Sunday, January 27, 2008

The wreck of the William J. Clinton

Bill Clinton, the proclaimed "first black president", is looking a little more pale since Obama's run-away victory over wife Hillary in South Carolina primary. The Democrats are a fractured bunch these days, and it is a joy for me to watch them turn on each other ruthlessly. It reminds me of how some starving animals in the wild will eat their own young during times of hardship and drought (due, no doubt, to Republican's SUVs).

Obama's victory speech was filled with not so thinly veiled Clinton bashing. "We are up against conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House," he preached. "It's not about rich versus poor, young versus old and it's not about black versus white. It's about the past versus the future."

How's that for politics of "hope"?

Of course, it's all bullshit (the democrat platform continues to encourage race, gender, and class warefare for their own empowerment), but ya gotta love him going after Clinton. Clinton used to be untouchable as far as the left was concerned. It never seemed to matter what he said, did, or didn't do. He was unanimously defended against the attacks from the "right wing conspiracy."

The 1990's seem like so long ago. The economy was strong mainly because of the lasting effects from the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980's. The 90's were NOT prosperous because there was a fat intern giving the commander-in-chief blow jobs in the oval office. It's a "cause and effect" thingy that democrat voters don't seem to understand.

Never-the-less, things were good then and he was giving the credit for it by virtue of his ability to make a good speech, wag his finger at the right, cry on demand and bite his lip like he cared. Perjury, smurgery! Who cared!? Gas was cheap.

That was then, this is now. Clinton is no longer untouchable by the left. Take, for example, Frank Rich's latest column in The New York Times, titled "The Billary Road to Republican Victory." In it he asks, "Do Bill Clinton’s red-faced eruptions and fact-challenged rants enhance or diminish his wife as a woman and a candidate?"

Wow! "fact-challenged?" That creeps very closely to the line of calling Clinton a liar. Of course, this tid bit has been known forever, it's just that stating it used to be taboo for the left. What has changed? Is it because Hillary is no longer the candidate of inevitability?

Politics is a messy business, and the primary season has always been a period to shake out the ideas and ultimately find the candidate worthy of nomination in the general election. I just enjoy watching the Clinton machine go down in flames. It doesn't even matter to me that Clinton's power and influence has been made impotent by his own party instead of the right.

Eat their young indeed! Pass the pepper, the salt is passe.

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