Posted on 01/29/2006 12:49:28 PM PST by neverdem
I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.
Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.
The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.
If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy — rough, tough Bobby Kennedy — didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the polls?
Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008."
This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad news from the Middle East . . . into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman.
Oh come on, people — get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war — from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.
You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.
Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this — that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.
Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just turn on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."
Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.
Ivins is based in Austin.
Oh, yes, the "elegant Murtha"....
Sheesh
This ran on FR a few days ago. That being said, who's Molly Ivins?
She's a hack writer for some paper in Texas (I think). Part of the looney, looney left.
Well, Hillary will get my support because she is a female.
Cat fight!
OK, whose @$$ did the writer pull these numbers out of?
Until you tell them what it will take.
Ms. Ivins was in a clip they played on dnC-span this AM, for Katrina Vanden Whore and Ed Kilgore(?). I now see why Molly is such an unhappy person.
I'd be pissed off at the world too, if I had something like that looking back at me in the mirror.
Ivans will vote for Hitlery, twice ...
The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich
That is a pretty big qualification to the original statement. I also like the 77% will do anything to save the environment. Okay, only one car per household. That would push the 77% down quite a bit.
I believe that would be her own a@@
Does miss Molly sound just a little bit like one of your DUmmie threads when everyone was ready to abandon the party because they weren't going to filibuster Alito? LOL I think we can call miss Molly a DUmmie.
Where the heck did she get those poll numbers? 77 percent are prepared to do 'whatever it takes' to protect the environment? That's a damned vague statement! Looks like Molly is hitting the bottle again. Glug, glug.
...and rumor has it she considers herself a horrorary member of the Dixie Chicks...
Shut up, stupid. They're all 'Dick Morris' elections, and the Dems don't care what you think. The DLC machine will decide the candidate and you'll do what you're told. Just send in your money and keep your opinions to yourself.
The only statistic she didn't mention was the 51% of November, 2004. That one negates all of hers and just makes her scream.LOL
By all means, let the Democratic candidate run on the platform Ivins suggests:
1. cut and run from Iraq;
2. Cuban health care;
3. raising taxes;
4. weakening the military;
5. radical environmental regualation;
I can see election night now, with Katie Couric at the CBS anchor desk:
"Our early exit polls suggest it could be shaping up as a challenging night for John Kerry, but our latest numbers show he has a fighting chance to carry the District of Columbia."
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