It's Time to Stop Demonizing Hillary

Full disclosure: I voted for Hillary in the primary, and then changed my mind after hearing Obama’s speech on race.

Hillary Clinton is a liar. She’s a racist. She’s advocating for the assassination of Obama. She’s put her own personal ambition ahead of the good of the Democratic Party and the country. We all know these things are true, because we hear about them in the media, and read about them on blogs.

Except that these things are not true. This is the same type of politics that turned Max Cleland into a traitor, John Kerry into a war criminal, and Bill Clinton into a raping murderer. Sure, Hillary’s ambitious. She wants to be President of the United States. So she’s exactly as ambitious as Barack Obama and John McCain. The other claims are reminiscent of those spread in the so-called liberal media during the Clinton Administration. When Hillary complained of a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” the press scoffed at her, but now we know the conspiracy was real.

Now these claims are being spread by Obama’s supporters. This is incredibly self-destructive. We in the Democratic Party have the opportunity to retake the White House and to build a filibuster-proof majority in both houses of Congress. For this to occur, we must have the votes of a large majority of Hillary’s supporters. Many of Hillary’s followers are fervent admirers who see her as a ground-breaking standard-bearer for women everywhere. These energized, politically active people are essential to Democratic chances in the fall, and this means that it is important to have the support of Hillary herself.

More importantly, the charges are just untrue. Hillary has made mistakes—she was wrong on the war—but she’s not evil, and characterizing her as such is just using what her husband called the “politics of personal destruction.”

So, Obama supporters, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to relax. We’re going to congratulate her on her win in the Puerto Rico Primary next week. Soon after, the superdelegates will put Obama over the top. Then we’ll salute Hillary’s service to the country, and a race well-run, and welcome her and her supporters into the most important campaign the Democratic Party has ever conducted. In the meantime, we’re going to quit claiming that Hillary is a racist, or that she’s just waiting on someone to kill Obama, or that she’d rather see McCain elected than Obama. We’re going to quit lying about the woman.

After all, we’re not Republicans.

In Which the Blogger Admits He's Made an Error in Judgment

I voted for Hillary Clinton in the Arkansas primary, and I've changed my mind. I explain in an article in Quiblit Magazine.

Enough With the Talking Points

I haven’t decided for whom I’ll cast my vote in the February 5th Arkansas Primary. My decision got harder today when John Edwards dropped out of the race. I thought he was right on the war, right on health care, and his “two Americas” idea resonated with me. I’m sorry he’s out. Now I have to choose between Hillary and Obama. Whichever is the party nominee in November will get my vote, but, for the first time in my life, it seems that I have some small say as to who that nominee will be. How will I decide? Let me tell you some ideas that won’t be entering into my decision.

Barack Obama is the new John F. Kennedy. What does this even mean? Am I supposed to think that Obama is going to bring the country together to some new era of bipartisanship? I guess all the neocons and right-wingers are going to lay down their arms on the first day of an Obama Administration. Or by “bipartisanship” does he mean the “roll-over-and-play-dead” bipartisanship of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? Kennedy had spent six years in the House and eight in the Senate before being elected President. Obama has been a Senator for three years, and has spent most of that time running for President.

The Clintons have had their time. Who started this little meme? Do you suppose it’s the same folks who elected Bush I and Dubya, and salivate at the thought of Jeb Bush running for the White House? Yeah, I can think of all kind of folks I’d rather be voting for than Hillary Clinton. I just don’t know if Barack Obama is one of them.

The Clintons are racists, cold-heartedly playing blacks against whites to get what they want. Claiming that the Clintons are racists is on a par with claiming that Max Cleland was screwing over the veterans or that John Kerry was a traitor.

It’s time to elect a black man president. I wouldn’t vote againt Obama because he’s black—that would be racist. It’s also racist to vote for him because he’s black. If I vote for Barack Obama, it’ll be because I think he’ll make a better president than Hillary.

Hillary Clinton is a cold-hearted, calculating bitch. Hillary Clinton is a politician and a United States Senator. It seems to me that it might be a good idea for a person in such a position to be able to see a move or two ahead in whatever situation she finds herself. If a man—say John McCain—acts in this manner, we call him hard-nosed and pragmatic. Conversely, if Hillary gets a bit emotional, than we’re either told it shows she’s not tough enough to be president, or that she couldn’t possibly have felt real emotion, and her faking it was a calculated move to garner support of women, who of course were all instantly taken in by such a ruse.

The Clintons have done things that are politically expedient, and this proves they are pathological liars. Most assuredly, no Republican and no other Democrat has ever done anything that was politically expedient. Politicians never do this.

Hillary has too many negatives to ever win a national election. George W. Bush is an alcoholic coke-head who, among other disasters, led the country into an unpopular, unsuccessful war, ran the economy into the ground by giving tax cuts to his cronies, ripped the Constitution to shreds, has tried to turn the United States into a theocracy, and made the nation the most hated in the world, and he won an election (sort-of) against a war hero. Don’t ever tell me anybody has too many negatives to be elected president.

Getting Hillary elected president is just a way to get Bill back into the White House. I’m not sure this would be a bad thing. However, Hillary has been a senator for eight years—Bill hasn’t been anywhere around the Senate. Dubya has been president for eight years without obvious interference from his father.

I don’t know who I’ll vote for in the primary, but I’ll decide based on the candidates’ positions on the issues. The war. Health care. Energy. Environment. Not Republican talking points.