Posted on 02/13/2008 4:31:19 AM PST by fweingart
As lies go, they are tiny. But because they are so blatantly false and unnecessary, they stand out as a defining moment.
"This was Patti's decision," Hillary Clinton insisted about why she booted campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle. Piling on the whoppers, Clinton later added that, contrary to clear evidence her campaign is in trouble, "I feel good about where we are."
Clinton was recorded making those ridiculous statements by news organizations around the nation, mostly without comment. None was necessary. It was just another unremarkable moment in the downhill slide of American politics. Lies, big ones and little ones, are so much a part of the landscape that we don't even take note of them anymore.
It is the sort of event that recalls the late Sen. Pat Moynihan's line about "deviancy defined down" - when the outrageous becomes routine. Moynihan was talking about how New York got used to rampant street crime and inept government, but Washington has developed its own version of the soul-sapping disease.
Then along comes Barack Obama to shatter our habit of low expectations. Win or lose, he has made a genuine contribution by redefining our political discourse. In his hands, the contest is about hope and inspiration instead of demonizing and distortion. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, it will be almost impossible to put it back in.
And not just among the throngs of young voters he has inspired. Even us graybeards, reared on the idealism of the '60s, have longed for a reason to trust our own generation with power. Instead, we got Bushes and Clintons. One gave us faith-based facts, the others gave us parsing and the definition of "is."
There are many reasons for Obama's phenomenal rise, not the least being he is a racial Rorschach test as well as a gem of a speaker. But it is the zinging content of his speeches that have shaken the country and mark him as a threat to the old order, starting with Clinton herself.
When Obama talks, as he did yesterday in Maryland, of voters being "tricked, bamboozled, fooled and hoodwinked," he is condemning her generation. When he says voters "are tired of the politics of the past, tired of spin, tired of PR," he doesn't have to name names.
We've all known this side of the Clintons, and yet, because we accepted it, they succeeded. And because they succeeded, others copied them. The result is a disaster, with apathy and cynicism toward government our secular religion.
Hillary's little lies about her campaign remind me of the way Bill started his presidential race in 1992. In March of that year, a Daily News reporter asked him whether he had ever used drugs. Clinton answered firmly, "I have never broken the laws of my country."
Technically true, but in plain English, a lie. The desired implication - that his answer was no - was misleading because he later admitted he had smoked marijuana in London. Even then, Clinton had to suggest he was innocent, saying he never inhaled.
Fast forward 16 years to Obama. After admitting in his first book he used drugs, including marijuana, Obama was asked by a playful reporter whether he had inhaled. Obama smiled and said, "that was the point."
The topic is narrow, but the contrast is striking. And that's the point. If we can't trust pols to tell us the truth on small things, why should we trust them on big things?
We will know soon enough whether Obama's time has come and whether he can meet his own standards. But we don't have to wait for a verdict on something that transcends him. The enthusiasm he has generated already proves that politics doesn't have to be just another lie.
Wait until, at the end of your days, it's payback time.
Then along comes Barack Obama to shatter our habit of low expectations.
We must be examining two different people. Believe it or not, this guy is more liberal than Hillary. Sending his foreign policy advisor (the worn-out Jimmy Kahtah hack)Brzezinski to Damascus at this point was a stoke of genius.
Yes, he's for "Change". Did I mention that he stands for "CHANGE"? Because this country is ready for a "C-H-A-N-G-E".
America is about to experience what a David Dinkins administration would've been like on a national level.
He hasn’t been in politics long enough to rack up enough lies to be noticed, but just wait.
“Barry O., Superstar,
“Do you think you’re what they say you are?”
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Add a muslim education to that experience.
I shudder to think of how he plans to implement those things he never talks about in detail, particularly such comments as, "Not only will I end this war, I will remove the basis for war."
He’s the one...
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Obama: elected by the people who gave us Carol Moosely Braun, the welfare queen who, during her tenure, took many expensive trips (financed by the federales) to that Mecca of stability, South Africa. Further, she uttered many memorable, but completely inane, statements on the floor of the disgraceful U. S. Senate.
At least one sentence in this piece that I agree with wholeheartedly.
He’s one.
“Then along comes Barack Obama to shatter our habit of low expectations. Win or lose, he has made a genuine contribution by redefining our political discourse. In his hands, the contest is about hope and inspiration instead of demonizing and distortion. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, it will be almost impossible to put it back in.”
Has any one else noticed that Obama’s campaign is the equivalent of ‘global climate change’? He proposes nothing but empty arguments and rhetoric about the need to ‘change’.
“And not just among the throngs of young voters he has inspired. Even us graybeards, reared on the idealism of the ‘60s, have longed for a reason to trust our own generation with power. Instead, we got Bushes and Clintons. One gave us faith-based facts, the others gave us parsing and the definition of “is.””.
Not suprising. Back in the 90’s I debated many Clintonistas on compuserve. They were just as dissatisfied with Clinton as we were but only because he ‘sold out’ and was not as ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ as they wanted.
“I shudder to think of how he plans to implement those things he never talks about in detail, particularly such comments as, “Not only will I end this war, I will remove the basis for war.””
Spoken just like the anti-christ.
There is not one cogent ingredient in what these lefty-loonies utter. They are not only devoid of truth, but they are devoid of content.
They prattle on and on and on in front of their worshippers who sit there with mouths agape drinking in every word; however, at the end of the pontification they haven't a clue what it was all about.
Hillary's head bobs up and down like a plastic bird perched on the rim of a waterglass as others speak. Then when it's her turn she, believing her credentials from a left-wing institution of 'higher' learning will impress her audience wades in with words that mean absolutely nothing.
Her imbecilic husband-thingy, having read from the same communist primer, puts on the same empty show as his bloated 'wifey.'
Hillary is an empty black pants suit while her marxist, hillbilly, rapist 'mate' is just another empty suit.
We're in trouble....again.
He is also quoting a speech given by Denzel Washington playing Malcolm X in Spike Lee's biopic.
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