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Posted on 10/06/2002 1:17:18 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
BY MAUREEN DOWD
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Watching Robert Torricelli mist and mewl, as he was torn from the bosom of the Senate, gave me new pause over that old question: Are men biologically suited to hold political office and leadership positions?
We have the Torch dousing himself in self-pity and wondering why nobody will forgive him for something he claims he never did with a sugar daddy who draped him in Italian-made clothes and Tiffany baubles.
We've got a tearful Andrew Cuomo getting the vapors and being led away from the governor's race on the strong arms of Bill Clinton and Charlie Rangel. And Jeb Bush crying whenever his daughter is busted.
We've got Tom Daschle in a lipstick-pink tie practically having a drama-queen breakdown on the floor of the Senate about being the victim of those nasty White House bullies.
We've got the Dow, the ultimate measure of macho capitalism, going all fluttery-jittery at the prospect of battle: depressed one minute, hyperactive the next.
We've got Ari Fleischer -- the same Ari who on Tuesday called on Iraqis to assassinate Saddam because "the cost of one bullet" would be "substantially less" than the $13 billion cost of a war -- in a swivet because reporters found out he registered for his wedding gifts at Target instead of Tiffany.
The arena is full of powerful men in touch with their powerless inner women. And yet, surrounded by famous men puddling under pressure, American girls are still doubtful about the prospects of a woman becoming president. According to a poll in Tuesday's USA Today, 40 percent said they would not see one within 10 years and a grim 14 percent "not in my lifetime."
Are those 14 percent unaware of the Clintonian relentlessness of the junior senator from New York?
In the latest sign that she is running for president in 2008, candidate Hillary Clinton is staying away from Al Gore's kumbayah corner.
Whatever doubts she may have privately about war, she is not articulating her angst as loudly as some of her Democratic colleagues.
She knows that any woman who hopes to be elected president cannot have love beads in her jewelry case. It may be too much even to be caught with a worn copy of "Tapestry."
Clinton has said that she will support President Bush if he decides to take out Saddam. "I know a little bit about what it's like on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, making these difficult decisions," she told Tim Russert.
Just as her husband was obsessed with maintaining his "political viability" during the Vietnam draft, candidate Clinton must keep her own political viability in mind during the Senate debate on war.
Although many Americans assume she is too polarizing a figure to ever get elected, the former first lady has been shrewd and pragmatic in how she has handled herself in the Senate. She did not have a tantrum when Republican leaders were stingy with her office space. Hillary has offered the other cheek to those who once pilloried her and has charmed her Senate elders, turning her Washington house into the Cipriani of fund raising, and has put Democrats in her debt by handing out fistfuls of cash from her political action committee.
Hillary and Bill, her very own Dick Morris, have a grandiose master plan that calls for John Kerry or John Edwards -- or Al Gore, if he can find any Democratic donors -- to be the sacrificial lamb in 2004 to a popular wartime president.
Hillary will try to quell criticisms that she is a pushy queen bee by playing the worker bee in the Senate for a few more years. She will disabuse those who thought she was the liberal in the White House, veering away from the left on issues like welfare and bankruptcy.
Her supporters have sketched out a Doomsday scenario that would catapult her into the White House:
In the flush of patriotism and empire-building, the Republicans take over the Senate and keep the House this fall. Then President Bush wins his war on Iraq. He and his inner circle become more arrogant.
Gen. Rove, as he is known in Hillaryland, pushes through the most reactionary agenda since the Congress of Vienna, packing the courts with young right-wingers opposed to abortion and all regulations. Congress, too, gets carried away with an ultra-conservative agenda.
The maniacally centrist American public craves another correction. Right, left, right, left. Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. Yup. In our lifetime.
If soccer moms can vote their loins, so can I ;-)
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
The masses have become dangerously ignorant and manipulated by corrupted crooks, such as clinton. The "give me" syndrome plays right into the hands of tyrants.
That will determine things; the idiot factor. There is no short supply of people who can be swayed by someone, who has never done a day's hard manual labor in his/her life, voting for some slick weasel claiming to be for "the common man." As long as she gets out there and spews her old "for the children" garbage, she will have no shortage of useful idiots hanging on her every word.
And therein lies the rub.
Hillary is formidable because she allows an entire electorate full of useful idiots to suspend disbelief.
Anyhoo, this is a repost of a Dowd article that was printed earlier this week.
It rests on one faulty, but critical assumption.
It presumes that Bush will practice extremist politics. I don't think that Bush is stupid enough to make that mistake, nor is Rove. Of course, for Dowd, even Arlen Specter is a "reactionary". One can see how Dowd might think that, however, as she tends to move in circles that talk with each other and agree with each other.
Of course, my friend Granite State Conservative and I have figured out that Rove and Bush have something extra special planned for Hillary come 2004, so I try not to worry about Hillary as much as some on this board do.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
I care little for either the Hildabeast or Patsy Schroeder, but if I were comparing Presidential worth the later who stand 100 times as tall as Hillary, and she would still be a midget compared to the worst Presidential candiates in history. So how can anybody in their right minds, regardless of political affiliation possibly vote for Hillary?
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