Posted on 05/05/2003 4:04:33 AM PDT by Mia T
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Nine Democratic presidential candidates battled tonight over the war in Iraq and over how to provide health care insurance for all Americans, in a debate that highlighted deep fissures in the party that several candidates warned could endanger its chances of winning back the White House.
It was the first time these candidates have met in debate, and it almost instantly turned into a squabble that revealed strong -- and in one case apparently personal -- differences in this crowded field, on national security and domestic policy.
Democrats' First Presidential Debate Shows Party Fissures |
hyperlinked images of shame |
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by Mia T, 4.6.03
Mia T, THE ALIENS
Al From is sounding the alarm. "Unless we convince Americans that Democrats are strong on national security," he warns his party, "Democrats will continue to lose elections."
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. |
The REAL "Living History" -- clintoplasmodial slime
Q ERTY8Either THEY are obsolete
or civilization is bump!
"the placebo president"--LOL. Is that yours, Mia?Thoroughly enjoyable essay, good stuff.
Against the picture of GWB on the Lincoln, I sure hope not . . .
THE award for the most indefinite position has to go to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. When her press secretary, Philippe Reines, was asked her position, he sent a transcript of Mrs. Clinton's remarks last Friday on CNN and a news account of her comments on Monday during a visit to Watervliet, N.Y. (It seems that the senator, still a bit first ladylike, is reluctant to pick up the phone.) March 6, 2003, The New York Times, |
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE [YOU KNOW] 'UPDATED'
GREENFIELD: Tonight, a conversation with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the nation and the world after September 11, on GREENFIELD AT LARGE. THE COMPLETE ANNOTATED INTERVIEW (NB: a very long, you know, download because of the, you know, clinton criminal, you know, redundancy.)
PUFFY-faced polemicist Christopher "Hellbound" Hitchens claims Bill Clinton is a "lousy crook." ... He rips into jokes about President Bush's intellect as "another liberal snig that annoys me a lot these days," adding, "The fact has to be faced: the intellectual candlepower of this administration is a great deal brighter than the Clinton administration . . . [and] the level of professionalism is very much higher." HALF A HOUSE, HALF A BRAIN: Why the clintons hit on Simon & Schuster Mindless rhinestone-studded-and-tented kleptocracy by Mia T John Podhoretz recently asked, "Whence comes hillary clinton's reputation for brilliance?" For the answer, he intuitively, rather brilliantly in fact, looked to her anatomy and noted,"This isn't the first time she's shot herself in the foot." The above anatomical analysis supports the Podhoretz thesis. Notwithstanding The Pod's erroneous conclusions concerning Ian Hunter recently observed that our leaders are shrinking. "From a Churchill (or, for that matter, a Margaret Thatcher) to a Tony Blair; from Eisenhower to Clinton; from Diefenbaker to Joe Clark; from Trudeau to Chretien -- we seem destined to be governed by pygmies." The pols understand their anatomical limitations well; they attempt to mitigate them with veneer. And so we suffer mindless alpha-beta-beelzebubba grotesquerie. . . With all the media genuflecting before the press-conference podium of bill clinton, it bears remarking yet again that the clinton intellect (an oxymoron even more jarring than AlGoreRhythm and meant to encompass the cognitive ability of both clintons) is remarkable only for its utter ordinariness, its lack of creative spark, its lack of analytic precision, its lack of depth. 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. Politicos and reporters are not rocket scientists . . . Professions tend to be self-selected, intellectually homogeneous subgroups of Homo sapiens. Great intellects (especially these days) do not generally gravitate towards careers in the media or politics. Mediocre, power-obsessed types with poor self-images do. Thus, clinton mediocrity goes undetected primarily because of media mediocrity. ("Mediocrity" and "media" don't come from the same Latin root (medius) for no reason.) Insofar as the clintons are concerned, the media confuse form with substance, smoothness with coherence, data-spewing with ratiocination, pre-programmed recitation with real-time analysis, an idiosyncratic degeneracy with creativity. Jimmy Breslin agrees. In Hillary Is the 'Me-First' Lady, Breslin laments: Listen carefully to the clintons. You will hear a shallow parody of the class president. Not only do they say nothing; they say nothing with superfluous ineloquence. Their speeches are sophomoric, shopworn, shallow, specious. Platitudinous pandering piled atop p.c. cliché In seven years, they have, collectively, uttered not one memorable word save, "It was a vast right-wing conspiracy," "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky,"and, "It all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is." Even the clintons' attempts at alliteration fall flat. Compare Agnew's (Safire's) "nattering nabobs of negativism" with clinton's "preachers of pessimism," an impotent, one-dimensional, plagiaristic echo (its apt self-descriptiveness notwithstanding). Before they destroy their backs along with their reputations, media gentry genuflecting at the altar of the clinton brain should consider Edith Efron's, Can the President Think? A wasted brain is a terrible thing. (Kudos to O"Reilly for taking her on this weekend during an interview by Tim Russert. He called her "ruthless and dangerous and answerable to no one.") |
. . . and liberalism/"political correctness" is the safe refuge of the mediocre. Reporters aren't going to savage a fellow mediocrity for mouthing liberal platitudes, whereas they will savage a conservative for not doing so. To be an outspoken conservative is thus to have courage (and, quite often, actual intelligence). To be an outspoken conservative is to risk being portrayed by your inferiors who buy ink by the barrel as "dumb." Even as such men of energy and accomplishment as GWB and Ronald Reagan have been.Thus, clinton mediocrity goes undetected primarily because of media mediocrity. ("Mediocrity" and "media" don't come from the same Latin root (medius) for no reason.) Insofar as the clintons are concerned, the media confuse form with substance, smoothness with coherence, data-spewing with ratiocination, pre-programmed recitation with real-time analysis, an idiosyncratic degeneracy with creativity.
Journalists are not experts at much but being celebrities--knowing how to herd together with other journalists and avoid flame wars with others who buy ink by the barrel. Knowing, that is, how to protect their own image, to remain celebrities. They are difficult to understand primarily because it's hard to accept that such prominent people are actually as shallow as they seem.The miracles of modern PR . . .
Isn't that the truth? Great line. We should remember it, and use it....often.
There's your problem right there. You're assuming that democRAT voters are sane and thinking people. If that were true, would they be democRATs?
And 9/11 was the sorry, inexorable endpoint of his pathological dysfunction....
The Real Danger of a Fake President: They say that the clear focus of American policy was to discourage the state sponsorship of terrorism. So persuading Khartoum to expel Bin Laden was in itself counted as a clear victory. The administration was "delighted". Bin Laden took off from Khartoum on May 18 in a chartered C-130 plane with 150 of his followers, including his wives. He was bound for Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. On the way the plane refuelled in the Gulf state of Qatar, which has friendly relations with Washington, but he was allowed to proceed unhindered. Barely a month later, on June 25, a 5,000lb truck bomb ripped apart the front of Khobar Towers, a US military housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The explosion killed 19 American servicemen. Bin Laden was immediately suspected... bill clinton, State of Union Speech, January 27, 2000 Among the comments clinton made in presence of Secret Service agents: After the Monica Lewinsky story broke, however, clinton toned down his rhetoric and behavior in front of his Secret Service agents, but those who guarded the president say enough of them saw and heard things which could be damaging to clinton. "It depends on who Ken Starr calls," says one ex-agent. "The people who are on the job today are not necessarily the ones who know the most." Turnover In clinton's Secret Service Detail 'Highest That Anyone Can Remember' Why does the press continue to ignore the Juanita Broaddrick story?
Richard Gere stunned fellow liberals Monday by suggesting that President Bush is doing a better job of fighting AIDS than President Bill Clinton did. Introduced by Sharon Stone at a fund-raiser at Cipriani 42nd Street for the American Foundation for AIDS Research, the "Chicago" star hailed Bush for his State of the Union proposal to contribute $15 billion toward the AIDS battle in Africa and the Caribbean. Gere then addressed the track record of Bush's predecessor in the White House. "I'm sorry, Sen. [Hillary] Clinton, but your husband did nothing about AIDS for eight years," Gere said. GERE TAKES ON BILL, NY Daily News | 2/5/03 September 11 changed a lot of things for me, Bill [O'Reilly]. I will say this, before September 11, I was definitely mildly myopic in terms of my political agenda. If you were Democrat you were probably right, and if you were a Republican you were probably wrong. Everything changed for me that day... My entire worldview changed. If you would have told me September 9 that I would have been at the world series game filming George Bush throwing out the first pitch with my 6-year-old son crying, I never would have believed you, but I was. Because my whole worldview changed.
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
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