Words fail me.
In the first month of the Clinton presidency she joined a women’s prayer group whose members included Susan Baker, the wife of Reagan-Bush chief of staff/sec. of state James Baker, as well as the wife of the Washington Redskins chaplain who was also the minister of the McLean church where Kenneth Starr and other conservative Republican luminaries worship.
These women sent Hillary scripture readings, came to the White House to pray with and for her, and generally were a welcome source of strength and friendship for her throughout the White House years, and especially as the Lewinsky ugliness moved relentlessly through her life.
Kneel down with dogs, get up with fleas, eh?
No, but seriously. The “ugliness”? WTF
? Did the “Lewinsky ugliness” drop like the gentle dew from Heaven? Like an act of God?
Or was it “relentlessly” orchestrated by Republican operatives like Baker’s husband, and turned into an attempted coup by the coyly unnamed minister who had Ken Starr for a parishioner?
Please don’t tell me, after this, that Hillary is anything other than an insider’s insider. No wonder she doesn’t regret her vote on the war or question America’s imperial mission to Christianize the little brown people (as McKinley would put it). None of the people she prays with do.
And all this searching for the real Hillary? I think we’ve found her.
Front page
RRRaaaaaallllllffffffff
Lambert, you have ruined a perfectly good Friday Night at the Ranch. Relaxed, browsing, surfing, and yes, drinking nice rum.
Then this.
I used to like you.
Thanks, vicki
I think.
(I see this comment made it in. See my mail to you.)
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
On HHHillary
What was Hunter Thompson’s line on Humphrey?
A
So many people who want to be preznit qualify for that description. Perhaps we are harshest on those who pointedly fail their own stated aspirations. Although I would vote for that old hack over any Rethuglican, she and her Big Dog enable a lot of corruption.
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
Yeah, if Humphrey had been elected instead of Nixon...
… things would not be as bad as they are.
The winger billionaires would still have paid to shove the Overton window left, but they wouldn’t have had as much government experience, and their operatives wouldn’t have infested as many power niches.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
Or, it's like a High School clique
Where they all hate each other, but God forbid anyone outside the clique should gain any status. Then they all gang together.
That’s Hillary. They hate her, but she’s part of the clique.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
If Humphrey had been elected
We would have gotten out of Vietnam years earlier than we did, Cambodia would not have been invaded, we would have continued progress on civil rights, we would have a decent Suprmeme Court and everything would be better.
Shame on Huner Thompson.
Yes, Alice, to be fair...
… I love Thompson, but you’re right.
The Beltway Dems just make me crazy. So did Humphrey, Thompson. And for good reason. A salutary reminder that things can always get a lot worse than, say, Harry Reid. Shit.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
It's Sirhan Sirhan's fault
Because Robert Kennedy would have been elected. RFK’s assassination had as much impact on the world as Archduke Ferdinand’s, perhaps more.
…for the rest of us
Hey, how much you want to bet...
… that if Barack Obama looks like a winner in 2008 he gets shot by a lone gunman acting alone who leaves a very convenient diary?
Call it—to use a more recent example—the Yitzhak Rabin solution.
I have to say… It’s not even money, but the chances aren’t negligible, either.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
Our thugs aren't that smart
Should anybody attempt to shoot Obama during the 2008 campaign, it would most likely be a bastard son of James Earl Ray.
…for the rest of us
Gut shot
I just hate this speculation, lambert. He is one of the earliest, if not the earliest candidate for President to receive Secret Service protection. So, yeah, there’s some chatter on the line.
But putting it out to the universe, making explicit what is probably self-evident, sickens me a little. I wonder what purpose it serves, really.
“The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention.” - Molly Ivins
Fore-warned is fore-armed
And if that evil act is performed, we’ll know who to hold accountable. I can’t image we’re giving anybody ideas that doesn’t already have them, and worse, eh?
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
I'm with THB on this one
To come at it from another angle it irritates me the same way Hillary’s comment in the debate the other night did, the one where, when asked if we were safer because of (unspecified) things Bush had done her answer was “we’re somewhat safer but not safe enough” or something to that effect.
Get over it, both of you. It feeds into Republican memes in Hill’s case (safer without habeus corpus? With no-warrant phone taps and Net surveliance? With the Justice
Department a wing of the Republican electoral machine? With ten thousand times more Iraqis, other Muslims and Arabic people in general with reasons to hate us? with our Guard and Reserves and Regular Army in a wreck and our image as the Unbeatable Military of All Time in shambles? I don’t think so, Hill).
What she should have said is Franklin’s line about “those who would trade liberty for safety will wind up with neither.” That’s what Obama and for that matter anybody who puts themselves out in public life does now and has always done. There is no absolute safety in this life and we’re all gonna die one way or another.
He, and we, take what sensible precautions we can and go the fuck on with what we’re doing. In most of the better universes the Ambassador Hotel and its kitchen were torn down without any note whatever for new construction a couple of decades ago in the middle of President Chisholm’s second term and people fly over it in their hovercars every day without a thought.
We, boneheads that we are, did not pick that universe to live in….oh well, we said we wanted a challenge, and damn if we didn’t get exactly what we asked for. :)