Here comes Hillary, again

The Clinton News Network (aka CNN) has been in ecstasy in recent days, at least since the release of Hillary Clinton’s new memoir. It didn’t take long for Clinton to make another self-serving gaffe—before a “friendly” interviewer in Diane Sawyer—but more about that later. Not surprisingly, there is an expectation that this signals an indication that she intends to run for president again (bring on that face powder), and no one but Clinton is being mentioned as a presidential possibility on the Democratic side. An upcoming television mini-series on Clinton’s life is also unprecedented in its shameless promotion of her potential candidacy. 

But other things never change about Hillary Clinton, the same things that turned Democratic voters like myself against her, and easily embraced Barack Obama’s candidacy: Her sense of “entitlement,” as if the word was invented just to serve her; that sense that just beneath the surface, there is a temper tantrum ready to explode over the slightest personal offense, alienating any and all within earshot; that malicious “sarcasm” that accomplishes the same; her habit of “explaining” any question of her failings with the accusation of “sexism”; her claims of taking ”responsibility” for failures under her watch, yet refusing to admit any personal blame; making farfetched claims for “accomplishments” either exaggerated or lacking in importance; making bizarre statements that question her ability to maintain an even-keel under pressure; and using—while denying—racist “code” if she believes that it will help her with conservative white voters. 

Clinton is clearly consumed with her own “victimization”—curiously a belief supported by gender activists in the same media to which Clinton issued the rather petulant threat "In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I'm keeping a chart." Nevertheless, she is dependent upon it to keep her “popularity” from sinking like a stone—especially among minority voters who she seems to think she doesn’t need, and blames for her failure to win the nomination in 2008. 

This is the same person who claimed to see “sexism” in the Obama campaign (even interpreting something Obama “admitted” to her as “confirmation” of this), yet she was the same person who claimed that “Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me." This racially-tinged assumption was reinforced and even expanded upon by her feminist supporters, like former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and Bonnie Erbe—the latter who with shocking audacity urged Obama to vacate his primary victory because white voters “won’t vote for you.” As it turned out, she apparently was speaking about voters like Harriet Christian, who crashed a Democratic meeting parsing out primary votes from Michigan and Florida, decrying the “inadequate black male” and announcing her intention to vote for John McCain.

Clinton also made remarks that at least put that question mark before her ability to “command” under pressure, which she frequently accused Obama of lacking. As the 2008 primary season was ending and it was clear to everyone but her that she had lost, she asserted that "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it." The rest of should be “forgiven” for not understanding what the hell she was talking about. How can anyone in a right mind say something like that? Was she suggesting that someone might assassinate Obama, and she would then be the nominee? That is the only logical interpretation of this statement. But then again, what has “logic” to do with much of what Clinton has to say? One suspects that Eleanor Roosevelt would tell her in one their “imaginary” conversations that she was off her rocker too. 

Coming back to Clinton’s latest gaffe of logic, it isn’t the “dead broke” in 2000 comment that the media is calling merely “being honest,” but the one where she claims that her and Bill’s life was just like yours and mine (meaning average working stiffs) at one time, which she suggests is an indication of her “empathy” for our plight. The truth is that the Clintons have profited well from their position and notoriety, and from this position Clinton has often seemed patronizing and demanding of the support of the “little people.” No one should begrudge Bill Clinton’s success, which he earned; but Hillary Clinton’s has seemed more built upon an edifice of sand, propped-up by her husband who no doubt feels that he “owes” her this. 

Nevertheless, Clinton does have her zombie-like disciples who will follow her anywhere and forgive everything, and many in the media see her as the vicarious embodiment of their own fantasies. It also seems clear that her position has been dependent on the popularity of the man she once described thus: "If I didn't kick his ass every day, he wouldn't be worth anything." Kind of a “sexist” remark, but as a woman, Clinton is allowed some laxity, but Bill Clinton’s easy rapport with average people has been indispensible to the rise of someone who would have alienated too many people right from the jump to have any political career at all. 

Still, in the event that Clinton is actually the Democratic nominee in 2016, it would probably be a useless gesture for me to pass on voting. But if I have anything to say about the presidential election, it won’t be in support of her, but in opposition to her Republican opponent; with the extremist Tea Party far from dead after the stunning primary defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, it would simply be a matter of the lesser of two.