Posted on 01/22/2006 4:37:22 AM PST by billorites
AUSTIN, Texas --- 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 damn 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 piss 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.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
Does this mean you ain't gonna vote for her, Molly?
Drop dead Molly
Already posted twice on FR.
Please use the SEARCH function for Molly Ivins.
Who cares what Molly thinks? I don't.
Molly is encouraging the Democrats to go waaaay Left and openly take steps to help our enemies destroy us. Perhaps this will help them win the White House. Molly does seem a little worried that this will cause people to question her patriotism. Not me. I have no questions at all.
They just might-- if they had any ethics of their own.
Does Molly have rabies? If not, why is she foaming at the mouth?
Austin is such a liberal isolated place that she told me she was sure Kerry had the election won from what she was seeing in Austin. I laughed and told her I knew he was toast, I never had a doubt. She has told me she thinks Hillary will win the 2008. I told her she wont even get the nomination.
Thats what living in Austin can do for a Republican who works for the governors office. It's also what living in Austin can do for Molly Ivins who need to venture up into North and East And West Texas, hell even out into the Hill Country and take her polls.
Yeah, America wants higher taxes, socialized medicine, to run from Iraq oh and much more spending from Congress. Please oh please run on this platform. Cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo!
This sow is still alive? Still writing?
I'm contemplating printing this out, tying it to a rock, and tossing it over my "neighbor's" fence..
So what?
Why should anyone care about who an elderly, left-wing, columnist supports?
This is just another case of liberal journalistic narcissism.
This is just wrong on so many levels...
you will never give up on the democrats you old cow..All through the Clinton years you loved every minute of the perverts actions..So put a sock in it Molly..As for Tom Delay I would make a wager on that one..You see he has supporters and has not done a thing wrong..He will carry his district come election..
Not likely.
Morning CC-G,
Molly must be an associate member of AQ. Her logic is that of the typical liberal utopian ideaology reeking of communistic effluvia.
It is a shame that people like her are allowed to live in America, much less think of themself as an "Real American."
Pant suit baby(shrillary&sexual-predator-rapist hubby(billy blythe) should be residing deep in the bowlels of a covert federal prison, rehearsing their DNC "Happy Talk" propaganda.
The(Witch Bitch) said "she was going to take things away from us, for the good of others.
Envision more escalated taxes, to take care of the professional welfare/public assistance careerists (leeches/parasites).
If the POS were to ever get elected, all Patriotic Americans like us, would receive an extended vacation in some DNC Gulag(Re-education camp) (One way ticket only)
Molly is a perfect example of a liberal ultra-left "Nutcase with an Attitude."
Color Me Red, White and Blue,
NSNR-THM
Not likely.
Yeah, riiiiight. I'd love to know where she gets this figure. I know A LOT of people, including a lot of Liberals, and I don't know one single person that is in favor of sending more of their hard earned money to Washington to be wasted or stolen. Quite the contrary, Molly.
Molly Ivins Cant't Eat That, Can She ?
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