One of the commentators on CNN last night was great (and I can't remember who it was). He called Bill and Hillary the "Ike and Tina Turner of politics. They will not do anything nice and easy, it's got to be hard and rough."
ABOVE: Bill and Hillary Clinton will fight to the finish
Allegedly she is now pushing for the VP slot, but that speech last night was not the way to go about it. The strategy was to throw her weight around and bully Obama into begging her to join the ticket. Rarely does a politician in Obama's current position want to be seen as giving into threats. I am still convinced that her real endgame is to do enough damage to Obama so he loses to McCain, and then she will mount another campaign in 2012. That is the only plan that logically explains why she is doing what she is doing. It has been clear for weeks (actually, over a month) that Obama would be the nominee. Yet she and Bill continued their race baiting, divisive tactics. So far, Hillary has been a much more vicious foe for Obama than McCain. As offensive as Father Michael Pfleger's sermons were this last week, his caricature of Hillary was spot on.
Obama is really in a tough spot. He and his campaign rightfully can't stand her. Yet they could desperately use her on the ticket to convince her formidable army of supporters to back Obama. In some states, an amazing 30% of Hillary supporters claim they will vote for McCain before Obama. But what if? What if Obama makes a deal with the devil, and wins? What the hell would he do with Hillary and Bill once in office? What a nightmare.
On a personal note, congratulations to Obama for his historic night. It is frustrating, because I really want to support Obama. I like him and I feel like his victory in the general election would go a long way in healing our country. Yet I feel some of his policies would be disasterous, so I cannot in good conscience support him. McCain is right on Iraq. I can't really get beyond that point, because Obama's plans for Iraq would do such harm to the region and to us. So, go McCain.
9 comments:
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I know, I accidently posted the title before I could put up the actual post. Now it is up, so your "???" no longer makes any sense, Pocky.
McCain is wrong on Iraq - dead wrong.
I also disagree that Hillary's speech last night was divisive. I thought it was a good speech that emphasized party unity and praised Obama. Did she also congratulate herself? Of course, and she should. It doesn't bother me that she was not ready to make any decisions last night, but she needs to admit defeat and announce her plans to support Obama in the next few days. Beyond that, it will be more difficult to achieve party unity.
I saw McCain's speech last night. I actually like quite a bit of what he said (except on Iraq). I think he did a good job of differentiating himself from Obama and Bush.
On the other hand, is he the worst public speaker of any serious presidential contender in decades? Oh wait. He might be as good as W. They both laugh and smile at the wrong times. They both tell jokes that don't sound like jokes. They both look so uncomfortable that it's painful to watch.
I still love the clip of George W trying to say "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" but forgetting the line halfway through and finally saying something like "never get fooled again". I can't watch that without falling down with laughter.
Dre--your comment made me look for the clip, and I found this great compilation of a few of W's most awkward public speaking moments. It includes the OB-GYN quote about practicing their love with women and the "fool me once" line. Funny stuff!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ux3DKxxFoM
Thanks. Those are great.
I posted a response to you Dre, but then it didn't make sense so I deleted it and started over.
Hillary's speech last night wasn't so much divisive as it was not unifying, which is what would have been appropriate. But what she has been doing and saying this past month, when the entire country other than her and Bill seemed to realize that Obama had the nomination, has been divisive for her party. Why else do you think people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have been so vocal in support of her continuing on? It wasn't because they all the sudden fell in love with her politics. They were enjoying the destruction she was causing to the Democratic Party. The news later today is that she will suspend her campaign and endorse Obama on Friday, but only after a full day of phone calls to her from top Democratic officials telling her that she has no choice.
We already talked about Iraq before, but you've got to forget about whether we should have or should not have gone in and under what pretenses. The fact is: we are there now and how do we best deal with what we've got. Things seem to be turning around somewhat, we need to finish the job. You just don't tell an enemy that all they have to do is wait you out, even giving them a date so they can mark their calendars. McCain wants to finish the job and secure the region. Bush should not have gone in, but he did. Despite the Bush administration, we have changed tactics and are succeeding. Recall it was John McCain who was one of the earliest and most vocal critics of the old tactics and pushed for this more successful change in direction. He took as much heat from Republicans as he did from Democrats at the time.
I've got a good friend in the Air Force who has served two tours in Iraq so far (he just got back last month), and will likely have to go serve a third. He's a smart guy and I respect his opinion. His take, which is probably more valuable than mine or yours, is that McCain's position is definitely the correct one. He had an interesting thing to say, and although he's technically in the Air Force, he's not a pilot and spent all of his time on the ground in Iraq. He says that some (but definitely not all) men over there hate us, but the children and many of the women love us. And we are really there to help shape that next generation coming up. We are doing great work over there, and although we went in for bad reasons, we have a real opportunity now. Let us finish it.
Dez,
I agree with you on the divisive caused by Hillary's campaign tactics during the last couple of months. The sad thing is that it basically worked in terms of allowing her to outperform Obama in the later races, but it clearly divided the party.
However, she has backed off quite a bit on the negative campaigning in the last couple of weeks. And I thought she gave a good speech on Tuesday. I don't think a few days in early June makes any difference. And I also think she already planned to stop her campaign after she celebrated her accomplishments. I don't think Hillary caved in under pressure from party leaders. If she wanted to take this to the convention she would have done it. I actually believe she is sincere in wanting to do what's best for the party. I have always disagreed with your theory that she wants Obama to lose.
On Iraq, we clearly disagree. The surge has had some success in winning more battles but I don't see any end in sight to the war. I certainly hope I'm wrong. I'd love to see true democracy in Iraq, but I'm not convinced they are ready for it or even want it.
My expectation is that this is going to fail in the end. I don't see the point of delaying the inevitable and continuing to incur the costs in dollars and loss of American lives. I'm not suggesting a quick and immediate withdrawal and neither is Obama. But we should start the process sooner than later.
I'm chiming in on Dez's side with regards to Hillary, and Dre's side on Iraq.
I suppose we could argue about Hillary's tactics over the past several months -- I think the whole campaign has been despicable -- but I don't see how Tuesday's speech in particular can be defended. On the night she technically lost, she had herself introduced as "the next president of the United States." During her speech, her supporters chanted "Denver!" and she just smugly took it in. She barely mentioned Obama, and as always, she used the words "I" and "me" about a thousand times.
But on Iraq: I think McCain's been unfairly attacked for his hundred-years remark, which wasn't as insane as it was made to sound. Still, the notion that we'd be giving "our enemy" a date of our leaving doesn't disturb me. At this point, the Iraqis are enemies mostly to each other, and as dre says, we're losing American lives and money to a cause that might be "turning around" in the sense that it's less horrific, but there's no clear end game that gets us anything we went in for. I don't think Obama is stupid. I don't think he'll rush out in a panic. But it's high time we moved past the assertions that underpinned the Bush administration's policies, and while McCain isn't a mirror image of Bush, Obama represents a much cleaner break from that poisoned path.
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