A Glimpse into the American Political Soul

[tabs]

The Cheney/Bush operational principle for US foreign policy is.....We will do dam well what we please, when we please and how we please. The US doesn't need any approval from anybody for what we deem as being in our national interest.

The American Right hates Hillary because she has been disingenuous. In other words they feel she keeps her real thoughts and beliefs hidden, and in that they jump to the conclusion that she has a nefarious agenda.

The reality is written in the history of the previous Clinton administration. When the going gets tough the Clintons wuss out. Neither Clinton has been willing to suffer slings and arrows for their convictions. They are expert bullet dodgers or pass the responsibility artists.

So Hillary may have the big idea but she is unwilling to pay the cost to see it through. She will fold her cards. Or as the American Right sees it she will work in secret to put her nefarious plan in operation, because she so distrusts the will of the American people.

[Mo_Gearhead]

The BIG unspoken SECRET on the Right is this; they can't wait to run (whomever) against the "stand by your man" lady.

Dem's are assuming (incorrectly) that Hillary will turn much of the womens vote to her side ...when in effect ...she will only turn their stomachs!

My prediction: Dem's (with lots of dismay and gnashing of teeth) ...lose again in 08!

The Dem's also can't seem to figure out that ...G.W. Bush will NOT be on the ballot!

[frogger]

All the 2008 Presidential candidates suck. The Congressional (past GOP and present Dem) leadership sucks. The country will continue to backslide.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by frogger

All the 2008 Presidential candidates suck. The Congressional (past GOP and present Dem) leadership sucks. The country will continue to backslide.

Sad but true.

I was hoping for the emergence of a hero (or at least someone who wasn't a buffoon or a crook or a vomit-inducing career political hack). No such luck. The only candidates I feel remotely attracted to - Fred Thompson and Tom Tancredo, are dead in this campaign. Giuliani is a joke. Romney is a puppet. Hillary? Might as well start burning the country down now, since it'll be in ruins by the time she leaves. She'll tax the schit out of you and me, give it to the losers in our society in the name of "equality", and build a few multi-lane highways into Mexico so more illegals can come in and steal our jobs and our money.

This country is done. I give it 50 more years before it falls apart. And that's probably being generous.

[frogger]

My least objectionable candidate is Ron Paul, and he's only so-so. We need a strong, visionary leader to pull us out of the flat spin the country currently finds itself in.

[Mule]

Froggy, we agree on the quality of candidates. My least objectionable is Fred Thompson. Ron Paul has said some good things, but it think he's a few fries short of a happy meal.

[Rick Lee]

I'd love to see a Thompson/Paul ticket. Won't happen though.

I agree with Tabs that the Clintons will never ever risk unpopularity to do the right thing. She has never taken a tough question in her political career, let alone a tough stance. She dances around Iraq, but I think, as president, she'd do things no differently whatsoever than Bush, were he to get a third term. One thing I'll always admire Bush for was his attempt to address social security. He's the only politician who ever had the balls to even try and he got spanked for it. The Clintons would never even think of taking on something that bold.

[frogger]

From The Onion

If Elected, I Will Have The Hottest First Lady In U.S. History

By Sen. Fred Thompson
Presidential Candidate
October 17, 2007 | Issue 43•42


My fellow Americans, in the coming presidential election, the voters of this nation will plot a course for the future. There are many candidates, each of whom brings a different vision of that future. But only one has the conviction and strength to lead this great country. Only one is a popular television and film actor ready to face the challenges of the 21st century head-on. And, most importantly, there is only one candidate with a bombshell trophy wife nearly a quarter-century younger than himself.

I urge each and every one of you to run a Google image search and see the evidence for yourself: photo after photo of a tall but wrinkled and sagging 64-year-old man—that's me—standing at various gala events, his arm wrapped around a stunning woman with glowing orange skin and beautiful platinum- highlighted hair. A bold woman, squeezed into a dress with a plunging neckline so low her enormous breasts seem almost ready to leap out and scream, "Hey world—look at us! We are married to a famous man we saw in Die Hard 2 when we were in college!"

That's her, ladies and gentlemen. That's my wife. Yes, we are actually married.

If elected, I pledge that same woman—who is a full six years younger than my eldest son—will be by my side at all state dinners, dressed to the nines, causing the Chinese delegation's jaws to drop in amazement at her gravity-defying rack.

This is my solemn vow to all Americans.

I am aware of the critics who doubt my ability to deliver on this promise. "What about Jackie Kennedy?" they ask. "Wasn't she a hotter first lady?" If all America cares about is hotness from the neck up, then yes. Though Jackie looked good in a pillbox hat, she never possessed that I-have-obvious-father-issues sort of hotness the people of this country appreciate so deeply. Go on, close your eyes and try picturing Jackie Kennedy on the cover of some magazine spilling out of a bikini. You can't do it, can you? Now try the same mental experiment with Mrs. Fred. The results speak for themselves.

I say America deserves hotter.

I am a man of simple conservative values, values I learned sitting around the kitchen table with my grandfather. It was there, at the age of 9, that he told me, "Boy, one day, you will find true love with a woman who will be born in about 15 years. Promise Jesus that when you marry her in your late 50s you will be true."

I intend to honor that promise.

In my many years in Hollywood and Washington, I've been with country-western singers, actresses, and models. America, I even once saw Nicole Kidman's bush when I accidentally walked into her trailer on the set of Days of Thunder, in which I played the role of Big John. But despite it all, I've grown to value and cherish my wife more than any star****er I've ever known.

Because my wife is so much more than just a sweet slice, sweet though she may be. She is a mother who has given me two beautiful children, whom I adore, even if they do get confused sometimes and call me "Grandpa." But I know that in the Thompson household, when I ask the question, "Who's your daddy?" there is always one person I can rely on to scream out my name. This is my guarantee to you, the voters.

If you elect me as your next president, you will see this woman on TV nearly every day, jogging around the Rose Garden in tight Lycra shorts, bouncing all over the place with a figure that Americans of every stripe—from surgeons to truckers—will want to nail. Yours will be a first lady who is not only hot enough to appear in Playboy, but who might actually be willing to appear in Playboy. And if you choose me to be your next president, that is exactly what she'll do, in the November 2012 issue, guaranteeing me a second term once the public gets a good look at those truly incredible bazongas.

Thank you, and God bless America.

[The Gaijin]

That settles it. FRED IS THE MAN!

[tabs]

If the Repblicans can't come up with a strong canidate with shining white teeth soon, then Hillary will be the next occupant of the WH. Never underestimate the Clintons, Hillary has been laying the ground work since 2001 for this dash for the cash.

Everything has been dedicated for this effort. If there is one thing Bill is a genius at, that is running a campaign for office. He has put the pieces of the puzzle together (used his intellect) and made a well oiled machine out of how to get elected.

Hillary will be a more of the same ole thing President. The Right fears she will burn the country down, she doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to do it. The past is prelude to what you will see from her in the futher.

[Rick Lee]

Yes, Bubba's '92 campaign was the best ever. And he's helping his wife out a lot, but he can't do everything. He can't make her likeable to the avg. Joe, he can't peel away a single GOP voter for her and he probably can't even make swing voters like her. I'm as scared of her as everyong else is, but I just can't see her winning by getting just the base and the idiots alone. She has to win swing voters and a few GOP'ers, which I can't see happening. The most liberal person I know hates Hillary. I don't know a single person who would vote for her under any circumstances.

[tabs]

Hillary in her heart is still a good little Republican girl from the Midwest. When she went away to college she became a Lefty as a reaction to the stodgy mean old Republican parents she has. However she has never been able to confront those parents with their meanness, so she will wither in face of Mother eg any solid opposition.

That has been the traits that both Hill and Bill share in common. So they have learned not to put their cards on the table but to work around secretly to get what they want. That is what sends the paranoia of the Right into the stratosphere, this belief that they have a nefarious agenda.

[Rick Lee]

I think Chuck spells it out well here.


The Great Navigator

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, October 12, 2007; A17

Bill Clinton's greatest domestic achievement, aside from abolishing welfare, was free trade. The crown jewel was the North American Free Trade Agreement. He got that through Congress over sustained union opposition in 1993. Monday, Sen. Hillary Clinton proposed that NAFTA and other existing trade agreements be reassessed every five years.

The Post correctly called Hillary's retreat from free trade " opportunism under pressure," the pressure being the rampant and popular protectionism of her presidential rivals, particularly in protectionist Iowa. But while "opportunism under pressure" suggests ( pace Hemingway) cowardice, the better description of Clintonism is slipperiness. Adaptability. Cynicism, if you like.

Note her clever use of terms. Reassessing NAFTA sounds great to protectionists, but it is perfectly ambiguous. It could mean abolition or radical curtailment. It could also mean establishing a study commission whose recommendations might not reach President Hillary Clinton's desk until too late in her second term.

The Post editorial noted "a perverse kind of good news" in Hillary's free-trade revisionism: "There's little chance that her position reflects any deeply held principle." And there lies the beauty not just of Clinton on free trade but of the Clinton candidacy itself: She has no principles. Her liberalism is redeemed by her ambition; her ideology subordinate to her political needs.

I could never vote for her, but I (and others of my ideological ilk) could live with her -- precisely because she is so liberated from principle. Her liberalism, like her husband's -- flexible, disciplined, calculated, triangulated -- always leaves open the possibility that she would do the right thing for the blessedly wrong (i.e., self-interested, ambition-serving, politically expedient) reason.

I could never vote for her because the Clintons' liberal internationalism on display in the 1990s -- the pursuit of paper treaties and the reliance on international institutions -- is naive in theory and feckless in practice. And her domestic policy sees state intervention and expansion as the answer to every human ill from mortgage default to the common cold. Nonetheless, if 2008 is going to be a Democratic year, as it very well could, Hillary would serve the country better than any of her Democratic rivals.

On Iraq, for example, she talks like someone who knows she may soon be commander in chief and will need room to maneuver in order to achieve whatever success might be possible. Clinton has emphatically refused to give assurances that she would get us out of Iraq during her first term. Unlike, for example, Bill Richardson, who advocates a rout so radical that we'd leave equipment behind, she has committed herself to little more than a drawdown of forces as conditions allow.

On Iran, Clinton has been pilloried from the left for supporting a completely anodyne resolution urging the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. This would trigger serious economic sanctions that would greatly complicate its ability to operate.

Her leading rivals opposed the resolution on the bogus grounds that it is a blank check for Bush to go to war with Iran. It is nothing of the sort. An earlier version of the resolution that would have allowed "the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments" to counter Iranian activity inside Iraq might indeed have been interpreted as such an authorization. But that provision was dropped in the resolution that Clinton, and 75 other senators, voted for.

And look what Clinton unveiled this week: a modestly government-subsidized, personal retirement account. True, it is yet another big-government middle-class entitlement. Yes, she ignores the looming Social Security crisis. On the other hand, establishing a universal, portable, personal retirement account (though without the government subsidy) is something conservatives have long and devoutly sought. It establishes a parallel to the Social Security system -- the perfect vehicle for a future conservative administration to use for shifting from the current, unsustainable government-controlled program to a privatized system such as the one in Chile.

Even Clinton's response to a debate question on torture -- "As a matter of policy it cannot be American policy, period" -- is elegantly phrased to imply an implacable opposition to torture and yet leave open the possibility that in extreme circumstances a president would do what she had to do, i.e., authorize torture, regardless of the express policy.

Clinton rarely falters. Always careful, always calibrated, always leaving room for expediency over ideology. That's Clintonism, of both marital flavors. Gender sensitivity prevents me from calling her the consummate needle-threader. Consider her instead Columbus's match as the Great Navigator.

[Mo_Gearhead]

Video tape, digital video, tape recorded speeches, You Tube, the Internet, blogs,...etc. Because of these, politicians can no longer travel the vast country side, telling specific audiences what THEY want to hear ...then venturing off to the next stop to do the same with, at times (gasp!), a differing version. The VOTING public is so much more informed today.

Hillary (once she is picked as the nominee) will find herself swamped with such video/audio recollections of her constant "waffling". The political ads will be unrelenting.

Think "swift boat" revisited.

[Superman]

The Right has been underestimating Clintons for quite some time now, and it appears as though they have learned nothing. Don't get me wrong. I'm not necessarily supporting her or predicting victory, but it sounds like a Hillary presidency would surprise many of you WAY more than it would surprise me.

In terms of the visibility of certain tactics there is a hierarchy. Bully pulpit tactics are the most visible, obviously. Politics in general, actually. Rolling up one's sleeves and doing the job of management is far less visible. Challenging your VP's. Being more prepared than they are. Setting an agenda and tracking progress. Doing something to address each of the problems on the horizon. Looking at the horizon.

And then there are secret deals. Invisible. Sure, Bill Clinton had confidential conversations. But I think you guys might be getting "management" confused with "making secret deals." Understandable, since your "president" knows about secret deals but does not know about management. One of the hallmarks of the Clinton administration is that he managed the Cabinet. He worked hard. He was prepared for those meetings. He understood that pursuing a strategy meant hard work and decisions and tracking over a fair period of time.

No smoke and mirrors. No incantations or trick photography. Just plain ol' hard work and looking ahead of the next curve. But hey, your confusion is understandable. You haven't seen this happen since 1999.

[Mo_Gearhead]

...or sticking a wet finger in the air, taking another poll....

[Moneyguy1]

So, tabs...are you to some degree in the first paragraph saying that the current POTUS is a very dangeous individual?

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Moneyguy1

So, tabs...are you to some degree in the first paragraph saying that the current POTUS is a very dangeous individual?

It depends on 2 things. One is if you are in front of him or behind him. Two is if he has a gun in his hand or not.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Superman

The Right has been underestimating Clintons for quite some time now, and it appears as though they have learned nothing. Don't get me wrong. I'm not necessarily supporting her or predicting victory, but it sounds like a Hillary presidency would surprise many of you WAY more than it would surprise me.

In terms of the visibility of certain tactics there is a hierarchy. Bully pulpit tactics are the most visible, obviously. Politics in general, actually. Rolling up one's sleeves and doing the job of management is far less visible. Challenging your VP's. Being more prepared than they are. Setting an agenda and tracking progress. Doing something to address each of the problems on the horizon. Looking at the horizon.

And then there are secret deals. Invisible. Sure, Bill Clinton had confidential conversations. But I think you guys might be getting "management" confused with "making secret deals." Understandable, since your "president" knows about secret deals but does not know about management. One of the hallmarks of the Clinton administration is that he managed the Cabinet. He worked hard. He was prepared for those meetings. He understood that pursuing a strategy meant hard work and decisions and tracking over a fair period of time.

No smoke and mirrors. No incantations or trick photography. Just plain ol' hard work and looking ahead of the next curve. But hey, your confusion is understandable. You haven't seen this happen since 1999.

The Clinton cabinet style of management was to argue endlessly over the pros and cons of an issue the resolution being ordering out for Pizza.