Posted on 11/28/2004 6:37:35 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
It rained on Bill Clinton's parade -- and on a host of gathered Democratic luminaries -- in Little Rock earlier this month. The opening of Clinton's new presidential library, a disconnected bridge to the 21st century, was a largely sodden show. A military man gamely held an umbrella above the former president's already wet head, and the singer Bono's sunglasses were doing double duty as water shields. A day later, a photo preserved the sight of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton jammed together in a doorway, each intending to go first (Clinton won). It brought to mind the shadow-boxing scene in July 2000 between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat over who would go first through a doorway at Camp David -- and the failed peace talks that resulted, Clinton's one chance at real accomplishment.
Other than his doorway clash with Clinton, President Bush was in a good enough mood to be generous. And for most of the ceremonies he got to walk ahead, with Clinton trailing a couple of steps behind. Bush praised Clinton, as did the other presidents on hand. They kept their speeches short and to the point, the point being to get the formalities over so the world could go on and the Clinton legacy could fade into bucolic obscurity amidst the riverbank weeds in Little Rock.
Hillary Clinton, though, hopes to forestall the Clinton slide onto history's scrap heap. A Gallup poll taken shortly after Bush's re-election showed that 25 percent of Democrats want Hillary to head the ticket in 2008, but those voters are a version of the hard-core Republicans who prefer moral values when electing a president. Whatever Democrats' version of "moral values" happens to be, it is currently spelled "Hillary."
Bush's earlier dubious mandate forced him to delay the attack on Fallujah until after the election, but his new one is being taken seriously by more sectors of society. The mandate appears to be permission to do whatever you want, if it is accompanied by a show of force. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, was able to force compliant congressional Republicans to alter their ethics rules as their first order of business. Now leaders can keep their positions if they are indicted as DeLay clearly thinks he will be, for transgressions in his elaborate Texas redistricting scheme. DeLay, riding the usual Republican hypocritical high horse, denounced the "politics of personal destruction" that he claims will be behind any indictment.
But it isn't just in the political world where anything goes now, if accompanied by violence. The Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons and a number of fans acted out the election's new green-light mandate by engaging in a slugfest, as did the football teams of Clemson and South Carolina the next day. All those involved decided to solve their problems by taking the law into their own hands, not caring what collateral damage might result.
It's hard to allow preemption in foreign policy matters and not have a little of it blow back home. The White House has shown the nation how to behave: bring 'em on, put up or shut up, with us or against us.
Before the battle of Detroit, the NFL had been allegedly embarrassed by the reception provoked by ABC's lead-in to Monday Night Football. A blond from ''Desperate Housewives,'' another ABC show, ended up unclothed in the arms of a black wide receiver. In the NBA melee, TV viewers were treated to black athletes decking white so-called fans. The racial component may well be coincidental, not instrumental, but history would label it as a potential flashpoint for such conflict. Luckily, in South Carolina and Clemson's case, most of the havoc was indiscriminate.
Given the Bush mandate's wide reach -- at least as boasted of by Republicans -- expect more of the same in the months and years ahead. Why not settle your differences with force? Violence is in.
Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-run station and bright light of Arab television, though, is cutting back on violence, insofar as it declined showing the videotape of the kidnapped Irish-born aid worker Margaret Hassan's killing at the hands of Islamic terrorists. If there's violence to be shown, it's Americans killing Muslims that takes pride of place on Al-Jazeera.
Forget ''Desperate Housewives.'' As history demonstrates, whenever sex and violence compete in the world, violence always wins hands down.
Judging by the editorials by Dim voters, in my local rag, the first thing mentioned is usually abortion.
Well, that explains my wanting to strangle the life out of the joker who wrote this crap.
You got that right! So are we to assume that any violence anywhere is now Bush's fault?!
How in the heck does this puffball go from a mandate for the president to a mandate for sports teams to engage in violence? Silly, silly man.
Agree with Prime Choice on this, I'd like to have a mandate to violently rap this guy across his chops.
This reporter is some kind of nutball. I think about halfway through the column he must have snorted a couple of lines of white powder.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.