Going to be a loooong two years

   

I landed on this over the weekend, from Scott Lemieux at TAPPED.  The first part seemed just impenetrable to me so I had to go to the original post SL was referring to, at Atrios.

Honestly, I never say STFU (nor am I now, hell, have at it), but cough up the transcripts of the hearings and transcripts of the Clinton depo, the reams of cable and media and punditry finger shaking…  the many years of it.  And on and on, why don’t you.  Might as well.

And believe me, by then, Clinton, who first irritated me, disgusted me.  For rampant tumescent stupidity.  For his R policies and sell outs.  For his clear, early failures, for going soft as early as late spring of ’03…  

I still think it was a well sprung sting.  Think for a moment that Linda Tripp (with Lucianne over her shoulder) testified in 4 “gates”.  Christmas card gate (Waxman is specifically benefitting from expanded powers that Dan Burton muscled thru for his chairmanship for subpoena and hearing powers), File Gate, Travel Gate and Monica Gate.  Gee.  You tell me.

D Throat posted this in the previous thread.  “I wrote it, but I wuz taken in!, Taken in I tell you!  …by the RW machine – and now I beg forgiveness of the assembled Good Progs”… whatever!  Kiss a cultist!

A couple of weeks ago when I posted some tart commentary on Kerry, I got an email (friendly email) that thought I was relying on the SBV.  Heavens no no no….  I did not need them.  I did pay attention to them, to the early salvos (late April and May of ’04) then the ”resurgence” in August (during the intervening time they never “went away”, they went to ground, going local). And I certainly remembered John O’Neil.  It, and they, were going to be big trouble.  I heard that Dick Schoen, a nice enough Dem consultant who goes on FOX a lot, remarked off camera to Hannity that the SBV had receded and would be no trouble.  Hannity informed him he would “drive it and drive it” and invited DS to watch him do it.

And Hannity did, they all did.

Summer of ’03 at Dkos, someone posted some questions about Kerry and the anti-war activities in the early 70s, specifically the medals toss.  A fervent supporter of Kerry’s just. lost. it.  Freaked out.  Elsewhere at times I would read comments that “everybody understood about Vietnam, it would not be a problem”.  Massively unobservant of public discourse in the United States, and for decades.  There is no public consensus on Vietnam (and now, if you notice, we have a new, hideously divisive war).  None.

When the Kerry supporter flailed, early and hard, I sat down to remember (and google) some of the pertinent pieces of that tortured time.   It was not going to be pretty if Kerry were the nom.

Hillary says, clean up that battlespace sonny.

A long long two years ahead, between Hillary already wearing the Chatelaine’s keys (dragging Bill behind her) and the Rs re-assembling.  Carville is on ABC pushing Hillary.  One of the top R strategists/pollsters is up against him… a woman, Kelly Ann Conway.  We shove out the soggy swamp fella from 15 years ago, they put out one of their hard drivers.

It is not going to be pretty.

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UPDATE, 12:57 pm

Frank Rich on Hillary’s recent efforts, if TruthOut posts the full text will link to it.

The image that Mrs. Clinton wants to sell is summed up by her frequent invocation of the word middle, as in “I grew up in a middle-class family in the middle of America.” She’s not left or right, you see, but exactly in the center where everyone feels safe. But as the fierce war critic Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator from Nebraska, argues in a must-read interview at gq.com, the war is “starting to redefine the political landscape” and scramble the old party labels. Like Mrs. Clinton, the middle-American Mr. Hagel voted to authorize the Iraq war, but that has not impeded his leadership in questioning it ever since.

The issue raised by the tragedy of Iraq is not who’s on the left or the right, but who is in front and who is behind. Mrs. Clinton has always been a follower of public opinion on the war, not a leader. Now events are outrunning her. Support for the war both in the polls and among Republicans in Congress is plummeting faster than she can recalibrate her rhetoric; unreliable Iraqi troops are already proving no-shows in the new Iraqi-American “joint patrols” of Baghdad; the Congressional showdown over fresh appropriations for Iraq is just weeks away.

This, in other words, is a moment of crisis in our history and there will be no do-overs. Should Mrs. Clinton actually seek unfiltered exposure to voters, she will learn that they are anxiously waiting to see just who in Washington is brave enough to act.

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UPDATE, 10:30 pm

Oooo this has lovely dry lack of respect…   Americans are so foolish to fall for the siren song demands for respect and civility in, of all things, politics.

[A]nd, like Ronnie, he has a plain-spoken charm. Show the people a picture of your hero dad. Throw in tributes to Roosevelt and Ike. Do nothing to trouble the Republican spin doctors who dub you “the most conservative Democrat in the party” – because that’s good news, not bad.

You won in Virginia, in part, because on issues such as affirmative action and gun control, you were somewhere due west of your Republican foe. And you look so alluring now because a marine hero who wants troops out of Iraq and also wants Bush to fly to Tehran for talks with the president there fits perfectly with any obvious Democratic prescription for success.

Yes:  you can be the anti-war candidate the National Rifle Association loves. Yes:  you can be tough on Bin Laden and mass immigration and free trade at the same time. You could even be a transplanted Daily Mail reader if you try hard enough.  [...]

And a last bit:

There was always a favoured succession somewhere. But this time, on either side, there is not only no evident succession, but also no continuing consensus of conviction. All contestants welcome, and the theme that happens to hit a chord can produce an American idol. The power of the party machines is feebler than ever, because they have no favourite candidate. The direction the country must take, once a heartily despised president departs, is unsettled going on totally uncharted.

It’s a vacuum to register with unease. Maybe Britain, in its more fevered moments, is desperate for Blair to go, for Brown to come, for leadership to define and renew and exert itself. The supposed problems of drift are vividly sketched in ubiquitous print.

But here’s the great power, where most things begin, with two vacant, swilling years to go – and nobody has a blind idea what comes next.

I suppose we should panic, if we had the energy left.  Or at least I have hardly any to give to the great vacuum…

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UPDATE, 1:30 am Tuesday…

From Angry Arab

I hereby declare the official beginning of the American presidential campaign season.

Here is Sen. Edwards: “The relationship between Israel and the United States “is extraordinarily important and vital to the strength of both of our countries,” said Edwards. “It is a bond that can never be broken,” he added.” OK.

Now, Sen. McCain: “Sen. John McCain prescribes strengthening Israel’s ties to NATO. “American support for Israel should intensify,” he says. “The enemies are too numerous, the margin of error too small, and shared values too great.”

And now, Sen. Obama: “Obama has cultivated a solidly pro-Israel record, and he visited the Jewish state last year.”

Even Gov. Vilsack of Iowa has recently visited Israel. Good night.

posted by As’ad @ 12:21 AM link

Pretty much… drop the noose, put the head in.  Release the trap door. 

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UPDATE, 2:55 am Tuesday…

hmmm.  Lame duck?  You think?

[P]eter L. Strauss, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the executive order “achieves a major increase in White House control over domestic government.”

“Having lost control of Congress,” Mr. Strauss said, “the president is doing what he can to increase his control of the executive branch.”

Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said: “The executive order allows the political staff at the White House to dictate decisions on health and safety issues, even if the government’s own impartial experts disagree. This is a terrible way to govern, but great news for special interests.”

Business groups hailed the initiative.

“This is the most serious attempt by any chief executive to get control over the regulatory process, which spews out thousands of regulations a year,” said William L. Kovacs, a vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce. “Because of the executive order, regulations will be less onerous and more reasonable. Federal officials will have to pay more attention to the costs imposed on business, state and local governments, and society.” [snip]

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