“First you fall in love, then you fall in line”

 

so said Bill at the Harkin Steak Fry, summer of ’03.  A light rain fell at one point, as I recall. The summer grasses in the meadow were very green…  It was a pretty tolerable runway “show” (no more nor less than what it was) ’til that moment.

I have been holding off opening this diary, but noticed this am, it hit 30 comments.  Enough to take a look.  The diarist has long held a belief that Hillary is a Lefty hiding out in the current shell.  I am not kidding.

[B]een in it at the practical, “I know which buttons get pushed” level since the early ’50s.

I know which way the wind blows, and I do not need any left blogosphere, minor league prognosticators to tell me, either.

It is blowing in Hillary Clinton’s direction.

BIG time.

She is a major league, professional All Star.

The class of this field.

She will NEVER make the “”ARRRGH!!!” mistake.

She will prevaricate until it’s too late for the right to stop her. And then she will do what she has meant to do since she was about 15.

Go left.

In as practical a manner as she can manage.

Watch.

The major fault of the left?

From time immemorial?

CERTAINLY in the U.S. over the last 100 years or so.

It eats its own.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

No one is ever good enough.

So smart it’s stupid.

So it goes.

Hitler understood this. [snip]

Never doubt they, the rank and file, those online with access to the search function, supposedly paying attention most days… can and will talk themselves in to almost anyone. Oh why hesitate:  Anyone.

But perhaps she learned from that (y’ can’t please the insurance companies, don’t even try next time) and decided to go back into her shell until 2009. I hope you’re right, cuz the nation needs a ton of leftism, and the money parties aren’t going to consciously allow a leftist to be elected.

She is truly a successful politician in her own right. In my humble opinion, she is neither the  monster that many right-wingers claim she is, nor the complete “sell-out” that many on the left think she is (relative to other politicians, that is). Again…while she’s not my first choice and will likely not get my vote in the primaries, there’s not a single prospective Republican that seems at all likely to win my vote in a general election against her either.

I’ll take Hillary–someone said “caretaker.” In many organizations, when one administrator has been a total disaster, there is a tacit admission that the next one will be a triage doctor, just trying to repair and won’t move the system ahead much. 

For all those who say “Never Hillary?” take the war off your chart and compare positions. You’ll pretty much see a draw. Then think of the next Supreme Court appointment–and take a deep breath.

More to the point, Hillary can’t or won’t lead the public with a ringing call to a great goal. After the catastrophe of the Bush years, we need a president who can lead the country in a radically different and better direction. I think Hillary would be best as a “caretaker” president – one to polish up the executive branch when things are going pretty well anyway – like her husband, unsurprisingly.

Of course she’s vastly better than any of the Republicans and if she gets nominated we’d be crazy not to work for her.

I have to admit, I don’t like her Iraq vote or positions.  I think those positions will change a bit as time goes on – Iraq is an issue where the politicians have really lagged behind the people, and they will need to catch up or lose office.  Aside from Iraq and some stupid stuff like video games and flag burning (which I think are so transparently designed to appeal to right-leaning voters), she’s fine policy-wise.  At least to me.  I’m still hoping, in vain, for Gore, but I’m happy with Clinton.

The Democrats have a really good field this time, and I hope we don’t wreck it by tearing anyone down before the primaries.  I also hope that we don’t eliminate anyone out of hand – in 2004, I swore I’d never vote for Kerry, but ended up finding much to respect about the man.  In the end, I was happy to vote for him.  I suspect 2008 will be much the same.

Quite an undertone of this here and there:

But I can’t stand the commenters who are willing to trash talk her in a way that will live on in the google world for the Republicans next year. On a scale of Edwards/Obama to Republicans, she’s way over there on the good guys’ side.

There were some hesitancies, some criticisms… but read them closely, none of it too surprising…:

I wish her all the best, but she is not the best candidate for us at this time.  She would have been fine last time out, before things became as bad as they have become; it’s either too late for her now, or too early.  But she is not the right person.  We now need someone like FDR who can speak directly to people, to make them feel they are part of a community.  She can’t do it.  It’s not in her genes, hard as she may try.  Obama and Edwards can do it.  And we need someone who can.

I’ll work for another candidate until the convention, then accept and support a Democratic candidate. (And those who are tempted to stay home, take a look at the 5/4 decisions of the past two years–especially that whistleblower decision in my diary today–and tell me you can afford to sit on your butt or vote for Nader.)

There was this:

AG,

You made a great case for Hillary Clinton being a very, very skilled politician.  I’m not sure you made the case for leftist at all.  I’m willing to listen.

However, don’t miss the diarist’s ramble of an answer.  Link, as it is long.  The dissenter’s reply to the diarist is the only real opposition…

Well, I guess you are a bit of a politician yourself.

You are the one the used the word leftist to describe Clinton and then you request a definition and claim not to care that whether she is or not.

I don’t care that she is a woman.  I do care that she supported the war for a good long time.  I do care that thousands of people died in the war.  I do care that she has done squat on health care.  I do care that she is waffling on woman’s rights.  I do care that she doesn’t support fair trade. I do care that she is in the DLC camp and surrounded herself with the likes of Begala, Carville and McAuliff.

I do reserve my right to question candidates’ actions even if some consider that fucking sniping.

You made a case for Hillary Clinton. I don’t fully buy it, and I hope that you are not suggesting that there should not be a full discussion of the candidates’ positions and track records.

And I will flat out say that other people can do the pragmatic thing if that seems best for them.  I am going to hold out for and speak out for what I believe is best. I may be wrong, but I’m tired of ever lowering my expectations.

And last… really, you have to laugh:

I am really heartened (none / 1)

by the good reception afforded this post here.  Maybe the left blogoshpere is waking up.

The hipper parts, anyway. Dkos is a lost cause.

I hope so.

AG

Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.-Frederick Douglass

by Arthur Gilroy  on Thu Apr 5th, 2007 at 01:04:42 AM EST

Don’t miss the tag line from Douglass.  Oh the irony.

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I have not had a chance to really read it yet, but today’s Tom Dispatch arrived, a Noam Chomsky piece on Iran.  These grafs near the opening caught my eye:

[T]his “debate” is a typical illustration of a primary principle of sophisticated propaganda. In crude and brutal societies, the Party Line is publicly proclaimed and must be obeyed — or else. What you actually believe is your own business and of far less concern. In societies where the state has lost the capacity to control by force, the Party Line is simply presupposed; then, vigorous debate is encouraged within the limits imposed by unstated doctrinal orthodoxy. The cruder of the two systems leads, naturally enough, to disbelief; the sophisticated variant gives an impression of openness and freedom, and so far more effectively serves to instill the Party Line. It becomes beyond question, beyond thought itself, like the air we breathe.

The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on the assumption that the United States owns the world. We did not, for example, engage in a similar debate in the 1980s about whether the U.S. was interfering in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about that fact (which American officials and our media, in any case, made no effort to conceal). Perhaps the official Nazi press also featured solemn debates about whether the Allies were interfering in sovereign Vichy France, though if so, sane people would then have collapsed in ridicule.

In this case, however, even ridicule — notably absent — would not suffice, because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of pronouncements meant to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack on Iran, the “source of the problem.” The world is aghast at the possibility. Even in neighboring Sunni states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when asked, favor a nuclear-armed Iran over any military action against that country.

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Addendum, 7:46 pm in San Francisco…

Wanted to add, I did take the kind suggestion offered the other night, and signed up for an Amazon PayPage.  Not too surprisingly the box provided by Amazon to display was ug-lee.  So I improvised. 

There is a plug-in box now in the right hand column (have to find the right spot for it, right now all the way at the bottom) that has a clickable image of La Louche, and leads to the Amazon Paypage.  Completely confidential, on both sides.

I keep things light and breezy – well about some things… 😉 but the medical bills, both mine and Baby’s, just go on.   

Again, thanks for the suggestion.  And .. 😉 feel free to ignore at will.  I won’t know who dropped in some coin, unless you choose to email me.

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UPDATE, 8:45 pm

Via moiv in a comment:

Blog Against Theocracy

[T]here are no real guidelines to this. The idea is to post at least once from Friday to Sunday Easter Weekend, April 6-8.

The post will be against theocracy, in favor of our Constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state. But there are a LOT of issues tied to this, as is pointed out in the First Freedom First website:

No religious discrimination.
PRO End-of-Life Care (no more Terri Schiavo travesties)
Reproductive health decisions made by individuals, not religious “majorities”
Democracy not Theocracy
Academic Integrity (like, a rock is as old as it is, not as old as the Bible says)
Sound Science (good bye so-called “intelligent” design)
Respect for ALL families (based on love, not sexual orientation. Hellooooo.)
And finally,
The right to worship, OR NOT. [snip]

There are logos at the site to use, as well… and links to other sites involved… [thanks to moiv]

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UPDATE, 1:50 am on a balmy night on the Pacific Ocean… 😉

hmmm noticed this while I was at the Guardian… Jessica Valenti of Feministing updates the Kathy Sierra incident:

 [S]ince she wrote about the abuse on her website, the harassment has increased. “People are posting all my private data online everywhere – social-security number, and home address – a retaliation for speaking out.”  [snip]

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This was in our local news today… and Reuters has a report up …

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California’s top Democratic legislator called on Thursday for voters to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in a ballot measure for the state’s 2008 presidential primary election.

“We do not have to be on the streets of Berkeley or on the streets of Oakland,” state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata said. “We can now use the ballot box.”

…

Polls suggest, however, that a growing percentage of the public favors an end to the U.S. involvement in Iraq.

A Field Poll report released on Thursday said disenchantment with President George W. Bush’s handling of the war has pushed his approval rating among California voters to its lowest level since he assumed office and near a record low scored by President Richard Nixon in August 1974 shortly before he resigned from office in the Watergate scandal.

According to the report, Republicans in the state Assembly are already saying not to expect support and that Arnold will veto…

What else is new?

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UPDATE, 2:41 am…

Curry of MSNBC takes a look at the possible stand off between congress and Bush and his likely veto of the Iraq Supplement (and a quick run down of all other upcoming vetos).  He also has a handy dandy chart of post war presidential vetos…

Along the way tho, on Page 2, is this:

Congress passed the bill restraining Medicare spending growth in 1995, but when President Clinton vetoed it, he did so on the hunch that he, not GOP leaders Dole and Gingrich, correctly read the minds of the electorate.

As Dole’s advisor Burke said one month after the 1996 election, “One of the things the Clinton campaign bet on, and I think correctly so, was that there was a predisposition to believe Republicans were mean.”

Burke then told President Clinton’s pollster Mark Penn, who is now Hillary Clinton’s pollster,

“You bet on that perception, and you invested in building on that perception and it was very successful… because it confirmed all of the people’s worst fears — (that) we (Republicans) hated the safety-net programs, we didn’t care about the blind and the lame….”

Ya think they could run that by again?  Because other than the odd line from Nancy (wind across the bare table) I sure don’t hear that from the Democrats.  Not really!  Nor do I hear that from ol’ Bill.  He mostly has been bitching at Obama…

And there was this as well:

Even though Bush himself won’t be on the 2008 ballot, his vetoes will be. Democrats will re-fight the veto battles all over again next year, highlighting any Republican in a competitive district — such as Rep. Jim Walsh of Syracuse, N.Y.— who supports Bush on Iraq, embryonic stem cell funding, and other issues.

My advice to Walsh?  Become a Blue Dog.

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UPDATE, 3:20 am

Ah.. s/he outs her/himself.

Re: Hillary Clinton. Eleanor Roosevelt’s revenge. (none / 0)

This is precisely why I support Edwards.  With Obama we will receive more trianguation, more vacous pronouncments about faith and more DLC.  

Learn more about Bobby Jindal.

by louisianagirl (fantastic [dot] reality -at- hotmail [dot] com) on Fri Apr 6th, 2007 at 03:15:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Wellll…. i can out myself:   I support none of them.  And doubt I would be/will be supporting any of ’em.  I say they are all DLC and they are all Ad Ware. 

What we see right now is the primary season demo models.

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