Posted on 03/01/2008 7:15:57 AM PST by Richard Poe
| by Richard Lawrence Poe Friday, February 29, 2008 |
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I ADDRESS this column to that new breed of conservative, the Hillarycon. These are conservatives who support Hillary Clinton. Below I describe the three types of Hillarycon and explain why each is wrong.
TYPE 1: The Innocent Hillarycon
The first type is the most well-meaning, but possibly the most deluded. Innocent Hillarycons view Hillary as a weaker candidate than Obama, and thus seek to help Hillary win the nomination.
They are wrong. Hillary's weakness is an illusion. She is playing rope-a-dope with Obama. By hanging on the ropes, and taking Obama's punches, Hillary saves her strength for the knockout punch.
Rest assured, the knockout will come. No matter how many primaries Obama wins, Hillary will beat him at the convention. Backroom intrigue is her specialty.
Hillary will bully, bribe and blackmail the superdelegates to vote for her. She will claim disqualified delegates from Michigan and Florida. She will steal state delegates through litigation. At the appointed time, Hillary's media operatives will ambush Obama with allegations of corruption, immorality and extremism.
Hillary has powerful patrons in all the right places. She will win the nomination.
The real purpose of Hillary's rope-a-dope is to lull Republicans into complacency. In this, she has largely succeeded.
Conservative talk radio jocks have lost interest in Hillary. On February 11, Sean Hannity suspended his "Stop Hillary Express" campaign, arguing that Obama poses a greater threat. Rush Limbaugh told listeners on February 26, "the longer Hillary can stay in this the better for us." He urged Republicans to register as Democrats and vote for Hillary in the primaries, "to keep that party at war with itself."
Hillary's rope-a-dope has paralyzed conservative book publishers, none of whom are assigning Hillary exposés. They fear she will drop from the race before their books hit the shelves.
"When I get anti-Hillary proposals, I tell them, ‘Just wait and see if she becomes president,’ ’’ says Marji Ross, president of Regnery Publishing. Regnery's 2004 release Unfit for Command torpedoed John Kerry's campaign.
No Unfit for Command will dog Hillary this election season. It is too late to assign such a research-intensive book. Hillary has outmaneuvered the dirt-diggers.
TYPE 2: The Crafty Hillarycon
The second type of Hillarycon supports her for Machiavellian reasons. A Hillary presidency would teach Americans a lesson, they say. Her extremist policies would shock the nation, driving voters into the conservative camp.
Nonsense. This is a formula for suicide. As president, Hillary would liquidate conservatives, unleashing the fury of America's counterterror apparatus against us.
Most vulnerable are volunteer groups like the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which patrols the Mexican border to stop illegal crossings. Minutemen were outraged when President Bush called them "vigilantes". But Bush never hampered their operations. President Hillary would handle them differently. She would declare the Minutemen "domestic terrorists" and send them to Gitmo for waterboarding.
If this sounds farfetched, consider the counterterror policies of the last Clinton regime. Barely a month after Bill Clinton took office in January 1993, Muslim jihadists detonated a bomb beneath the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring thousands. The Clintons responded by declaring war on "domestic terrorists".
Only two days after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing -- on February 28, 1993 -- the Clintons laid siege to the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. New York Governor Mario Cuomo told NBC on March 1 that our biggest security threat was, “Americans killing one another with guns". Attorney General Janet Reno declared on March 13 that her number one priority would be protecting abortion clinics from terror attacks. Then came Project Megiddo, an FBI program targeting rightwing Christians.
TYPE 3: The Spiteful Hillarycon
The third type of Hillarycon supports Hillary out of spite. These are ideological purists whose hatred for President Bush has metastasized into hatred for all things Republican. Since they must vote Democrat or not vote at all, they choose Hillary, claiming she is more "conservative" than the rest.
Spiteful Hillarycons are the worst of the lot, because they are phonies. They know very well that Hillary has not a "conservative" bone in her body. But then, neither have the Spiteful Hillarycons.
What they share with Hillary is anger and vengefulness. They would gladly cast their votes for Mao Tse-Tung, if they thought it would vex President Bush. Their motives are psychological, not political.
This then is the Hillarycon agenda. It is neither a Republican agenda, nor a conservative agenda, nor a winning agenda. It is Hillary's agenda. Surely we can do better than this.
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Richard Lawrence Poe is a contributing editor to Newsmax, an award-winning journalist and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Siezed Control of the Democratic Party, co-written with David Horowitz. |
[You got four pings?]
Lol, I think they know I am a rabid anti Hillary graphic maker - ya think?
Glad there are still conservatives out there!
The reason for borrowing $1,500,000,000,000 from China to go overseas while leaving our border wide open and claiming it's all in the name of security of our homeland makes no sense to me.
I tried to answer and began talking immediately. The host cut me off. Ron Paul didn’t think they were a threat to us and it was not our concern.
I don't pretend to know why our rulers want open borders. The reasons they offer don't make sense to me, and that is worrisome.
But I have no trouble at all seeing why the Middle East needs to be pacified and maintained as a de facto American protectorate. With oil supplies dwindling globally, we cannot afford to depend on the good will of unstable Arab nations for access to petroleum. We need to secure our access to Middle Eastern petroleum with 100 percent reliability.
Granted, you won't hear any Bush administration officials speaking candidly on this issue, but that is an unfortunate side effect of the times in which we live. Our mass culture has become so degraded by political correctness, that most people think it is immoral to go to war over anything as practical as access to resources.
Imagine trying to persuade Americans nowadays that we should go to war because our taxes and tariffs are too high (American Revolution) or to secure the right of our merchant ships to navigate the Mediterranean Sea without having to pay tribute to North African despots (Barbary Pirates War).
The fact is, wars have always been fought over control of resources, be it land, people, seaports, trade routes, petroleum or whatever. This is neither good nor bad. It is an undeniable fact of life.
It is not at all inconsistent to say that we are fighting for our freedom when we fight for access to resources, because our freedom depends upon our ability to sustain a thriving economy, without depending upon the promises or good will of foreign countries.
In this politically correct age, I don't expect everyone to understand or accept this point, but I certainly expect such understanding from a man who aspires to be president.
Ron Paul either does not understand geopolitics, or he is pretending not to understand it, and I am not sure which is worse.
Also, when it comes down to the general election, I would suggest that any time and money that could be spent supporting McCain would be better spent supporting good people running for Congress. Regardless of who wins the Presidency, we'll need all the good people in Congress we can get. If diverting support from McCain results in a couple more good people getting into Congress, I'd consider that a positive even if such diversion would cost McCain a victory.
Why don't you think McCain would act to stop that, given that he wrote legislation to forbid any such grass-roots people from doing anything to spread their message to the public? Even sending five hundred or more unsolicited letters to people telling them that McCain is a jerk is a felony offense, thanks to Senator McCain.
It is very unlikely that the Republicans will win both of the next two Presidential races. I would say that the odds of the Republicans winning in 2012 are much greater if McCain loses 2008 than if he wins.
I would suggest that the country would be in worse shape in 2016, after a McCain win in 2008 followed by a Democrat in 2012, than it would be in 2012 following a McCain loss. Unless one regards the decline of this country as inevitable and simply wishes to survive as long as possible, I see no reason to regard the former as preferable.
HOORAY Richard Poe!
HOORAY Richard Poe!
HOORAY Richard Poe!
These “Obama is the new greater threat conservatives”, when none of them gave a rats ass about this guy 5 years ago, DO NOT HAVE THE KILLER INSTINCT. They are useless.
Outstanding article. Thanks for posting/documenting/linking.
Your predictions seem to take for granted that America's electoral system will survive four years of Democrat rule, and will still function in much the same way come 2012. I do not share your confidence.
If we can't survive four years of Democrat rule now, what makes you believe we could survive four years of Democrat rule from 2013-2016?
Or perhaps feels that others should be carrying their weight, not just us.
The Democratic Party, as presently constituted, cannot be trusted with the reins of government. It has devolved into a totalitarian cult, fundamentally at odds with American ideals and traditions.
If the Democrats want to continue taking part in our two-party system, we must demand that they purge their ranks of extremist elements. I realize this will not be easy. A dreadful struggle lies ahead for our country. We must not shrink from the fight.
I don't want to get off-topic, but your tagline caught my eye. Are you a right-to-die advocate?
read tonight bump
Hillary's weakness is an illusion. She is playing rope-a-dope with Obama... No matter how many primaries Obama wins, Hillary will beat him at the convention. Backroom intrigue is her specialty. Hillary will bully, bribe and blackmail the superdelegates to vote for her. She will claim disqualified delegates from Michigan and Florida. She will steal state delegates through litigation. At the appointed time, Hillary's media operatives will ambush Obama with allegations of corruption, immorality and extremism... She will win the nomination.Well, she has been telegraphing those very moves, or already carrying them out, sometimes (in the case of Obama's past) by proxy. Both she and Obama have been buying superdelegates, and there have been calls for the seating Fla's and Mich's locked out delegates.
Well stated, Richard. Thanks for the ping!
Agree 100%.
I don't disagree with you. On the other hand, if McCain were to win I see no reason to believe that the situation we would face in 2012 would be any better than the one we face today. If conservatives in the U.S. can't withstand a liberal president in the next four years, I don't see how they'd be more able after McCain spends four years working to undermine them.
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