Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Why Rush Loves Hillary

So I was wrong about a lot of things about the Clintons in this campaign.

However, the thing that I was most wrong about is the notion that even if Hillary threw the "kitchen sink" at Obama, it wouldn't matter in the general election. Hillary, I said, was not going to say anything about Obama in May that McCain wasn't going to say, only worse, in October.

Wrong.

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On Martin Luther King Day, Hillary said that although a great civil rights leader like Dr. King could bring pressure to bear, in the end it takes a President, an LBJ, to make the law to make a difference. At the time I thought nothing of it. "Some people" said that the image that Hillary meant to evoke was that a black person could never, should never, accomplish anything without a white person playing the most dominant role. I'm becoming a "some person".

Then Bill compared Obama's primary victory to Jesse Jackson's. He was trying to remind Jews like me that one "Hymietowner" is much like the next. There is only one class of you know what.

Obama claimed that certain people were "bitter." Hillary accused Obama of being "elitist." Of course, the word "elitist" is in and of itself an elitist word. Who calls high achieving black people "elitists?"

What image were the Clintons attempting to evoke?

As far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves - Clarence Thomas

Next was, what was for me, the last straw.

The express statement that the hard working people were white people, and that Hillary was the representative of those white people. And the implication was that the non-white people (the Jews?), even the Senator Obamas of the world, were shiftless and lazy.

Hillary stated loudly what everyone already knew quietly -- that there were people out there who would even vote for Hillary Clinton -- with all the baggage she comes with -- if the alternative was a black person.

Just because I get to shoot off my mouth and say that Obama has absolutely no chance to become President, doesn't mean that Hillary, who is obligated to set a tone - to lead a nation -- gets to do the same thing.

Hillary complains about sexism, but it seems here that she made a lot of people pull the lever for a woman candidate for the first time.

Hillary has run a primary campaign, in the so-called "liberal" party, that David Duke and George Wallace wouldn't have the gall to run. A campaign that Newt Gingrich has expressly warned would be a loser. A campaign that McCain would have had to disavow if his "swift boaters" ran it in the fall. Now, not so much.

Hillary has thrown the kitchen sink at Obama, and then some.

The Clintons are trying to set back the conversation on civil rights progress 50 years. To those good old days when, as Archie Bunker sang it "You Knew Who You Were Then". And the bloodhounds reminded you when you forgot.

"Nonsense," the Clintons would say, "We're just appealing to the kinds of voters Bill grew up with in Arkansas."

****

And then, last Friday, buried in the comments about RFK, Hillary threatened to go to "civil war" if the votes in Florida and Michigan were not counted in her favor.

What does that mean? Why did we have a civil war in the first place? Because some people thought that black people should improve their condition in the United States. And some people, using the same language of disenfranchisement that Hillary Clinton used last Friday, and Bill used on Monday, thought otherwise.

****

So it is in this context that the comments about RFK's assassination in 1968 have to be considered.

What kind of reference is RFK? That the primary isn't over until the most popular candidate is shot to death? That the nominating process isn't over until we have ourselves a riot? That the purpose of the thing is to fight so hard that the Democrats lose the election?

To find a crazy person in the audience? A true Hillary groupie to do her bidding?

And after all of that, Hillary still expects to be nominated Vice-President. Which means that she wants to have all the time she needs to wait for Obama to die. Which is why Clinton supporters keep reminding you that they are proposing nothing new -- "Just like Johnson did for JFK."

***

Hillary has been my Senator for almost 8 years, and I am supporting her candidacy.

She is one of the most careful people I have ever seen in the public sphere.

It is unbelievable to me, that after being so careful for so many decades, that she would suddenly be "misspeaking" so often now.

***

And being a lawyer, I also know how hard it is to pin down somebody else's evocative comments.

She never said anything overtly racist, but she definitely understands, or the people around her understand, the blood-laden symbolism she's playing with.

***

She also understands, as do I, how hard it is to "call" someone on the sort of behavior I'm accusing the Clintons of.

"Just because you carry some disgusting old attitudes, doesn't mean that I do."

So everyone feels compelled to pull their punches, lest they are accused of being racists.

Except the Clintons. They say and do whatever they want to, and call that gross level of self-absorbed, hard-headed self-interest "never-give-up" and leadership"

We have a President like that now. How's that working out?

***

And, sooner or later, the Republicans will haul out the commmercials that worked so well against Harold Ford, and worked so well for Jesse Helms.

And they will be worse than ever.

And when we come to complain, we'll just be reminded --

Hillary did far worse, and we didn't say anything.

***

I spent the last 15 years wondering what Rush Limbaugh's problem with Hillary is.

Now I understand.

Rush doesn't have a problem with Hillary. Except that she's just like him, in her heart she agrees with him on the most important issues of the day, and she refuses to admit it.

No wonder he has been urging his Dittoheads to vote for her.