post reporter, for his book "First in His Class," in which she said Arkansas state troopers had procured women for the governor.

Gerth and Van Natta's 416-page book covers much of the same ground, but it explores Clinton's time in the Senate in greater depth and portrays her legislative career and her presidential campaign as parts of a broad, long-term plan for power that has its roots in the early 1970s.

According to Gerth and Van Natta, even before the Clintons were married they formulated a "secret pact of ambition" aimed at reinventing the Democratic Party and getting to the White House. The authors cite a former Bill Clinton girlfriend, Marla Crider, who said she saw a letter on his desk written by Hillary Clinton, outlining the couple's long-term ambitions, which they called their "twenty-year project."

Crider was first quoted about the letter in a book by a former National Enquirer reporter in 2000, at the time describing it as more about Bill Clinton's infidelities and the "little girls" he had. Gerth and Van Natta, however, report that they re-interviewed Crider and that she said the earlier book's account was "not totally accurate." In this telling, Crider described the note as being more about the couple's political plans, with little discussion of their personal relationship.

The authors report that the Clintons updated their plan after the 1992 election, determining that Hillary would run when Bill left office. They cite two people, Ann Crittenden and John Henry, who said Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and close Clinton friend, told them that the Clintons "still planned two terms in the White House for Bill and, later, two for Hillary." Contacted last night, Branch said that "the story is preposterous" and that "I never heard either Clinton talk about a 'plan' for them both to become president."

The book looks in detail at Hillary Clinton's Senate vote in support of the Iraq war, suggesting she may have been motivated by a desire to not abandon her husband's tough-on-Iraq policy and a need "to prove that she was tough enough" as a woman. But Gerth and Van Natta suggest that she did not read the National Intelligence Estimate, which included caveats and dissents about reports of Iraq's weapons program.

Reines, Clinton's Senate spokesman, seemed to confirm last night that she did not read the NIE, saying by e-mail that she was "briefed multiple times by several members of the administration on their intelligence regarding Iraq, including being briefed on the NIE."

Gerth and Van Natta portray Clinton as fixated on secrecy and loyalty. She has used her Washington house as a staging ground for her presidential campaign, holding strategy meetings and fundraisers under strict confidentiality. "Visitors are asked to check their bags, cameras and cell phones at the door, pictures are taken by an authorized photographer," they write.

The authors assert that Clinton did not properly file paperwork with the Senate ethics committee to document many congressional fellows borrowed from universities to beef up her expertise on various issues. The ethics committee therefore could not determine if the free service, underwritten by university funds, created any conflicts, Gerth and Van Natta write.

The book portrays Clinton as constantly seeking the spotlight, pushing her way into Senate discussions without invitation. As Senate Democrats were wrestling with their approach to the Iraq war in mid-2006, for example, Clinton is described as inserting her name into a piece of legislation calling for a phased redeployment of U.S. troops. Although she was not originally a co-sponsor of the bill, she said she was, and after storming the floor of the Senate before her turn, she shifted her rationale for her original war vote, the authors write. Her behavior amazed Senate colleagues, they write.

As part of her presidential ambitions, they write, the Clintons plotted to steal some of the thunder of former vice president Al Gore on climate change, creating tension between the onetime partners. They recount how Bill Clinton filmed ads for a California ballot initiative that overshadowed a Gore ad.

Staff writer Anne E. Kornblut and political researcher Zachary A. Goldfarb contributed to this report.

[Clay Fink]

Yea, I almost feel sorry for her and want to defend her from these idiots. That said, as a Democrat there's plenty to not like about her politics. The list goes on and on: supporting the war while ignoring pre-war intelligence that predicted much of the mayhem that's occurred since 2003; her campaign manager Mark Penn and his history of being an ardent Likud supporter, a union buster and a corporate stooge; and the general legacy of Clintonism that's left us with a moribund Democratic party, partially lead by accommodationists like Rahm Emmanuel and Steny Hoyer, and a history of bi-partisan "triumphs" like NAFTA, Welfare reform, the Defense of Marriage Act, No Child Left Behind and the Iraq war. She's a total disaster as a candidate; not only will she not push any real reform, but she will act as a great fund raising tool for the Reich-Wing in the US. Hillary Clinton would make the "wingnuts" double winners. So I guess, on the other hand, maybe these guys will be able to tear her down for out own benefit. I would still rather have Democrats to the job based on the wide spread and substantive opposition to her that already exists in the party.

[rollhead]

Well said.

I would add her silly attack on the First Amendment, re video games and her bill to ban flag burning.

I was a member of the Working Families Party until I heard that 90 percent of the delgates at the convention voted to support her.

She is no fan of working families, as far as I am concerned.

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally Posted by rollhead

If she gets the nomination, I think I will vote for a third-party candidate, as a protest vote, secure that she will take New York State regardless of how I vote.

Assuming you'd prefer her over the Republican candidate, eat your cake and have it too by using votepair when the time comes.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by rollhead

I would add her silly attack on the First Amendment, re...... her bill to ban flag burning.

Anyone who participated in that debacle, and voted for it, should be beaten over the head with an incredibly blunt instrument and banned from the United States for life.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Vince Kargatis

Assuming you'd prefer her over the Republican candidate, eat your cake and have it too by using votepair when the time comes.

How'd that end up working for you in '04?

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

How'd that end up working for you in '04?

Paired a lib vote in DC with a Kerry vote in Ohio, so, as well as I could hope for.

[Clay Fink]

I'd have a lot of trouble voting for her in '08. I can't really say what I'd do if she were the nominee. As likely as it seems now that she will be the nominee, there's still time to start a shit storm in the Democratic party to make sure that she isn't chosen. That's not very likely to happen, though. She'll win the nomination and she will win the election, I fear, and continue the war - in Iraq and beyond - in the same way Nixon continued the Vietnam war.

The parallels with Junior are kind of striking; the inability to admit a mistake, the arrogance, her campaign's ability to paint her as the inevitable winner, the attendant notion that she is somehow entitled to the office and the almost frightening way her and her campaign can stay on message. A Hillary Clinton presidency will be a disaster similar to Dubya's with the somewhat more pragmatic Bill Clinton shut out in the same way 42 has been shut out. The big difference is that she isn't quite the moron Bush is, so her failures will be more her own since there wouldn't be a Dick Cheney character pulling the strings.

All this is speculation, of course. Maybe she would actually be a good President, get us untangled from Iraq and start undoing 30 years of Reganism. It's hard to look at her honestly, though, and draw that conclusion. It is also hard to look at the Iraq mess and see how we will ever be able to extricate ourselves from it and its consequences.

[Gary Sisco]

The only one who even comes close to my positions these days is Ron Paul, actually. Strange but true. He doesn't have to use the lameness of "if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have voted for the war." Duh. One could of course say that about just about anything at all in one's life. If you're going to support a war, support it. If not, you had no business supporting it at all in the first place. The lack of judgment shown by that alone is enough to place her outside the pale, for me. Anyone who wanted to know anything before the war could have gained the necessary knowledge by merely reading newspapers. Every position of the administration was debunked by people who knew what they were talking about. There was nothing secret. No mysteries.

[Gary Sisco]

Clay -- I think whoever wins, either party, will inherit the war, whether they want it or not. They'll inherit it anyway. It's a colossal mess. Nothing like walking into a debacle with eyes wide open. Astonishing. And against the *unanimous* position of the Chiefs of Staff.

Afghanistan, also, not quite the debacle of Iraq -- yet. It's turn is coming up, though. This is a generation that thinks wars are decided by their first campaigns. They're not. No one has ever decided a war in Afghanistan. No one has ever ruled it. It's not a nation state and has never been. Another debacle in waiting, right there. Watch and see.

Alfred E. Bush, Inc. Absolutely the worst administration of at least modern times.

[Clay Fink]

Up Shit Creek without a paddle.

I really have trouble tolerating any Democrat that voted for the GD war. Kerry's vote really hurt him, IMO, in addition to his inability to explain it away. Edward's vote troubles me a lot too but he's been a lot better in just flat out saying that he was wrong. Clinton is incapable of doing that.

I think you're right, Gary, that whoever walks into the White House in '09 will need to deal with this. I'd argue that Clinton would just dig us deeper and deeper. It would take a person of incredible political courage to back us out. I really don't expect any reasonable response.

[Hot Ptah]

If Al Gore enters the race, her campaign is history.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Clay Fink

Up Shit Creek without a paddle.

I really have trouble tolerating any Democrat that voted for the GD war. Kerry's vote really hurt him, IMO, in addition to his inability to explain it away. Edward's vote troubles me a lot too but he's been a lot better in just flat out saying that he was wrong. Clinton is incapable of doing that.

I think you're right, Gary, that whoever walks into the White House in '09 will need to deal with this. I'd argue that Clinton would just dig us deeper and deeper. It would take a person of incredible political courage to back us out. I really don't expect any reasonable response.

I think Edwards would likely be the best shot as far as making some immediate changes in policy.

I've actually grown to respect the cat quite a bit. He doesn't dance around the fact that his vote was a mistake, and sure as hell has no problem saying he'd have to raise taxes in order to implement some of his social plans (i.e. universal health care).

There is nobody else running in either of the two major parties who can be so forthcoming.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Hot Ptah

If Al Gore enters the race, her campaign is history.

So that's why she sent him the Twinkies!

Humor: Hillary Tempts Gore With Sweets
Al Gore's staff was forced to destroy a basket of sugary, carb-heavy treats sent as a 'gift' from Hillary Clinton.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE SATIRE
By Andy Borowitz
Newsweek

Updated: 11:30 a.m. ET May 29, 2007



May 29, 2007 - In a move that raised eyebrows among observers of the 2008 campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. Hillary Clinton today sent former vice president Al Gore a gift basket laden with high-calorie treats.

While the basket, chocked full of such sumptuous snacks as chocolate croissants and pecan buns, was ostensibly a gift to congratulate Gore on the publication of his new book, “The Assault on Reason,” some members of the former vice president’s staff saw more sinister motives in Sen. Clinton’s choice of present.

With Gore battling his waistline in recent years, any potential run for the White House in 2008 would presumably require a period of dieting and slimming down—processes that the basket of lip-smacking temptations seemed calculated to thwart. At a press conference in Washington this morning, Carol Foyler, a senior member of Gore’s staff, told reporters that the basket of sugary delicacies had been “immediately identified as a threat to the vice president” and disposed of.

“At first we considered hiding the basket,” Foyler said. “Then we determined that it would be better to move the basket to an undisclosed location, where it was destroyed.”

Responding to the furor over the gift, Sen. Clinton called a press conference asking for forgiveness, claiming that she “meant no harm” in giving Gore the carbohydrate-rich basket. “I value my friendship with Al Gore,” Clinton said. “And, as a peace offering, I hope he will accept this case of Twinkies.”

Elsewhere, Dick Cheney welcomed his sixth grandchild into the world, meaning he now has more grandchildren than draft deferments.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18921120/site/newsweek/

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally Posted by Clay Fink

It would take a person of incredible political courage to back us out.

Really? I think if the war continues to become more and more unpopular, it wouldn't take much courage at all for a head of this state to back us out.

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

I think Edwards would likely be the best shot as far as making some immediate changes in policy.

I've actually grown to respect the cat quite a bit. He doesn't dance around the fact that his vote was a mistake, and sure as hell has no problem saying he'd have to raise taxes in order to implement some of his social plans (i.e. universal health care).

There is nobody else running in either of the two major parties who can be so forthcoming.

I'm with you on this one Scott. I also agree with Sisco that Ron Paul has some good things to say, though I'd almost certainly never vote Republican. I'm hoping Edwards will find a good VP and win the ticket. Wishful thinking....

[Scott Dolan]

True enough, Vince. It would take far more emotional stamina to keep ignoring the growing will, and anger, of the people.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Paul B

I'm with you on this one Scott. I also agree with Sisco that Ron Paul has some good things to say, though I'd almost certainly never vote Republican. I'm hoping Edwards will find a good VP and win the ticket. Wishful thinking....

Edwards will win Iowa. Once that happens, all bets are off. Remember how far behind Kerry was in the polls to Dean before Iowa? Edwards has poured his heart and soul into winning Iowa because he's smart anough to know what that could ultimately mean.

Gotta hand it to the cat, he certainly took many lessons from the '04 cycle.

And I don't know what it is about Paul, but I simply don't like the guy. I know that sounds horribly amateurish to say, but I just don't. It's like folks who don't like Hillary. You ask them why and they respond, "because I don't". I don't think he's a crackpot like a lot of Republicans do, I just can't put my finger on it.

[Gary Sisco]

Clay -- You know what? I have no problem either with someone just coming out and saying, I voted for it and I was wrong. Period. No excuses. That's at least just basic honesty, though I still wouldn't vote for him because of the incredible lack of judgment involved. More of that is exactly what isn't needed. I have a repub friend, nice guy. We don't agree about much of anything political, but he's just a basically nice guy. Has heart and good heart, too. Doesn't cause any harm. Doesn't do any wrong. His position on the war? He says, "I just think they were plain wrong." Nothing to argue with, there. I can live with things like that.

It's the lameness of the excuses and rationales and so forth -- anything but just saying "I was just plain wrong" -- is what I can't live with.

Paul B -- Don't worry about it. Won't be many repubs voting for Paul, either. ;-) I will be, though, if I have the chance. If he's on the ballot wherever I'm living come election time, I'll vote for him.

[Gary Sisco]

People can yap all they want about liberlas and a supposed "left" and yacka yacka. Someone point me to a candidate other than Ron Paul who can say this honestly:

He has never voted to raise taxes.

He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.

He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.

He has never voted to raise congressional pay.

He has never taken a government-paid junket.

He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.

He voted against the Patriot Act.

He voted against regulating the Internet.

He voted against the Iraq war.

He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program. [Which is, by the way, a six-digit annual pension after only six years in Congress, even if unelected after that, plus entirely communized, not just socialized, medical care for themselves and family unto the grave --all paid for by the confiscated wages of people who actually work for a living.]

He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.

[Sandi22]

How much of Hillary's stance is due to her being a woman? Do you believe she is beating war drums, at least off and on, so she'll be seen as being every bit as tough and capable, as any of the men who're running?

I've always felt that there are times when she has a tin ear; that there's times when a bit of femine wiles would have been better than her tromping about in combat boots.

[Gary Sisco]

Yeah, they're sure capable. I'd want to be seen as being just like them if I were a woman. Capable, in charge, tough -- and stupid.

She has more than a tin ear. She has no principles at all, only ambition. Very much like her alleged husband and very much actually like the capable people, er, in charge.

She is one of them. That's all I need to know. Her genitalia means nothing to me, one way or the other.

And even so, even given all that you said, an amazing, utter lack of judgment. Millions of "ordinary" citizens were able to see a debacle *before* it unfolded. Not after.

You don't vote to get tens of thousands of people killed so that you "look like" this or that or the other thing that might help you achieve personal ambition. Unless you are entirely without principles or even just plain basic humanity.

Thumbs down, period.

[Sandi22]

When you see and hear what it is she's saying and doing, along with so many others on the hill, it makes you believe they are no different than the Neo Con's with their dreams of empire. It seems as though this is exactly how most of the ones running for president would like things to go; they would all like to control the worlds oil supply, along with it's water and other commodities. I really believe that too many of them want the exact same thing as gets wrapped up in a fancy bow, and given to us on Fox; and from the Oval Office and the Rose Garden, whether it's Chenney or Bush feeding us a line, it seems they all seem to think much the same when the smoke from the back room clears.

[Clay Fink]

Originally Posted by Vince Kargatis

Really? I think if the war continues to become more and more unpopular, it wouldn't take much courage at all for a head of this state to back us out.

I think you could make the case that while the war is unpopular with the people and the military, the Washington DC establishment - the permanent class of media figures, established politicians and rich folks - would turn on anyone who dared to shake things up. You are seeing this now, six months after an election where voters sent a clear signal that they were sick of the war, with 60-plus percent of the public wanting out, it's still bad form in DC to push too hard for a pull out. Last week's caving in of the Democratic congress is evidence enough. We'll see a similar game in September when this comes up again with no clear change in the policy. Fast forward 18 months and I would predict the same; the assertion that it would be "irresponsible" to pull out will prevail and the dirty hippies (i.e. the majority of people in he US) will be chastised for failing to accept the "serious" and "grownup" way of doing things. The only way this will change is if the Democrats, and those Republicans that are reality-based, really start a fight or if things totally meltdown in Iraq. I think a meltdown is much more likely than our elected office holders showing courage. The main point here is that DC is so awash with magical thinking on this war that nothing short of a earthquake will make any difference.

Gary: I really appreciate Ron Paul too. And he even believes in evolution and thinks that the war on drugs is a bunch of crap. He ain't got a chance though.

For me, Edwards is the most impressive of the dems and, again, he has clearly and unambiguously repudiated his vote on the war. He, unlike Ron Paul, has a chance. If he gets elected he will face the situation I've described above and he will have to fight his ass off to move things a long and get us out. I think he's much, much more likely to do that than Clinton or Obama.

Still, the "Up Shit Creek" thing is the best description of our current reality and the next few years.

[guy]

Originally Posted by Clay Fink

Gary: I really appreciate Ron Paul too... He has a chance. If he gets elected he will face the situation I've described above and he will have to fight his ass off to move things a long and get us out.

Ron Paul has about as much of a chance at getting elected President of Iraq as he does at getting elected President of the US.

Guy

[Clay Fink]

Originally Posted by guy

Ron Paul has about as much of a chance at getting elected President of Iraq as he does at getting elected President of the US.

Guy

Read my post again. I said: P(Paul) = 0.0, P(Edwards) > 0.5. I reedited it for our Canadian posters. I'm just assuming that anyone named "Guy" is Canadian. I could be wrong.

[Gary Sisco]

Is that the reason to support someone? Is that not how we got in the disaster we're in today? You go back through the old news accounts of Alfred E. Bush's first campaign prior to Scalia's annointment of him. Even rethugs were commenting on how he wasn't the brightest bulb -- but hey he can win!! -- but nothing to worry about because he'll have all kinds of experts to depend upon as advisers.

Yeah, boy.

If these mofos are winners, I have to ask, again -- and I notice no one attempts to answer -- What has been won? What is there desirable about it?

This isn't a horserace, where you can at least gamble and perhaps win a few bucks. This is a campaign, we're talking here, for the most powerful office on the planet, with real life and blood at stake for countless people *who don't get to vote for anyone here winner or loser.* If winning is all that's important to people when winning means a mad bloodbath for no reason at all, well, welcome to victory, friends. I hope you like it. I wish you could experience the way it really smells.

Clay said "Gary: I really appreciate Ron Paul too. And he even believes in evolution and thinks that the war on drugs is a bunch of crap. He ain't got a chance though."

I know. Almost by definition. Much better for millions to throw their support behind another ruthless twit with no ideas or principles at all and nothing to say that hasn't been very carefully formulated to say nothing at all.

And then have to suffer what ought by now to be the obvious and predictable results.

Winning, indeed.

What happened to the "it's how you play the game" part?

Alfred E. Bush is a winner. That's all I need to know about winners.

[Gary Sisco]

Here's one from one of Sullivan's readers who understands the difference between "winning" and reality:

I'm sure you realize that you could re-write your recent post "Do Republicans Get The Terror Threat?" almost word-for-word, substituting "war on drugs" for "war on terror". Amazingly predictable parallels. "Do Republicans Get the Drug Threat?" No. "Do Republicans Get The Terror Threat?" As you make so abundantly clear, no. Tragic paradoxes, indeed.

The question now is, why? Why don't they get it?

The answer, I think, is quite simple: the Republicans - especially now that they are the party of the American Christian fundamentalist movement - are not interested in reality. They're interested in their echo-chamber, their self-reinforcing, self-congratulatory, self-protective ideological bubble. A human trait, granted, and a political trait, left and right - but now that the Republican Party is the Christianist Party, a defining and deadly dangerous trait.

What matters now is not performance, or practicality, but rigid adherence to ideological purity - even if that "purity" results in reinforcing the very behavior it is meant to suppress. This adherance to ideological purity is a form of quasi-religious hysteria (and maybe not so quasi). It is, as you say, ultimately tragic - tragic for those caught in the cross-fire, tragic in that it makes very real problems much worse than they need to be, tragic in that it wastes our resources and drags us backwards, tragic in that it keeps us locked in endless, unwinnable battles with the very things we loathe and fear. We're turning ourselves into zombies.

That's bad enough, given the gravity of the issues. Drugs are a scourge. Terrorism is a scourge. But you don't have to be a Nostradamus to see far worse waiting for us on the horizon. Is this how we're going to meet those challenges? As zombies? If so, we're going to fail.

*******************

Win the office.

Lose everything else.

That's a sensible way to behave, politically, right there.

[Clay Fink]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Win the office.

Lose everything else.

That's a sensible way to behave, politically, right there.

Assuming that this is sarcastic, I'd say more "sensible" than really sensible. The Clintons are the best example of this form of politics. That's something we'd agree on. I know that when you get into politics, or even when you walk out he door in the morning to go make money to feed the cat, you sometimes need to make unpleasant compromises and adjustments that play against your basic beliefs or even your own common sense. However, some people are overly ambitious and shameless and mange to regularly cross a line into being downright evil, and they often get rewarded for this quality. For me the best illustration if this for Clinton I was the execution of Rudy Ray Rector, a brain damaged - albeit self inflicted - black man on death row in Arkansas, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary in '92. It's this sort of thing that goes way beyond the ordinary, ugly adjustments to reality that people need to make for their own - in this case, political - self interest. Other much more heinous examples of this, in increasing orders of magnitude, are Clinton I and the defense of marriage and "Iraqi Freedom" act and Clinton II and the Iraq war resolution.

I'm not sure if you're griping that I don't support Paul because he can't win. While I like the Libertarians on many issues, I'm not at all friendly to them when you get beyond social, police state and military issues. I'm a big-government, welfare state liberal, so Edwards is much more my kind of candidate. So that's that. The odds of Edwards winning are still not all that great but I'm not going to vote for Clinton or Obama because they have a better chance of winning - at least as far as the primaries are concerned.

Sullivan's still a fucktard, BTW, despite his late discovery that the GWOT is bullshit. I just ran across a recent defense of his championing Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve" when he was editor of the New Republic. This is the same guy who has never repudiated his accusations of treason toward us premature anti-bushists. He's just as likely to turn again, along with Ariana, when he finds it expedient, or by his own capriciousness finds it irresistible, to embrace some nice new, shiny idea. Like, say, Hillary Clinton is the "sensible" and "grownup" choice. Just you nevermind those sensible anti-war, social democrats. So watch your butt with that guy.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Clay Fink

I'm not sure if you're griping that I don't support Paul because he can't win. While I like the Libertarians on many issues, I'm not at all friendly to them when you get beyond social, police state and military issues. I'm a big-government, welfare state liberal, so Edwards is much more my kind of candidate. So that's that. The odds of Edwards winning are still not all that great but I'm not going to vote for Clinton or Obama because they have a better chance of winning - at least as far as the primaries are concerned.

Well, you obviously don't live in the trailer park across from the Edwards estate! O'Reilly is out to stop him!

While Rosie O'Donnell is a poster girl for far left propaganda, far more serious is the conduct of John Edwards. The former vice presidential candidate has sold his soul to far left interests and is now telling the world the war on terror is a "bumper sticker." — Imagine losing a loved one on 9/11 hearing that.
Edwards is running a preposterous campaign. He lives like a sultan in a 30,000 foot North Carolina house. Look at that! Yet he decries economic unfairness in America. He runs around telling Americans the system is rigged, while paying $400 for a haircut. This guy is a one-man sitcom.

Now across the street from his palatial mansion is a trailer park where working class Americans live. They are neighbors of John Edwards. Some like him. Most don't.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He don't know — he really doesn't know what two Americas are.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody here is just normal income people. You know, just live day-to-day. And I don't think he knows anything about us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you have in common with John Edwards?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't imagine anything. He don't know anything about the things I know about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know if he knows how to help poor people or lower class people. He doesn't know them. He doesn't — you got to know something about something before you can help the problem. He doesn't know anything about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he talks about the two Americas, what do you think he means when he's talking about that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. He says many different things. I just don't pay any attention to what he says any more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: We couldn't find anybody in the trailer park to say anything nice about John Edwards.
Now "Talking Points" tries to respect all of those who want to serve their country, but Edwards is an exception. I have no respect for him. He's a phony and is in the tank for special interest to damage this country. Edwards is going nowhere, but deserves to be called out.