The Clintons bring out the worst in people. Hell they are bringing out the worst in me and I used to back them.
Here is what The State newspaper in South Carolina wrote, part of editorial endorsing Obama for President.
The restoration of the Clintons to the White House would trigger a new wave of all-out political warfare. That is not all Bill and Hillary’s fault – but it exists, whomever you blame, and cannot be ignored. Hillary Clinton doesn’t pretend that it won’t happen; she simply vows to persevere, in the hope that her side can win. Indeed, the Clintons’ joint career in public life seems oriented toward securing victory and personal vindication.
Politics doesn’t have to be a blood sport. For awhile, when I came around to Obama back in September, my hope was that maybe for the first time in awhile it wouldn’t be. Maybe we really could change the tone. And then Obama won Iowa and the Clintons focused all their considerable skills at mudslinging at Obama.
Wherever they go, they leave bodies behind. You can say that they know how to win. That they do. But they also know how turn people off to politics and this they care little about – as long as they come out on top.
My daughter is twenty-one. I think her perspective is one you may not care to hear. From the time she was old enough to understand her mom was involved in politics, she knew that Bill Clinton was in the White House. She felt secure and that the world was in good shape. Then, in her teens, Bush was elected and the world started falling apart. She looks back on the Clinton years with budget surpluses and no wars as her happy childhood. She wants the Big Dog back in the White House (albeit as a spouse) just because it will give her a sense that the world may go back to the way it was in her normal childhood. She’s watched the Deval show and questions whether Obama has what it takes to deal effectively with her world gone crazy. She thinks Hillary will bring it back. That’s her opinion, and she’s probably not alone.
So do I.
Life didnt seem as futile then. There is just no way that everything was rotten to the core. There were good people in powerful places just to make sure that bad things didnt happen. It was okay to trust in that. Richard Nixon was president then. Does that make him any less of a heel or did that just make me a stupid kid? But I still miss the warm fuzzy memories of youth. Should we bring back Nixon’s ghost?
is welcome back as long as he haunts Romney.
The other day at work the Clintons came up and a colleague of mine who is not really into politics (but is a liberal) told me about the time she was driving her 8-year old daughter to a soccer match. The news was on the radio and in describing the Starr Report the announcer mentioned “oral sex” a number of times – to which my colleague’s daughter blurted out, ” I know what oral sex is”. My colleague almost drove off the road but composed herself and asked her daughter what “oral sex” actually was. Her daughter said, ” its when you talk about sex, which they are doing a lot on the radio these days”.
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p>Oh the joyous memories of the Clinton-era. Such innocent times they were. I was a big Clinton backer in those days too, and then Dick Morris came around, and then Lewinsky and I was so pissed that a man with such potential could chuck his presidency away so recklessly that I thought he should resign then and let Gore takeover and clean up the mess.
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p>And now Bill is back in the driver’s seat, taking over Hill’s campaign essentially, all to redeem himself and get another chance at saving his tortured legacy from the taint of impeachment. I would be much more inclined to support Hillary if Bill would just take himself into a dark closet for awhile.
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p>Yeah, he’s brilliant…so brilliant he blew years in the office he always craved because he couln’t resist the charms of a young intern in his office. I can’t forgive that – there were important issues then to talk about and he distracted everyone’s attention from them because he couldn’t control himself.
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p>Ask your daughter how she’d feel if she was Chelsea when Bill humiliated the family then?
is a right wingnut conservative who voted for Bush, so she would gladly put herself in Chelsea’s place. What Bill did was not anywhere near as despicable as what Bush has done for the past eight years nor as harmful as what her own father has done over the years. I understand how she feels. I don’t necessarily share her opinions, but I do get what he means.
, the Clintons were much better for America and the world – but they have a lot of downsides and if given a choice between putting them back in there, with all their drama (growing by the week as Bill takes over the campaign), or electing a new fresh voice, unhindered with historical baggage and less likely to mess it up by whipping it out – I’m going fresh, new and clean. So should we all.
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p>The Bush – Clinton comparison sets the bar too low. All are candidates would be better than Bush. But I have high standards for who I support and I think the Clintons self-destructive and self-absorbed actions both when in office and on this campaign mean they are not worthy of another shot.
anyone who uses the terms “self-destructive” and “self-absorbed” in relation to Bill or Hillary has been watching too much Faux news. It’s not that simple, and I can’t wait for this whole season to be done with. I don’t care who wins as long as there’s some form of Dem in the White House this time next year and there’s a solid Dem majority in the House and Senate. I have no high hopes that anything other than remediation of the Bushco fiascos will be on the agenda for years to come. I think it’s naive to believe that anything else is going to happen. Bidness as usual will be the agenda, no matter who in this bunch wins.
Would not trigger a new wave of all-out political warfare?
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p>The correct analysis is that the election of a new president, Democrat or Republican, will trigger a new round of all-out political warfare. Or maybe it will just continue the present round.
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p>Would that Obama could somehow transcend it all. I suppose that if someone can truthfully answer “I was in the second grade” to the question “What were you doing in 1968?” then the venomous response to whatever a baby-boomer’s answer is (I was shooting Vietnamese people; I was on a yearlong acid trip; I was advocating the overthrow of the US government; I was tied up at the time; I had a lot of hair and poor fashion sense; I was working tirelessly for the RFK/HH/Nixon campaign; I got a draft deferral and went to England; Daddy got me into the Air National Guard; I was enthusiastically inaugurating the sexual revolution, and unwittingly initiating the era of “safe sex”; I fled to Canada; I betrayed my fellow veterans/advocated for their interest, depending on your point of view; I marched for stuff and invented the term ‘socially just’) would be muted.
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p>But I reaaly don’t see how this, alone, is enough to accomplish the de-polarization of the country.
they do everywhere they go. I mean did the 2004 race between Kerry and Dean and Edwards and Gephardt get nearly this ugly. No. Gephardt and Dean hammered each other pretty good and played themselves into 3/4th places in Iowa but they didn’t get near the levels distortion and nastiness the Clintons have brought this year. Its it friggin sad – they’ll destroy everything to win.
The country is divided. Obama isn’t going to change that.
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p>As for 2004, after Iowa, it was all Kerry. It wasn’t close, and it was no contest. Today, we have a contest that is closer than any we have ever seen.
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p>Also, I would note that Kerry was such a soft candidate that he allowed Karl Rove to kick his passive ass all the way from Louisburg Square to Nob Hill and back again. More to the point, he lost.
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p>And by the way, most of the vitriol I see is coming from the Obama camp. Just look at your postings over the last week.