Posted on 07/04/2014 7:21:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
We once believed that successful politicians made sacrifices for us, that when they chose public service it meant tight finances for most of them. No longer. They get fame through being in the public eye, and then cash in. When they're the center of their own financial universe, they find it difficult to see the rest of us, moving like ants in the streets outside the darkly shaded windows of their limousines. Modern leaders make an investment in politics as a stepping stone to future riches. Since many are relatively young when they hit the exits from the public arena, and if they haven't been eaten alive by scandal (or sometimes even if they have), they can expect a second life as lobbyists, consultants and expensive speechifiers with stories from the inside. Those who grow richest create charitable foundations, which give them the patina of moral superiority and, more important, big salaries for their children, friends and those who helped them get where they are.
Hillary says she remembers being "dead broke" when the first couple left the White House with their bags stuffed with souvenirs. "Dead broke" included Bubba's $200,000 pension, and soon they were born again with greater earning ability, leading to collecting $163 million between 2001 and 2012. Nice poverty, if you can get it.
Hillary now concedes she was "inartful" in characterizing her finances, but Bubba, as usual, is "artful" enough for both of them, spreading blarney in abundance. In an interview on "Meet the Press," he assures us that Hillary is "the most gifted public servant I've ever worked with," and thought so -- even believed -- this after he asked her to marry him and she first said no. (How cute.)
"It is factually true that we were several million dollars in debt," he says. "Everybody now assumes that what happened in the intervening years was automatic; I'm shocked that it's happened. I'm shocked that people still want me to come give talks."
Bubba is as shocked as Captain Renault discovering gambling in the back room at Rick's Cafe Americain in "Casablanca." Bubba can get away with sizzling hyperbole that's too hot for Hillary to handle. He has the glib gab of the smooth-talking womanizer who seduces the public as easily as he seduces an intern. Besides, memories are short. Hillary reminds him that half the people asking questions couldn't even vote when he was doing those things that are in question.
But many can, which is why some people are saying the country is suffering "Hillary fatigue," as in chronic fatigue syndrome, but with an identifiable root cause. Hillary has been in the public eye since she was Bill's first lady in Arkansas, but she never projected the roguish charm of the original. Carl Bernstein observed in "A Woman in Charge," his biography of Hillary in 2007, that when she was put before the public she was either "elaborately prepared or relatively soulless." She was trapped in an emotional girdle of her own construction. That hasn't changed.
Critics blame a poor rollout for her book and the accompanying interviews for the bad weeks since, but Hillary's problem runs deeper than skin deep. She's spent more time in public life than in private and has had little time to "know thyself."
Self-perception is difficult for most of us, and even more difficult for politicians surrounded by hanger-ons who shower them with praise and adulation while at the same time constantly confronted with hostility from those who don't like their politics. Hillary's dilemma was compounded in her last job as secretary of state, where she couldn't disagree in a profound way with her boss without resigning. President Obama knew what he was doing when he put her in a high-profile job where she couldn't talk back.
In her book she hints at policy differences between them, but she played it safe in her book "Hard Choices." That's why those who have read it describe it as bland, gluten free and low calorie, something Winston Churchill would recognize as his famous "pudding with no theme." What we want is for Popeye to tell us to eat our spinach, or at least to scream out, "I yam what I yam and tha's all what I yam."
That's not Hillary's style. In her evasive interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC News, she said she takes "responsibility" for what happened at Benghazi, but tried to hide behind girlish ignorance. "I'm not equipped to sit and look at blueprints to determine where the blast walls need to be, where the reinforcements need to be," that's why we hire people who have that expertise." That's boy stuff. But the buck stops at the blast wall.
She says young women question themselves more than young men do, before tackling a new task. "They ask: 'Do you think I can?' or 'Do you think I'm ready?'" Those are just the questions we're asking her.
Utter horsepucky. He doesn't even need some big bank to give him a 100 million dollar letter of credit. He is automatically bankable for hundreds of millions is as his shrew wife. To suggest otherwise is horsesh!t.
I loathe Hillary’s press interviews. She always reminds me of someone going on their first job or college interview: fake guilelessness, fake optimism, fake idealism. I can see right through to her basic hollowness as a human being.
So did the Chinese...
Souvenirs...that must be a euphemism for the white house silverware Hillary stole.
It is obvious, though, they were hard up. Why else would they turn the white house into a B&B by renting out the Lincoln bedroom?
Most women don’t care to read the news, why would they care to read a “political” book by her? But, they will vote for the flying buttress, and she will win.
The media will carry her along this time...
“Flying Buttress” LOL! In pantsuits by Omar the Tent Maker.
Hillary’s problem is that Slick Willie is & always has been a good liar. She isn’t, no matter how hard she tries.
In my opinion, at some point during Bill's terms... probably early in the second term, they discussed her aspiration for future independent political viability. He was probably honest, telling her she came across as an overbearing, conniving shrew, and she had to changer her public act.
Change it she did. The fake smile, the fake shoutouts, the strained bug-eyed look that indicates enthusiasm or recognition--those are all coached, and the best that Bill and Hil could do.
So you see it too, don’t you? She’s so strained! She can’t wait to get back to her privacy so she can throw a lamp at an underling.
Hard questions for Hillary?
“That’s too hard!”
And people vote for idiots like her.
The idiots voted for that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave too. Many even twise
twice, not twise
I recall a live interview where this yute admitted to voting multiple times.
When told that was illegal, he squinted as if he didn’t understand the concept.
We can't be the only two who have noticed.
Hard Choices: When to lie and when to let others do the lying.
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