Liberals

3 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Random Musings

difference

Matt Bai on Bill and Hillary:

This may be the defining difference between the candidacies of Bill Clinton and his wife, between Clintonism and Hillaryism, if such a thing can be said to exist. Like most successful outsiders, Bill Clinton directly challenged the status quo of both his party and the country, arguing that such a tumultuous moment demanded more than two stark ideologies better suited to the past. By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s campaign to this point has been mostly about restoring an old status quo; she holds herself up as the best chance Democrats have to end eight years of Bush’s “radical experiment” and to return to the point where her husband left off. It has been a strong but safe campaign, full of nondescript slogans (“I’m In to Win!” “The Change We Need!”) and familiar, if worthy, policy prescriptions. That might be a shrewd primary strategy, but winning a general election could well require a more inspiring rationale. Nonincumbents who go on to win the White House almost always take some greater risk along the way, promising changes more profound — if potentially more divisive — than a return to normalcy. The reformer runs great danger. The more cautious candidate merely runs.

A vote for Hillary is not a vote for change — it’s a vote for the 90’s and a vote for a promise that she won’t be any different than her husband if she’s elected. To some Democrats, this may be exactly what they want. I know some Democrats who would vote Bill in again if they could. But this world isn’t the same as in 1992. We need a President who is capable of dealing with the new problems and challenges we face in this changing world. If you are someone whose main objective is radical change from the policies of George W. Bush, then you will get that from Obama and Edwards. Hillary is a candidate who is less likely to step out and take political risks. If you liked the first two Clinton terms, then Hillary’s your girl. The Clintons need to stop thinking about the past, and start thinking about the future, because Obama’s still out there.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

mr. irrelevant makes a threat.

Joe Biden threatens to call for impeachment for President Bush and Vice President Cheney if they bomb Iran without Congressional approval. Surely this will be the strategy that gets his poll numbers all the way up to 5%. Brilliant. He has to know the President would never do this, and that he will never have to follow through with this threat. I guess I was wrong in assuming he was above pandering to the lefty netroots. If you want to be different from the rest of the Democratic field, why follow their playbook? Nothing will make any difference for Biden right now, but I’m disappointed that he has to resort to playing the scary Bush card. He has more to offer as a candidate than a promise of change from Dubya’s policies.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

yes

Tony Blankley asks this question:

“Is the national media actually going to accept without even a murmur of skepticism Hillary Clinton’s claim to possess all the experience gained by her husband as president?”

Yes they are. It’s easier to ignore that little detail when Hillary’s chief rivals for the Democratic nomination don’t challenge her on taking credit for the work of the Clinton administration. Barack Obama and John Edwards don’t want to get into a discussion about experience, since they both have less then she does, even if you don’t count her time as co-president. Now if Joe Biden and Chris Dodd continue to bring the subject up, perhaps she will be forced to address it. We need to know what qualifications she has, other than being an inconsequential junior senator from New York whose husband used to be President of the United States.

This kind of resume by osmosis doesn’t usually happen in the business world. How many spouses of CEOs have acquired the knowledge to replace their husbands when they step down or retire? I would say — not very many. So why is it Hillary gets any credit for the Clinton years? We had only one (official) President during the Clinton administration. The person who was elected to that post was Hillary’s husband.

If she takes credit for Bill’s accomplishments, will she also take the blame for his failures? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

unarmed combat

If you read most of the press on last night’s Democratic presidential debate, you will learn that Hillary managed to rebound from her uneven performance in the previous debate (and the paralyzed reaction to the question about illegal alien driver’s licenses). If you actually watched the debate, you might have a different reaction to what you saw Thursday night. Obama and Edwards were right to call her out on her sketchy answer to the illegal immigration question. The problem is that Wolf Blitzer and Barack Obama allowed her to recover from that by allowing her to change her mind yet again with a one-word answer. (Her current view is that no, they shouldn’t get driver’s licenses. I doubt this position will change.) Obama seems to be intent on shooting himself in the foot. When criticizing an opponent for not giving straight answers, it’s important to give them yourself, especially on a question guaranteed to be asked in this debate. Obama didn’t do this. It took him forever to finally say that yes, he’s for illegals getting driver’s licenses (but only for public safety purposes). This blows my mind. Richardson gave a better defense than Obama did, and he has no shot of winning the nomination. Maybe that’s the reason he was willing to defend his “yes” answer.

Will Hillary get a better fight from the Republican nominee than she’s getting from Obama, Edwards, and all the rest??? I sure hope so. At least Wolf pretended to ask hard questions.

I continue to like some of the things I’m hearing from Biden and Dodd. They make more sense on foreign policy than any of the rest except Hillary. I also give Dodd credit for trying to explain to the other candidates why giving driver’s licenses to people who are here illegally is a bad idea. Domestic policy is another story. I don’t trust any Democrat on that topic.

Kucinich will always be Kucinich, God bless him. He’s still not convincing anybody that he’s presidential material.

As it turns out, CNN is not above screening questions for this debate, and telling questioners which one to ask. The crowd was unquestionably pro-Hillary. It was a very hostile environment for Obama and Edwards, and we shouldn’t have expected anything less this late in the race. I’m not going to blame CNN for the crowd. Who knows how the Hillary campaign might have stacked the deck in her favor by bringing in all those favorable audience members? But I don’t think Wolf Blitzer treated Obama and Edwards the same way he treated Hillary. Whether the bias was conscious or unconscious,  the sentiments of the crowd and of the moderators were obvious. I’m not surprised by it. That’s the way CNN is. They are just as biased for Dems as Fox News is for Republicans.

If you want to read the transcript, go here.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

get over it

If you want to read about how all those mean ol’ men beat up on poor defenseless Hillary,  feel free to read what Margaret Carlson and the NYT’s Gail Collins had to say about that last debate. If you want to hear whining about how unfair they are being when Russert dares to ask her tough questions and when Edwards, Obama, and Dodd call her on her inability to give a straight answer to those questions  — it won’t be difficult for you to find articles about that either. This strategy may have worked with Rick Lazio.  It’s not going to work this time.  If Hillary can’t answer tough questions, if she can’t make tough decisions without waffling a few times, and if she can’t take a principled stand on any important issue facing our country today, maybe she would be better off staying in the kitchen and baking cookies (or doing whatever feminists do when they are not running for office).  Her problem is not that she is female.  It’s certainly not that she can’t handle whatever abuse she gets, whether it’s because she’s a woman, or because she is the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race.   She can handle it because she has the Clinton machine behind her spinning valid criticisms into personal attacks.

Hillary chose this battle.  Maybe she expected it to be an easier ride than it has been for her so far, but surely she had to know that the harder questions were coming at some point. She knew the risks involved, and she decided to take that chance anyway.  Politics is an ugly business.  She should know this better than just about anyone.  If she can’t stand up to your Democratic opponents (who weren’t all that close to mortally wounding her) and Tim Russert, that raises some serious questions in my mind.  She survived the debate without much damage inflicted from Obama and Edwards, but her uneven performance in the latter half is more her fault than theirs.  She does herself no good by blaming others for her own mistakes.  Unfortunately, this will not stop her from getting the nomination, but she can be stopped.   We have a good chance to take advantage of her mistakes in the general election.  We just need someone who knows how to do it.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

not invincible

hillary.jpgHillary showed signs of weakness in Tuesday’s Democratic debate, but even though Edwards and Obama landed a few soft punches, they didn’t do any lasting damage. This could change if they keep up the pressure, because Hillary showed that she does have a breaking point, and that it was possible to throw her off of her game.

Dan Balz in the Washington Post blog:

Clinton was on the defensive from beginning to end on Tuesday, both from the moderators — Brian Williams, the NBC anchor, and Tim Russert, host of NBC’s “Meet The Press” — and from her rivals. John Edwards was the most aggressive challenger to Clinton on Tuesday, but Barack Obama and Chris Dodd made telling points against her as well.

The storyline they sought to write was of an evasive front-runner who, for reasons of political calculation, caution or lack of candor, was unwilling to say what she really believes about everything from Social Security to the release of documents from her husband’s administration to whether illegal immigrants should be eligible for drivers licenses.

At times she was typically strong in defending her positions, even if they run counter to the views of many Democratic voters. That was the case on Iran, where she explained her vote for a measure that her rivals said provided President Bush with a legislative rationale to go to war with the Iranians. At other times, however, she was defensive, evasive or both.

If Hillary wants to take credit for the accomplishments of her husband’s administration, it would be wise for her to have some evidence of what exactly her role was as First Lady. What part did she play? What policies does she deserve credit (or blame) for? These are things that we could find out if she asks Bill to unseal those Presidential records. After all, that’s part of the resume she’s pushing as her qualifications for being President. She hasn’t really distinguished herself as a Senator, and has no signature legislation to show for her time there. It is about time for her opponents to call attention to this, and I’m glad that Russert asked the question to give them the opportunity to comment on the subject.

Edwards did what he had to do, except that attacking Hillary is what he has done from the very beginning of his campaign. He is much more comfortable doing that than Barack Obama is, and it showed. That trial lawyer experience served him well here. Obama was given an opening on the very first question to criticize Clinton and to make distinctions between himself and Hillary and he passed on it. I don’t think he is all that comfortable with political combat. Unfortunately, staying above the fray may not work this year. I know Obama is trying to be a different kind of candidate, and provide a contrast to the combative Edwards, and to Hillary, but his heart doesn’t seem to be totally in this campaign.

As far as Balz’s comment on Chris Dodd is concerned, at this point he should be more worried about his own electability than about Hillary’s. He did seem to be engaged in this debate much more than in the previous one, but not enough to change his status in the race. Same goes for Kucinich, who never fails to entertain — in case you missed it, he saw a UFO, just like Shirley McLaine claimed he did. Why are we asking questions about UFOs and Halloween costumes in a Presidential debate??? Are Tim Russert and Brian Williams getting bored? Did they leave the piece of paper with their last question back in the control room? You expect this junk from Chris Matthews, not from these two. They asked enough hard questions, I guess, so I will give them both a pass on this.

This waffling on driver’s licenses for illegals will hurt Hillary, because New Yorkers do not support Governor Spitzer’s proposal. Even a large percentage of Democrats oppose it. Maybe Obama and Edwards won’t be able to take advantage of this, but the Republicans certainly will make it an issue in the general election.

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Posted on '08 Election, Iraq, Liberals

duh

Apparently there are still folks who not only believe the Democrats have made a serious attempt to end the war in Iraq, they also believe that electing a Democrat as President in 2008 will mean all of the troops come home. Unless the country decides to take a chance on Kucinich, Gravel, or Richardson, it’s not going to happen. The left would have a better shot at this outcome if a Democrat was elected, of course, but Hillary hasn’t committed to the kind of troop withdrawal they want. They know this, which is why there are so many posts on the progressive blogs chastising the Dems for giving in to Bush on the war in Iraq. They are right to be critical, since if the Democrats really wanted to end the war and bring the troops home, they could refuse to fund the war. It’s politically suicidal, but many on the left don’t care much about that. Why should they? It’s not their jobs on the line.

Carolyn Lockhead expands on this point in the San Francisco Chronicle, trying to give her fellow travelers a clue. Good luck with that, Carolyn.

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Posted on Editorials, Liberals

lefties love ahmadinejad

There is a stunning level of moral equivalence demonstrated by one sign seen at Columbia University yesterday: “Ahmadinejad is bad, but Bush is worse”. It is hard to explain how this makes any sense when we consider what we know about both men. Liberals still consider the 2000 election stolen. That’s the primary reason behind all the Dubya hate. They believe President Bush cheated to win, and they can’t accept any other explanation. It’s not just about the war in Iraq. They just find the war in Iraq to be a more popular excuse that the average person in this country might be able to accept.

President Bush, with a majority of Republican and Democrat support, ordered the invasion of Iraq. Is it this well-intentioned decision that qualifies our President as the moral equivalent of a man who believes in the full implementation of Sharia law, and someone who does not believe in extending the same rights he enjoyed here in this country to his own people? If we had any other president, and especially a Democrat, would we hear this kind of tripe from the left?

Speaking of Sharia law…

Here’s the kind of guy the left prefers to Bush. Ahmadinejad is someone who supports Hizballah terrorists, refuses to admit that he is aiding the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq (despite evidence of it), and someone who believes that not only is Israel not a state, but also that it should not exist at all. He opposes freedom of speech, assembly, and most of the rights Americans take for granted, and he actively prevents Iranians from speaking their mind and opposing their government. Try all those clever protests the lefties put on at Columbia in Iran, and see how well that works for ya. Liberals generally support gay marriage and tolerance of many alternative lifestyles. In Iran, Ahmadinejad claimed, “there are no homosexuals”. That’s probably because his government has them executed. Sharia law makes no allowances for alternative lifestyles. It also allows the oppression of women.

Women’s rights, despite what their President might tell you, are virtually non-existent in Iran. If you read Robert Spencer, or the Atlas Shrugs blog, or Little Green Footballs, you will find out the extremes to which women’s rights are surrendered under Islamic law. Things like acceptable wife-beating, polygamy, divorce laws which favor the men over the women, female circumcision, rape laws which don’t allow the women’s testimony to be admissible in court, instead requiring 4 male witnesses to the event to prove it occurred – all of this is part of the Islamic law supported by Ahmadinejad and his religious buddies the mullahs.

The Iranian President is ignoring the plank in his own country’s eye, which decrying the speck in America’s. He has no freedom of speech rights. That’s for American citizens. He also should have been restricted to the area surrounding the UN. His Secret Service protection should have been limited to that area. If you read or listen to his statements regarding Ground Zero, it’s clear that his motive was not to honor the victims of 9/11, but to honor the murderers who caused this attack. For that reason, we were right to keep him from Ground Zero. His propaganda tour should have ended at the UN, but Columbia University allowed him a forum to spread his anti-US message.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger would be given much more credit today for his harsh statements in his introduction of Ahmadinejad if he actually had taken a meaningful stand and not invited the guy in the first place.

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4 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

mostly unedited thoughts on the youtube debate

I was about to give the YouTubers credit for keeping the conversation serious, and then the second half of the debate happened.  Of course I think CNN gets most of the blame for this.  Maybe the entertainment factor is a good thing for political junkies who are close to getting burned out with all these debates. I Loved the snowman video as well as the one with the folks from TN, and the singing tax guy.

Quick takes on the candidates:

Hillary Clinton – continues to impress.  Who’s going to stop her from getting to the finish line? Not any of these guys.  She was asked about whether she considers herself a liberal.  Of course not. She’s a “progressive” just like all the  other Democratic proponents of expanding government.

Barack Obama – ok, but not spectacular.  Had a few good answers.  Maybe it’s unfair to compare him to Hillary.  Made a strong defense of his approach (more affordable coverage) to health care vs. John Edwards’ approach(mandating coverage).

John Edwards – Hair looked good as always.  Nice tie. Got more than enough time to talk about his signature issues.  Would have loved to hear him go into more detail on his statement in Cleveland regarding a national fund to help people in danger of losing their homes.

Biden – one of the many “truth to power” candidates on Iraq. I don’t mean that he is right about everything he says.  Just that he seems to have a more realistic take on the aftermath of Iraq than most of the other candidates. He also had a few great lines…which I will get to shortly.

Richardson – didn’t make any major gaffes (that I noticed anyway)

Dodd, Kucinich, and Gravel-  The problem that all these second to fourth tier guys have is that all the niche groups are taken by the top 5. That is, except for the rabidly anti-war group.  Kucinich is a true believer.  You have to credit him for that.  The problem is that, despite what all the polling seems to be telling us, this is not where the country is on the Iraq war and on pre-emptive war in general. Both Kucinich and Gravel kept the debate from getting too serious, but the format of this debate would have made that impossible anyway.

This debate is more about entertaining the public then informing them on the issues.  Buried in the zany videos there have been some serious questions that, as always have only gotten sound-bite type answers.  Kucinich wants us to text for peace. Yup.  I think that it would be more useful to text Kucinich himself and tell him that his time is up as a candidate.
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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

something barack obama needs to explain

Check out this lede from Philip Elliott, AP writer, in his article titled, “Obama: Don’t stay in Iraq over genocide”.

He says:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

Obama goes on to say that he believes that there will be bloodshed after we leave Iraq, and yet he thinks that the risk is greater if we stay than if we continue to “occupy Iraq and serve as a magnet for terrorist activity”. Well, at least Obama has acknowledged the possibility that there wouldn’t be a painless exit from Iraq. That’s a possibility not many Democrats are willing to even consider.

Barack Obama seems to believe that the answer to Iraq is international forces and more diplomacy. He sees the situation in Iraq as hopeless and chaotic enough that our troops should leave. He appears to suggest that it is time to let the Iraqis deal with the consequences of not meeting their political objectives. Many Democrats agree with Obama on this, but some are more committed to troop withdrawal than others. It’s a sympathetic position to take, even for a few stray Republicans who are deserting the President on this war.

If that’s his position, then how can he then support US military intervention in Darfur? What makes the Iraqis less worthy of being saved from genocide than the Sudanese?

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