Hillary the Chickenhawk

[akirlu]

You know, I don't actually care whether it was sincere, or fear of looking too liberal, or all some sort of ill-conceived political maneuver to try to court the right, or what. The fact remains that Hillary Clinton has been a vocal Iraq war supporter all along. And that all by itself is sufficient reason to give her a pass. Not least because it means she doesn't have the intelligence-interpreting abilities and military foresight God gave a philodendron. If I wanted that in a President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, I could have just voted for Bush.

Link thanks to Avedon.

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I've been predicting for a long time that Hillary won't make a serious run for the presidency (she'll run, but not expect to win and won't be disappointed when she doesn't get the nomination) but is mainly in the race to piss off the sphincter conservatives. Her being an option makes Obama (or any Dem) much more palatable to the far right.

Still, I have a grand ol' time confidently saying to the snarling right: "Hillary will make a great president".

And she probably will. But not this go 'round.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Not on any go 'round. See, I don't believe for a minute that Hillary is just taking one for the team. Nor do I believe that she understands that she is fatally lacking in the two things that got Bill elected: charisma, and Ross Perot.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

she is fatally lacking in the two things that got Bill elected: charisma, and Ross Perot

Cute, but not an apt analysis. I'll give you the charisma part (though W. managed to get by without any), but Ross Perot worked for the Republicans far more than he helped Clinton. Bill won pluralities across the board, and Perot's voters were more or less split between Dems and Goppies. What that means is that Republicans who wouldn't have come out to vote for Poppy Bush came out to vote for Perot, and other Republicans on the ticket got the benefit. I blame Perot for the "Gingrich Revolution". He kept a bunch of people in the extremist party when they should have migrated to a more centrist set of politicians.

And no, I don't think Hillary is "taking one for the team". Running for president brings her (more) national attention and power in Congress. Perennially. She'll be the John McCain of the Democrats: Queenmaker, powerboker,spokesperson with a national constituency.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Cute, but not an apt analysis. Whereas you don't even have cute going for you.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I expect better from you than playground taunts. Let's leave that for hate radio, eh?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, what part of your "analysis" did you think was cute?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, I think W. has gotten by sheerly on his charisma. Not that I can see it, but the only way I could see Slick Willie's charisma was by the effect he had on other people. W's dad is a better example of someone who won the presidency without any charisma. And Gore, I suppose ...

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Lots of people report finding W personally charming, certainly. I find it mystifying, but I can't believe they're all lying.

Al Gore has plenty of charisma, he just seems to have put it in a blind trust on the advice of counsel during his Presidential run. That, and the open hostility of the 'liberal' media obscured it a bit.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I had the same blindness to Reagan's charisma, for that matter.

As for Gore, maybe he needs to run his campaign from the SNL stage. I heard him interviewed on "Fresh Air" in the past few months and still found him very stiff sounding. It may just be when he's trying to be taken seriously.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

I'm supporting Bill Richardson.
Overall, I think a ticket of him and say Wesley Clark would be about what this country needs. Face it, Bush is going to keep us in Iraq right to the bitter end of his administration. He doesn't want to go down in history as being a loser (yeah I know, he already is).

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I need to learn more about Richardson, but he has one thing going for him already: he's not coming in straight from the Senate/House. Nobody has pulled that one off since Jack Kennedy.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

You'll find links to his work and record on my LJ.
Yep, that's me, making political converts one LJer at a time.
:-)

[barondave.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, 2008 will be the first presidential election without a President/Vice-President on the ticket since 1952 (iirc). One of my own rules of thumb may fall: No one can be elected president without being in office at the time. The last person to be elected while not currently in office was Nixon, and he was a previous nominee. The time before that was Ike, who was a special case, and the time before that was Hoover, who was a disaster. That's too bad, as I'd love to see Wes Clark as president.

Having said that, I like Richardson as well. I'm fond of Vilsack as well. I can see a Richardson/Obama ticket as doing well in the election and being a terrific governing tandem.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

The last person to be elected while not currently in office was Nixon, and he was a previous nominee.

Really? What office was Reagan in when he was elected? Hint: He wasn't Governor any more. Hell, he wasn't governor any more the *first* time he ran for the Presidency.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Oops, you're right. Ah, but, that was a generation ago. (And, it should be noted, he got almost exactly the same percentage of the vote in a three way race as Clinton did in '96 (roughly 50%), and the goppies are still claiming it was a landslide.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

And Jimmy Carter was no longer governor by the 1976 Presidential race, for that matter. Kind of a casual grasp of the facts, there, Dave.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

*sigh* That's what I get for not being cute.

I've made my point very poorly, so let me try again: One of my rules of thumb may fall: No one can be elected president without a national base. Being currently in office is the best way to be in the public eye, and no one who left their job just to run for president has succeeded. Reagan had been pushed to the national stage in 1964. He ran for president in 1976, and still had his campaign in place. Carter was immediately post-Watergate and being an outsider was a major plus... and his power base was the Trilateral Commission. Nixon had been VP and ran for president in 1960, and picked up the pieces of his organization after Goldwater's trouncing. Ike had a national following from his victories in WWII.

In terms of the 2008 race, I predict non-officeholders like Biden will fold quickly. Immediate ex-governor Vilsack is still kicking, and Edwards never stopped running from 2004, so they have a shot at the national prize, but my current front-runners are the ones who are in office now.

Since the Texas Legislature meets every other year, by 2008 Obama will have as much experience as Senator as W. did as governor of TX, and considerably more if you add in his state legislature time. W's base was his name recognition and appeal to the religious extremists. Hillary's base, at the moment, is her name recognition and her appeal to the centrists. I don't think she's liberal enough to win the presidency, or even the nomination. Edwards is about as centrist as we can take.

[thesideshow.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't write-off President Gore just yet.

[maryread.livejournal.com]

The general! we need a general! a Democrat, four-star general at least.

If the plan is for the Democrats to actually win.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

We need a visionary and a general.
That's why both of them.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

She also voted for the Credit Card Company Handout Bankruptcy Reform Act. Oh well.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

That's two strikes...

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much how I felt about John Kerry. And then he went on to apologize by saying he didn't realize Bush would make such a mess of it. What? I realized it from what had already happened in Afghanistan, and I don't have a smidgin of the political savvy of a US Senator, or the personal knowledge of Bush either.