Proud to know "the 2 Bushes," the Kennedys, Nixon ASHINGTON, Jan.16-- Mort Sahl,"Will Rogers with fangs," the 60s satirist and self-professed "radical independent" who cut his political-eyeteeth at the Hungry i, put the intellectual--if not the final--nail in the clinton legacy coffin on the Aaron Brown Show tonight. (Who is Aaron Brown? Imagine Charlie Rose plus paunch minus Southern suavity.) That the eponymous Clinton News Network (CNN) televised the demise only added to the irony. Brown asked Sahl what he thought of clinton. "Never met him." The terse Sahl non sequitur did not deter the host. Brown probed further with polite imprecision, which is his hallmark. "Would you like to meet him?" With neither hesitation nor the slightest hint of irony, Sahl explained, "I have no desire to meet clinton; with no morality, there's nothing there." By way of contrast, the intrepid iconoclast, who never knew a president he didn't skewer, went on to express pride in knowing "the two Bushes," the Kennedys and Nixon. So much for the clinton legacy. The CLINTON-WAS-AN-UTTER-FAILURE Containment Team Scheme, counterproductive on its face, is now officially dead. If the clintons had any concern for the American aesthetic, they would bury it...and themselves, while they're at it. |
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EW YORK, Feb. 7--Greta Van Susteren, clintonoid extralegal cudgel plucked by Fox from the eponymous Clinton News Network (CNN) and now host of her own show, "On the Record," demonstrated in real-time that her much "eyed" Fox-y redo was, indeed, only cosmetic. In a state of obvious disequilibrium at "fair and balanced" Fox, Greta, cross-examining Dick Morris with standard issue clinton cya-ing talking points, behaved as though she were still a CNN CLINTON-WAS-AN-UTTER-FAILURE Containment Team Scheme co-conspirator. And Morris, not one to take it lying down, (so to speak), quickly called her on it with with, "You're still a CNN person!"-- spitting out "CNN" with a force one usually reserves for only the most obscene invective. The impetus for Greta's rage was a devastating piece in "The Wall Street Journal" detailing clinton's utter failure in combating terrorism; it was written by Morris, who should know -- he was former clinton advisor, personal pollster and closest confidant. The logical endpoints of Morris' argument -- that clinton is the proximate cause of 9/11, that clinton put civilization, itself, at great risk and that clinton was, therefore, an utter failure as president -- put Greta in extreme CLINTON-WAS-AN-UTTER-FAILURE Containment Team Scheme mode. Greta buttressed her clinton cya-ing talking points with clinton-provided New York Times cites. There is no clearer case of petitio principii, begging the question, than this. (Any person still sentient after eight years of the clintons knows that the The New York Times is merely the clinton cya-ing talking points writ large (or is it small??).) Greta's position at Fox is tenuous. As a CLINTON-WAS-AN-UTTER-FAILURE Containment Team Scheme co-conspirator, Greta's sycophancy, second only to that of Helen Thomas, is inconsistent with Fox News audience demographics. Famous for his simultaneous use of phones and toes, Morris conducted an "On the Record" poll tonight as he toed the line with Greta. "According to the poll," said Morris, " Greta's a goner." |
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Unless you get paid for it.
Do you?
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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. |