Posted on 12/06/2005 9:07:51 AM PST by Mia T
COPYRIGHT MIA T 2005 |
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The Democratic Party's Problem Transcends Its Anti-War Contingent2
Helloooo? That the Democrats have to be spoon-fed what should be axiomatic post-9/11 is, in and of itself, incontrovertible proof that From's advice is insufficient to solve their problem.
From's failure to fully lay out the nature of the Democrats' problem is not surprising: he is the guy who helped seal his party's fate. It was his Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) that institutionalized the proximate cause of the problem, clintonism, and legitimized its two eponymic provincial operators on the national stage. The "Third Way" and "triangulation" don't come from the same Latin root for no reason.
That "convince" is From's operative word underscores the Democrats' dilemma. Nine-eleven was transformative. It is no longer sufficient merely to convince. One must demonstrate, demonstrate convincingly, if you will which means both in real time and historically.
When it comes to national security, Americans will no longer take any chances. Turning the turn of phrase back on itself, the era of the Placebo President is over. (Incidentally, the oft-quote out-of-context sentence fragment alluded to here transformed meaningless clinton triangulation into a meaningful if deceptive soundbite.)
Although From is loath to admit it -- the terror in his eyes belies his facile solution -- the Democratic party's problem transcends its anti-war contingent.
With a philosophy that relinquishes our national sovereignty -- and relinquishes it reflexively and to the UN no less -- the Democratic party is, by definition, the party of national insecurity.
With policy ruled by pathologic self-interest -- witness the "Lieberman Paradigm," Kerry's "regime change" bon mot (gone bad), Edwards' and the clintons' brazen echoes thereof (or, alternatively, Pelosi's less strident wartime non-putdown putdown) and, of course, the clincher -- eight years of the clintons' infantilism, grotesquerie and utter failure -- the Democratic party is, historically and in real time, the party of national insecurity.
The Democrats used to be able to wallpaper their national insecurity with dollars and demogoguery. But that was before 9/11.
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C-SPAN asked noted presidential historians to rank the American presidents1 along the following ten dimensions: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with congress, vision/setting an agenda, pursued equal justice for all, and performance within context of times.
bill clinton emerged as middling in most dimensions; he was surpassed in others by a settled mediocrity (Carter) and a putative failure (Nixon). In moral authority, bill clinton was rated dead last.2 He did fairly well in public persuasion, not a surprising finding given the volume of snake oil he managed to peddle during his putative presidency.
"It's NOT the economy, stupid!"
Clinton's best scores were on the economic management and pursued equal justice for all dimensions. However, both of these results are meaningful only insofar as they redound to the moral authority dimension: they are wholly based on clinton fraudulence, cooked books and black poses, respectively; and clinton's shameless Rosa Parks eulogy last week assured us that the insidious brand of clinton racism is alive and well during these tiptoe years of what the clintons hope will be their interregnum.
Note that although Brinkley doesn't place much importance on the economic management dimension--he argues that the economy variable is not durable over time--he fails to recognize that the evaluation of the clinton economy by the historians is erroneous to begin with.
Note also that C-SPAN historians found no evidence of clinton "greatness" irrespective of his moral-authority deficit, contrary to Douglas Brinkley's claim made at the clinton revisionist confab3.
(NOTE: Later research has revealed that Brinkley's qualified mention of clinton "greatness" was not a claim but rather a polite guest's white lie about an abject loser. Instead of taking the AP report at face value, one must carefully parse Brinkley's actual words and especially note the subjunctive construction.)
MIDDLING
If 9/11 taught us anything, it is that presidential character and moral authority count, and count most.4 If the variables are properly weighted, bill clinton will always come out dead last.
That is, unless Americans are dumb enough to make the same mistake twice.5
Mia T, 11.10.05
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COPYRIGHT MIA T 2005 |
KnowNothing's brother, Hugh Rodham, secured two of the 141 clinton midnight pardons, one for a cocaine kingpin and the other for a snake-oil swindler. Rodham netted a quick $400,000 for his "work" according to various rodhams and clintons and their assorted lawyers. KnowNothing's campaign treasurer, William Cunningham III, himself a law partner of longtime KnowNothing adviser Harold Ickes, helped obtain last-minute pardons for two convicted felons.
LA FAMIGLIA
Displaying a willingness to throw her brother (along with her husband) to the wolves, Sen. Victim Clinton was quick to make a distinction between her big, bad brother's pardon "work" and that of her campaign treasurer, "a fine lawyer and a fine man." The "family" connection of brother Rodham to Clinton rendered Rodham's "work" offensive, whereas the campaign treasurer Cunningham's connection to the senator and her campaign coffers made his securing of two pardons in record time a sterling example of highminded, effective public service.
KnowNothing is apparently not the best of thinkers. If the "family" connection makes lobbying for cocaine-kingpin and snake-oil-swindler pardons unsavory for brother Rodham, then the "family" connection makes lobbying for the Hasidim 4 (see Keating 5) pardons even more distasteful for the wife, First Lady and senator-elect. Moreover, pardons for votes is arguably a greater offense than pardons for cash.
EFFECTIVELY PLEADS 5TH BY INVOKING SPOUSAL PRIVILEGE
KnowNothing specifically declined to answer when asked whether she discussed the pardons with her husband, effectively pleading the 5th. Turning aside questions about the pardon decisions her husband had made, she told reporters they should address those issues with him and his staff. She refused to say whether he should agree to appear voluntarily before congressional committees investigating the pardons. Interestingly, no one asked her whether she would agree to appear voluntarily before those same congressional committees.
I DIDN'T HAVE SEX WITH THAT PARDON
"I did not have any involvement in the pardons that were granted or not granted," insisted Sen. KnowNothing, seeming to forget her presence at the New-Square/Oval-Office schmooze that secured pardons for the four Hasidic felons who set up a phony school in Brooklyn to swindle the government out of millions intended for the poor.
RESURRECTING RUFF
KnowNothing noted that her"best memory" was that she never spoke to her brother or to Mr. Cunningham about the pardons. With variations of "I don't have a memory" and "my best memory, and avoiding the more obvious "I don't recall" and "my best recollection," KnowNothing reprised the Ruffian standard used during the clinton years to commit perjury without penalty.
I GET LETTERS
...or more precisely, envelopes. During her denials of involvement in any of the pardons, KnowNothing made the curious claim: "People handed me envelopes, I passed them on [and never opened a single one. Honest.]"
Reprising the role of victim that enabled her to win a senate seat in spite of low poll numbers, high personal negatives and consistent public failures, the senator peppered her answers about big, bad Hugh (understanding that the subtext was big, bad Bill) with "saddened" and "disappointed" and "heartbroken" and "shocked."
UTTER CONTEMPT FOR THE PEOPLE
This session today was cut short by a staffer when reporters appeared dissatisfied by Senator KnowNothing's lack of candor.
In the end, this press conference full of poses, poll-tested phrases and prevarication was just another display of the clintons' utter contempt for the people. Bill Clinton committed the same error last Sunday in his shameless, lie-filled New York Times Pardongate Apologia.
The clintons' fundamental error: They are too arrogant and dim-witted to understand that the demagogic process in this fiberoptic age isn't about counting spun heads; it's about not discounting circumambient brains. |
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The reviews miss the point of the show, (i.e., the show is not optional but necessary (though hardly sufficient) if clinton is to prevail), because the reviews fail to identify missus clinton's problem in the first place. And circular reasoning compounds the error.
While America appears not to be ready for a female president under any circumstances, the post-9/11 realities pose special problems for a female presidential candidate. Add to these the problems unique to missus clinton. The reviews make the mistake of focusing on the problems of the generic female presidential candidate running during ordinary times.
These are not ordinary times. America is waging the global War on Terror; the uncharted territory of asymmetric netherworlds is the battlefield; the enemy is brutal, subhuman; the threat of global conflagration is real.
Defeating the enemy on the battlefield isn't sufficient. For America to prevail, she must also defeat a retrograde, misogynous, troglodyte mindset. To successfully prosecute the War on Terror, it is essential that the collective patriarchal islamic culture perceives America as politically and militarily strong. Condi Rice excepted, this requirement presents an insurmountable hurdle for any female presidential candidate, and especially missus clinton, historically antimilitary, forever the pitiful victim, and, according to Dick Morris, "the biggest dove in the clinton administration."
It is ironic that had the clintons not failed utterly to fight terrorism... not failed to take bin Laden from Sudan... not failed repeatedly to decapitate a nascent, still stoppable al Qaeda... the generic female president as a construct would still be viable... missus clinton's obstacles would be limited largely to standard-issue clintonisms: corruption, abuse, malpractice, malfeasance, megalomania, rape and treason... and, in spite of Juanita Broaddrick, or perhaps because of her, Rod Lurie would be reduced to perversely hawking the "First Gentleman" instead of the "Commander-in-Chief."
Mia T, 10.02.05 |
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by Mia T, 11.14.05 (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) |
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COPYRIGHT MIA T 2005
Geez, I hope you're wrong.
I used to trust the basic good sense of the American people. Even after Clinton was elected, I told myself it was only because of Perot. Even as an incumbent, Clinton could only muster a plurality.
But then, I was totally disillusioned in 2004. I couldn't believe it when 48+ percent of the voters voted for an actual traitor -- a man who was meeting with, and giving aid and comfort to, the enemy, while wearing the uniform of the United States.
There may be no one so low -- even a nasty Marxist dyke -- that she can't get elected in America.
thanx :)
You do all the heavy lifting to put together the message. The rest of us should make sure it gets appropriate attention. We must make sure Hillary and Ickes and the rest of the slimes in her retinue never get near the White House again.
That is the example I consistently use when people tell me that Hillary is unelectable. With a 60,000-vote turnaround in Ohio, a veritable traitor would be in the White House. Yes, she is electable and very, very scary.
I don't know about Hillary being in any sort of a bag, but she's 'a bag' alright!
I have always wondered why she carries such anger with her. (Yes Mia, I think you have seen this before ;-) ).
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The roots of Hillary's paranoia and anger may just go back to her childhood ................. when her father gave her a toaster and a radio as bath toys.
"Justin Case"???
Cute, eh?
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I was going to call myself "ICAB9USA4ALL" ..... but it seemed to Pollyannaish.
"Be Liberal, Live in Ignorance and Servitude" by Gail Wynand Liberals have always had problems figuring out causation. They believe for example that because people who smoke (sometimes) have higher rates of cancer than people who don't that smoking CAUSES cancer, worse, they believe that if people get cancer it is the fault of the "tobacco companies" (i.e., caused by the manufactures of tobacco products). They further believe that the remedy for this fault is that billions of dollars in "damages" should be transferred from the wealth of stockholders in tobacco companies to a handful of plaintiffs lawyers including the First Lady's relatives and others closely associated with the Democratic party. And they believe, apparently, that if young people are now experimenting with sex at early ages and with more profoundly explicit practices than in past years, and that if the President of the United States decides to enroll a young intern in rendition of such services to his middle aged libido resultantly staining both her dress and America's reputation, that a spontaneous wave of teenage sex experimentation, sucked (sorry) the poor middle aged chief executive into its vortex. Deducing causation in most events takes deliberate, focused, thought, insight, and a disciplined intelligence that doesnt skip foundational indoctrination (aka actually studying in school). Causation of the diseases associated with cancer is highly complex and to a large degree still unknown. That smoking is probably not healthy for you is well known. That a middle aged chief executive, Yale Law School graduate, former professor of Constitutional Law and State Attorney General should be responsible and accountable for his own actions including HIS perjury and obstruction of justice would seem axiomatic to all but a liberal who has the capacity to adopt causationally convenient theories based solely on tangential proximity to the event under examination rather than through any rational analysis of the importance or significance of the asserted cause to the event. Thus, "guns" are used in some murders therefore, to a liberal all "guns" should be either banned or kept in locked safes with trigger locks so as to disarm the law abiding public and eviscerate their legally recognized right to effective self defense. Quite simply, one has to be pretty stupid or very corrupt or both to be a liberal, at least and for sure to be a Clinton supporter. But it is worse than that, one also has to deny the importance of human consciousness and free will. That is, a Clinton defending liberal apparently believes that childhood psychic trauma, teenage sex trends (remarkably and largely only rampant among the social classes targeted by liberals for social intervention for the past 40 years) and the power of "addiction" which used to be considered merely "habituation" in more stalwart times, are more significant than free will in determining human conduct.
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"What can you say about Hillary Clinton that hasn't already been muttered under somebody else's breath?" -- Dennis Miller
LOL. Mia, you are one in a million.
With a largely uninformed and disinformed electorate (and I use that term very loosely), the presidential election is basically a crapshoot. This is precisely why we must run someone who, just by standing next to her, makes clinton's smallness and danger obvious to all. |
(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) |
:)
thanx :)
"REPORTS OF HER DEATH ARE GREATLY UNDERSTATED"
Huh?
What is that supposed to mean?
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FOREWORD The context is Iraq and The War on Terror, but the underlying issue is whether our democracy will survive. We have the requisite machines, power and know-how to defeat the enemy in Iraq and elsewhere, but do we have the will? In particular, do we have the will to identify and eliminate the enemy in our midst? Answerable to no one, heir apparent in her own mind, self-serving in the extreme, hillary clinton incarnates this insidious new threat to our survival. What we do about hillary clinton will tell us much about what awaits us in these perilous new times. Mia T
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Sean Hannity has just called for the resignation of Howard Dean. |
May I suggest a name for you?
Absolutely!! "Justin Case" you think of another one, let me know. :-)
Ugh!
;-)
I think Hillary wants it that way. It makes her look moderate and thoughtful to have the papier mache heads, drum and dreadlocks crowd booing her.
What you say is true when they are nailing her on ideological grounds.
But my point is that they are nailing her on the character issue.
I find that very interesting.
I do agree with your premise, however.
Howard Dean not only makes the clintons look moderate.
He makes them look sane. (To the casual observer, anyway.)
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