Three Democrats and a Funeral (Hillary and the Establishment Move in, will Moveon Care)

The American Spectator ^ | November 25, 2008 | Jeffrey Lord

[St. Louis Conservative]

In fact, this past Friday before Thanksgiving, when her name was on every cable news channel bannered as America's soon-to-be announced next Secretary of State, the real Hillary was hiding in plain sight in the center of the known universe.

Here. Here as in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (You knew Harrisburg was the center of the known universe, right?)

No, I'm not kidding. And if you're into the reading of political tea leaves (and if you belong to MoveOn.org you perhaps should be), there was, quite possibly, something to learn.

Senator Clinton was a stone's throw or so from my writing desk for a reason as once admirable as it was telling. Several days ago, Pennsylvania's much loved Lieutenant Governor, 78-year-old Catherine Baker Knoll, succumbed to a brief, brutal bout with cancer. She was the first woman to hold the post, serving under governor and fellow Democrat Ed Rendell. More to the point, the Lieutenant Governor was a deeply regular and very Establishment Democrat. She spent decades fighting her way up the political ladder to the number two spot in state government without betraying a whisper of McGovernism or what we might call today MoveOn.org-ism. She was nothing if not the uncontroversial, kindly, charming, motherly and later grandmotherly retail politician par excellence. As the Republican State Senate President (and, through a quirk in the state constitution, now her successor) noted in his eulogy, Knoll would get visibly disturbed at partisan fights on the State Senate floor while she was presiding, which she almost always was. Knoll had worked her way from bottom to almost the very top taking all the slings and arrows of politics in stride while winning the considerable bipartisan affection of both her fellow professional politicians and average citizens alike.

[Verginius Rufus]

I’m not a fan of Establishment Democrats, but if Lord is right, they’ll be less disastrous than the alternative—the more radically leftist MoveOn.org Democrats. Maybe Obama has just been using folks like Ayers, Wright, etc., in his rise to power. Or maybe he’ll let his inner Hugo come out. Stay tuned.

[Christian4Bush]

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