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.
"I've...never [heard] of poor little dachshunds being persecuted."
My mom told me there used to be a cat in a deli out where she lived in Queens that had markings that made him look like Hitler, and people were very mean and kicked the cat. So the owner had to make the cat stay in the basement.
I don't know if this is really true, but it is a fact that my mom was 1/2 German, and they had a German last name, but a rather unusual one, so you might not realize it was German. I don't think her dad ever had any trouble, or course he had come here as a wee child, so he had no accent or anything. He was in the Navy in WWI.
Pardon me, but who is that a pic of in your #40? Is it Mrs Charlie Trie, Mrs Johnny Chung, Mrs John Huang or Mrs James Riady??
She ain't runnin'
She's a member of the MSM who doesn't mind her party (the dems) going down as long as her views are trumpeted. Words like selfish, narcissistic, egomaniacal come to mind.
With "friends" like Molly, the dems don't need any enemies...
"I never had sex with that woman, Hitlerly Rodham Klintoon. NOT a single time!" = wee willie klintoon.
"HITLERey" has about the same chance as i do to be elected POTUS, ever. i.e., NONE!
free dixie,sw
You don't know who Molly Ivins is? Oh, you lucky person! May you be fortunate enough to never find out. She is the barf in barf alert.
Evita Peron
Should anyone care why wacko's mignt not support anyone? Its so nice that they can whine to each other.
Thanks for the link.
Is Ms. Ivins speaking of the inimitable MRS. BILL CLINTON?
I thought so.
Never let the American people forget that a vote for MRS. BILL CLINTON is a vote for the Sinkmeister, too. The same icky "two-fer" they were selling back in 1993 is in effect.
So if you want 4 or 8 years of Bubba wandering the White House halls looking for love in all the wrong places (not to mention blabbering on tv, etc.), go ahead and vote for MRS. BILL CLINTON.
Good golly, Miss Molly... did you support Kerry in 2004? Was his position different then than Hillary's now?
"Enough clever straddling"?
I thought half her problems, at least - and certainly those with Bill - were due to the fact that she wasn't doing ANY clever straddling.
I think they were more easy than hot... thats were the drugs came in handy.
And the majority of my household (100 percent) thinks that Molly Ivins is a shrill, bloviating leftwing hag.
"You don't know who Molly Ivins is? Oh, you lucky person! May you be fortunate enough to never find out. She is the barf in barf alert."
ROFLMAO!!!!
I listened to her for 45 min on c-span. I did not know that she has cancer, but she is definately out of gas. When asked who the dems should nominate, if not Hillary, she said she did not know. Maybe Bill Moyers or Jimmy Carter. (LOL) She said her idea of history is the story of dumb and dumber. Sad!
Molly Ivins got caught for plagiarism back in the days when the MSM didn't fire plagiarists.
You don't know who Molly Ivins is?
Actually, I do. Should have put a sarcasm tag on my question. Saw her a few days ago on C-Span. Scary!
Somebody call a tow truck, the left has blown a gasket. They've thrown a rod and their head is cracked. Time for the junk yard.
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