with I.U talkback
There has always existed an almost paradoxical tension within the Obama campaign. If the Illinois senator had attacked Hillary Clinton with the same ferocity that Hillary has applied against him, then, some have argued, this would have been a much different contest. He might well have smoked her in Ohio and Pennsylvania and she would already be political history. Still, had Obama gone after her as she has gone after him, he might well have smoked himself, because playing the old attack game would have violated the basic and (so far) successful premise of his "new politics" -- the very politics that could yet hold the seeds of its own destruction.
And if it does hold the seeds of its own destruction, it also, I feel certain, holds the seeds of our nation's destruction as well. Obama is right to recognize this and refuse to play the old game of "the politics of personal destruction" (a phrase ironically coined by Hillary, herself). It does not take a mental giant to play that game, especially with the money he has raised. He can afford the kind of researchers and hired guns it takes to obliterate his opponents. He has chosen not to take that road. Can his countrymen and women rise to his expectations and understand that the old politics are destroying this nation every bit as much as the wars we are fighting based on deception and fear-mongering?
It's a bit of a mind-bender -- and is likely to remain one.
...and let us not forget the inherent racial bigotry involved in this or any other national race, combined with misogyny. While any man, white or black, would be thought a bit of a bully if he lambasted Hillary as , perhaps, she well deserves, a black man attempting to smoke a white woman would be considered an animal by some. Those would be the same ones who would consider a white man blasting Hillary, especially, a Republican white man, as simply putting her in her place. How many of them are out there? Who knows? Far more, it seems than I was aware.
I, myself, have been absolutely flabbergasted during these last, almost, 8 years. Oh my, what I have learned about my fellow Americans. not much of it all that good, I'm afraid.
I honestly thought we were ready for the 21st century. I am no longer sure of that at all. Sometimes, I think we were not ready for the 20th century. We simply thought we were, as we fought two world wars to victory, after late entries into said wars, in the first half of the last century and thought ourselves to be heroes to all of Europe. Americans, each and every one, sacrificed for the two world wars, not just the soldiers, though their sacrifice was certainly not to be compared to the good folks at home...faithfully going to the movie theaters (an evening at the "movies' was a very cheap distraction back then) to catch the latest news from the front and to escape from the hard times at home ( high unemployment, gas rationing, food rationing, women taking over the men's jobs in the war plants (a la, Rossie the Riveter) and giving up their silk stockings and other such sacrifices, in addition to the worst sacrifices of all; their precious sons, brothers and husbands.
Obama hasn't been shy about attacking Hillary on the issues, when it comes to the few they actually and fundamentally disagree on. Such as the "McCain-Clinton gas tax gimmick," as he has rightly called it, which Hillary has somewhat melodramatically hung her hat on. "At best," he has charged on the stump, "this is a plan that would save you pennies a day for the summer months ... unless gas prices are raised to fill in the gap, which is just what happened in Illinois when we tried this a few years ago." In addition, "Unless you can magically impose a windfall-profits tax on oil companies overnight to pay for the holiday," Obama has said, "it could imperil federal highway funding, and cost Indiana more than 6,000 jobs." In a nutshell, Hillary's plan is "more about scoring points than solving problems."
(The very and super wealthy, the infamous 1 to 10%, don't care so much about the nation's infra-structure. This group of people are not so reliant on it as the underclasses are. Underclasses, mind you, now include a large part of the middle class, if not all of it.)
But his silence on other issues -- those of the "old politics" of personal but usually quite effective destruction -- raises an interesting question, which The Politico has pursued: "What arguments has Obama taken off the table, even though he thinks they are true?" The answers provide a peek not only into some real gold he could have mined but hasn't, but also a preview into what the GOP attack machine would have cranked up against Hillary had she landed the Democratic nomination.
Despite Hillary's claims to having been "fully vetted," there's a lot of material with which the public is little familiar, because the media have explored it so scantily. Some of it regards "old issues," reports The Politico, "like Hillary Clinton’s legal career, which includes lots of cases that never got much public attention even during the Whitewater era."
I wonder, whom does she thinks she is fooling?
Then there's the new, "like recent stories raising questions about the web of personal and financial associations around Bill Clinton. Since leaving the presidency, he has traveled the globe to exotic places and with sometimes exotic characters, raising money for projects such as his foundation and presidential library and making himself a very wealthy man." And some of this wealth, as Obama could have strenuously argued and the GOP most certainly would, has perhaps found its way into Clinton's campaign coffers.
Then, there is Bill's new found family, the Bushes. What's up with that? No, I don't buy Hillary's explanation of Bill and Poppy being members of the ex-president's club? That is pure horse-hockey. Bill made a big deal of wanting his ex-presidency to look a lot like Jimmy Carter's. Me thinks, "look like" is the operative words here, not "be like." How much time has Bill spent in Plains, Georgia as compared to the amount of time he has spent at the Bush compound in Maine and traveling with Poppy at Junior's request? Unbelievable, when one considers that the Bush family is not just any ex-president's family. It is the family of the current president. The current president is a war criminal, by his own admission; a president who has so damaged this country that we, the people, may never recover. The things which have been done in our name, and with our blood and treasure, during this administration are so immoral, if not amoral, we should not hope to recover intact; as the capital of an empire much like that of Rome. The cruel corporate empire must go and it shall. To the degree that our nation is dependent on it, we will be dealt a death blow as well.
As for guilt by association, Jeremiah Wright-style, "How about ... a trail of associations that includes golden oldies like [convicted-felon] Webb Hubbell?" Or Marc Rich, "the former fugitive financier who won a controversial pardon from Bill Clinton [and then] gave money to her first Senate campaign." Or Hillary's brother, Hugh Rodham, who "took large cash payments for trying to broker presidential pardons."
Guilt by association, could land a vast majority of the nation's upper-crust, and quite a few of the lower-crust, in prison. Of course, leading the way would be our nation's leaders; so-called representatives and dwellers in the so-called august, contemplative body, the senate.
And then there are the more proper political issues that Obama nevertheless has remained relatively -- almost curiously -- silent about. For instance health care and Hillary's lambasting of him "for not being sufficiently committed to universal" coverage. "Why is it, his team asks, that Democrats have done so little to advance a long-time progressive goal for the past 15 years? The answer has everything to do with Hillary Clinton’s misjudgments when she was leading the reform effort in 1993 and 1994."
What, I have often wondered, was the deal with the Clintons when it came to the environment and climate change? They had a VP who was quite up to date in these matters, and little was ever suggested, let alone done about the greatest threat to humankind, during their administration and even now? Hmmmm?
Furthermore, reports The Politico, "Most irritating of all to Obama partisans is what they see as her latest pose: that she is selflessly staying in the race despite the long odds against her because of devotion to the Democratic Party and the belief that she is a more appealing general election candidate." Yet what you won't hear Obama echoing on the stump is the "article of faith among most people" who surround him: "that the Clintons were a disaster for the party throughout the 1990s. When Bill Clinton came to town in 1993, Democrats were a congressional majority, with 258 seats in the House. When he left in 2001, they were a minority with 46 fewer seats. There were 30 Democratic governors when he arrived, 21 10 years later."
As I have heard, from friends who register as Democrats, Bill Clinton was the best Republican we have ever had as president. I'm not so sure. I think he and Ike were on par. Actually, Ike was probably better. At least, he warned us about the military/industrial complex.
Which brings us back to the Obama campaign's internal tension.
"The Obama side is frustrated with the news media," says The Politico, "for not carrying more of its argument." But, as is correctly noted -- and it's a big but -- "If he really wanted, Obama could generate all the coverage he wanted about Clinton’s past by leveling accusations in his own words." The media would have a field day, each accusation would be front-page news, and all us junkies would have an old-fashioned shootout to revel in.
Yet now he can't personally generate the coverage, even if he were so inclined. "Politically, he correctly believes that he would be called out as a hypocrite if he practiced the conventional art of attack politics after preaching against it."
Hence he is forced to limp -- not soar -- to the nomination. Still, that's something of a remarkable feat, considering Hillary's original "inevitability." How much of the new and rather genteel politics he'll be able to salvage in a longer campaign against John McCain and the GOP's brutality, however, will be fascinating to behold.
It certainly will. Especially, if the people who support Barack in the field or simply love their country, ordinary voters, in no way connected to the Obama campaign, begin demanding answers of Hillary and McCain, for the good of the country.
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THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
