The Chris Moeller Archives

Buckle up

Well, there's nothing we can do about it: Hillary Clinton is a candidate for president. The wife of our national rutting pig, and some weak-kneed, centrist advisors are betting that the American people haven't yet had their fill of that charismatic Clinton disfunction, and they're looking to extend that well-funded, center-right Bush/Clinton family and corporate cabal well into the 20-teens, its fourth decade of consolidated power.

Let us hope that grass-roots Democrats are as committed as their words when it comes to denying Hillary the nomination. She's a ticking time bomb as a standard-bearer for the party, one likely to take out both the Senate and the House of Representatives if allowed to blow in November 2008. She's the most hated and ridiculed politician in America outside of George W. Bush and his cabinet. She's an unabashed flip-flopper on a viciously-unpopular war, currently in mid-flip (or is it flop). She has not a single legislative accomplishment to attach to her resume as a Senator, nor a defining governing philosophy, and she could help the Congressional cause of Democratic candidates in all of about six states if she headed the ticket in '08.

All she has to offer is all that Barack Obama also offers-- strong symbolism to some among the disenfranchised. While others like John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Wesley Clark, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Ted Kennedy, and Al Sharpton do the heavy lifting of taking aim at the failed policies of the president and the likely-GOP nominee in '08, John McCain, Clinton and Obama stand back from the battle, muttering only empty rhetoric, hoping against hope that they can be all things to all people because of gender or race.

The "third-way" centrist Democratic Leadership Council may think things will work out that way. After all, that's been the winning ticket in Democratic primary battles when it's more important to score corporate cash than actual votes (one equals the other), but general elections and state Congressional races have proven to be quite a different animal, which is why DLC founder Al From has lost every race he's ever organized. Independent and at-large Americans, and hopefully now, most Democrats, want real leaders, not followers and poll-driven phonies.

Let's hope against hope that Americans will see past the superficial, personality-driven "first woman vs. first minority" narrative destined to be sponged by the corporate media.

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Democrats have no choice left but to cut off funding for the Iraqi War. The American people vehemently oppose escalating this war, as do both houses of Congress and the generals guarding our occupation. President Bush is a psychopath. He wrecked his presidency beyond repair by listening to fools and zealots (it didn't help that he was also both,) and now his military solution is to send 20,000 more men and women to the desert to be mutilated and killed. He announced his plan to escalate, and his spokesman demanded patience to debate the issue. But, meanwhile, the first increase in troops, which is happening this week, was scheduled in just three weeks. Bush's mental state makes him oblivious to the suffering of American servicemen and women and Iraqis. His only focus is a political one-- hoping to force his opposition into appearing weak, and extending the bloodbath for 24 months until it can be pawned off on his successor, who will obviously be mandated to end it. Then he can claim that the mission was abandoned before it could be won.

And who knows, Democrats may indeed pay a severe political cost for legislative action. But the right thing to do often requires sacrifice. (Isn't that what we tell our soldiers?) Democrats paid the political price for backing Civil Rights in the 1960s, and they paid it again in 1994 after they raised taxes and balanced the federal balance, setting off an economic boom. Meaningful social progress in the larger picture should be the ultimate goal of all political action, even if it means some in the fight lose their jobs. Once and a while, you might even get a pleasant electoral surprise.

posted by CM @ 2:36 PM