Cross-Post from Townhall

"Ready for change. Ready to lead." Most coverage I've seen or read about the last Democratic debate focused on Hillary, either about how she lost it in response to Edwards, or about how sexist anyone is who thinks she didn't keep her cool.

Yet, she was the one who was filmed saying "I want to make change but I've already made change!" and "The best way to know what change I will produce is to look at the changes that I've already made."

What change would that be? The biggest "change" I've seen her make during her self-proclaimed "35 years worth of experience" was to the travel office staff in the White House, while Bill was still in office. As a senator, she co-sponsored a bill or two; that was the extent of it.

Thirty-five years worth of experience, would, by necessity, claim her years as a political wife in Arkansas as "experience." The voters in Iowa didn't buy that, and it looks like the voters in New Hampshire won't either.

My feeling about the debate was that she got angry, and it showed on camera. I don't think she became unglued or unhinged. Indeed, compared to the legendary stories from former staffers of hers about her throwing around ashtrays and lamps, this was nothing. More than anything, I think she's dismayed and angry that the road to her coronation hasn't been as smooth as she anticipated.

She also appeared to take credit for SCHIP. A quick Google search will prove that bill was hashed out between Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch in 1997. It's debatable as to how successful its passage has been. Statistics show that an ever-growing number of children of working-class parents still don't qualify for the healthcare program because their parents make slightly too much money, and have no family healthcare plan of their own from their employers.

She seems to be running on her husband's experience. She may well have been his sounding board while he was in office, but she was not privvy to any policy meetings. The one thing with which Bill entrusted her was a national healthcare plan in 1993; it was a disaster. Her own experience as a Senator for seven years is questionable, inasmuch as it doesn't appear that she was any sort of policy maker.

Let it also not be forgotten that when she ran for re-election as the junior senator from NY in 2006, she promised that she would serve out her full term, and not run for president. I doubt anyone bought that lie, but they re-elected her, regardless. It was clear what her ambitions were back when she and Bill carpetbagged it to Westchester so she could make a run for senate, when the position became available.

It's really difficult to make a case for being the candidate of change, while touting 35 years worth of experience, then saying the equivalent of "don't get your hopes up for change, folks!" Her logic completely escapes me.

Edwards couldn't even win his home state running for Veep with Gore, so he's most likely not much of a factor. Obama strikes me as thoughtful and intelligent, but not ultimately electable. He may prove me wrong by Super Tuesday; it's a bit too early to tell. For now, he seems to have momentum, while Hillary appears to be digging her own grave with voters.

Regarding the Republican primary, I'm not impressed with any of the candidates. More's the shame. Though Libertarian by conviction, I am a registered Republican, and have voted in every election I could since I was old enough to register to vote (barring a local school board election or two). I want my income and property tax dollars to cover the cost of the basics (namely law enforcement), but otherwise, I want government to be a minimal intrusion in my daily existence.

Not one of the candidates I've seen in either major party is impressive. This election should prove interesting to follow.

Cindy Does Congress

An article in The Hill highlights Cindy "The Banshee" Sheehan's sheer arrogance, and ignorance.

Discussing President Bush and Vice President Cheney, Sheehan said, “We put them there. We can fire them. If Nancy Pelosi doesn't do her constitutionally mandated job by midnight tonight, tomorrow I will announce that I'm going to run against her.“And not only am I going to run against her, but I will beat her,” Sheehan added.

Sure you will Cindy. The democrats used you and threw you out with the trash when you no longer served their purpose. I have a sneaking suspicion your son Casey would be embarrassed to see what you've become since his death. Sure, you still have a few people cheering you on, but you've become a punch line to the rest of the country.

Sheehan argued that it is Pelosi’s constitutional obligation to impeach the president.

No, Cindy. The U.S. Constitution has a provision for impeachment and rules for its application. Nowhere is there any clause that says the Speaker of the House is obliged to begin impeachment proceedings because some gadfly nut case like you wants her to do so.

“The
administration has abused our soldiers. They've abused our freedoms,”
Sheehan said. “They have killed my son and countless others. And they
must be held accountable.

Again, Cindy--no. He was killed doing a job that, by all accounts he loved. It happens to firefighters and cops as well. Though tragic, it's an occupational hazard. Unless Casey died from friendly fire, which I don't believe was the case, you're making a heck of a stretch in logic there, my girl.

“Impeachment is not a fringe movement.
It is mandated in our Constitution. Nancy Pelosi had no authority to
take it off the table,” Sheehan said.

Cindy, Cindy, Cindy. It is nowhere mandated that anyone be impeached. Especially not because you want to abuse that provision to persecute someone you wrongfully blame for your son's death.

You're not going to beat Pelosi in any election. She made a promise that during her watch, impeachment wouldn't happen. Even she realizes it would be an abuse of the system to do so. So far, she has kept that promise.

The chances of your being elected because of a personal tragedy are slim. It happened to Carolyn McCarthy after her husband and son were killed on the LIRR by Colin Ferguson, but it's rare. And what real power does she have in congress, anyway? What makes you think you can barge in and take Capitol Hill by storm. There's a term for it: delusional.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Hillary Speaks

By Froggie, Special Correspondent to the BS Detector

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that her affected Southern accent is god-given.

"I think America is ready for a multilingual president," said Clinton at a charter school in Greenville, S.C. "God gave me that gift."

The New York senator, who grew up in Chicago, claimed that the fake Southern accent she used in Selma, Alabama, comes from her post-collegiate years living in Arkansas. "I speak Midwest, Northern, and Southrin. How multilingual can you get?"

She again pulled out the fake accent last week when addressing a civil rights group in New York City headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton. "Colored folk eat this shit up" Clinton claimed, when asked why she only uses the accent in front of black audiences. "Obama sounds edjicated. I need to sound folksy to win their vote."

In a post-debate poll, Obama nudged ahead of Clinton, favored 31% to 24%.

Truth in Journalism

I thought the link I followed from a Drudge Report headline was to The Onion or ScrappleFace. Seriously, I thought I was reading satire until I looked at the URL, and realized the author wasn't joking. It's from the English edition of Pravda.

"In a clear sign of its intent to reign in dissident American media personalities, and their growing influence in American culture, US War Leaders this past week launched an unprecedented attack upon one of their most politically 'connected', and legendary, radio hosts named Don Imus after his threats to release information relating to the September 11, 2001 attacks upon that country."

There are so many things wrong with that paragraph, on so many levels. First, Don Imus is a talk show host, not a "media personality" with powerful political connections. Second, the columnist can call the President and White House staff "War Leaders" all she wants, but the implication here that they control the mass media is absurd. If anything, the mass media is anti-Bush, and would vociferously protest any attempt by the White House to influence its coverage of any particular event. Even FoxNews, with its comparatively conservative stance, offers Alan Colmes to balance Sean Hannity, and books many left-wing guests on O'Reilly. Third, I find it tough to believe that Don Imus has anything of substance to add to any discussion about 9/11, let alone anything worthy of silencing him by firing him.

"Unable to attack such a powerful media figure as Don Imus, directly, the US War Leaders, and as we have seen many times before, resorted to a massive media attack against him using as the reason a racial slur against a US woman's basketball team, but which has been pointed out by other media outlets was not by any means a rare occurrence for the legendary radio icon to make."

Um, yeah, he's a "shock jock" by trade. They make controversial remarks. Sharpton et. al. piled on for their usual purposes of self-promotion. You can bet the bean-counters at MSNBC and CBS were working on ad revenue projections before any decision to fire Imus was made.

"From our past research of the tactics used against those threatening America's War Leaders, the likelihood of imprisonment for Don Imus would only occur should he persist in his threats to undermine their authority, and which appears, at this time, unlikely after the public disgrace he has had to endure."

Note to columnist: people in the U.S. do not go to jail for exercising their first amendment rights. If they say something stupid, they'll get lambasted for it, and possibly lose their jobs, but it's not a felony.

"Apparently lost upon America's media personalities is that a government . . . does not hesitate, for even a second, to crush any, and all, opposition to it."

That may be the way it works in Russia, but not the U.S. Ma'am, you've been living there far too long. Emigrate somewhere--anywhere--as long as it's not a formerly communist bloc country. The White House does not control the press in this country. If it did, you wouldn't see all the negative coverage that's out there. Negative coverage of the current administration cannot in any way, shape, or form, be considered White House propaganda. However, your article is just the sort of thing that Putin loves to see. You old-timers can't seem to get over the fact that the iron curtain has fallen.

Here's the real kicker. The by-line at the end, says it all:

"By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers"

So this was only reported to the West? Why not report it within Russia? The author would seem to be quite an accomplished propagandist in her own right. It remains to be seen whether anyone in the West buys this load of baloney. Somehow, I doubt it.

Women of Wellesley '69 Congratulate Themselves

I read a fascinating NY Times article in which the women of Wellesley, class of '69, bask vicariously in Hillary's extended glow.

“We were very proud of her: she was a feminist; she was outspoken,” said Jane Moss, a classmate who now teaches French at Colby College. “Hillary was speaking for all of us, for a generation that felt we weren’t being heard.”

It seems to me that the front end of the baby boom generation was far from unheard. This was the Woodstock generation. What I remember 1969 for is the Newark race riots. That was the beginning of "white flight" to the suburbs. Not everything the Woodstock generation accomplished, intended or otherwise, was positive. Yet, you'd never know it to listen to these Wellesley women.

"They have winced at her struggles over how to be a modern first lady and her marital humiliations, rejoiced with her election to the Senate, puzzled over how her guarded and cool political persona is so different from the warm, funny and outspoken woman they know.They still see her as the thoughtful friend who called every week after a husband died, or wrote a charming note about the birth of a grandson."

I'm wondering whether the warm fuzzy side of Hillary is just part of her steely calculations to attain her lofty ambitions. It's good for P.R., especially if these classmates pimp her out the way they're doing in this article.

“When Hillary had the class reunion at the White House, there were 325 of us there,” said Catherine S. Gidlow, a lawyer in St. Louis. “I turned to someone and said, ‘I think there are 324 of us here who feel like failures,’ and she said, ‘No, I think there are 325 of us who feel like failures.’ ”

Anyone who thinks Hillary's White House ambition is a new one should rethink their position. I certainly remember their slogan back in 1992: "Two for the price of one." She was a "failure," because Bill was president, not her.

“We always felt a little special, because we were the ones who were there when all the rules changed,” said Susan Doull, who has lived in Europe for the last 20 years, running hotels. “We were the last class before Wellesley was diluted by men’s colleges like Yale going coed, and Wellesley was where we began to focus on the idea that we would have careers.”

I've got news for you Ms. Doull: in 1969, I was being raised with the expectation that I would have a career and not attend college to get my MRS. It was unthinkable that I would work for a couple of years out of college until I got married and had kids. And I was still in grade school at the time. But you're entitled to feel special if you wish.

“I went to work for Citibank for two years after college,” Ms. Doull said, “and I was supposed to take a business trip with the officer I reported to, but his wife wouldn’t let him go with me, or he was afraid to tell her. I don’t think our daughters really grasp how different things were.”

What was I saying about going to work for a "few years?" Running hotels for the past 20 years sounds like a second career to me that came about after the kid(s) were raised. I've been on business trips both alone, and accompanied by male colleagues. So what? It's not as if we're booked into the same hotel room. Sometimes, we're not even booked on the same flight.

“The French department had never had a woman in a tenure-track position when I got to Colby,” Professor Moss said, “and when I got pregnant before tenure, they literally didn’t know what to do. When I came up for tenure, my male colleagues voted against me and I got tenure, but you can imagine my feelings at department meetings for the next few years.”

You got tenure, so I really don't see the problem. You're not entitled to have your feelings unhurt by the vote. You won. Enough.

“I hear these anti-Hillary attacks by men, especially right-wing men, and I feel like it’s just as much an attack on me,” said Cheryl Lynn Brierton, an in-house lawyer for the California courts. “It’s an effect of intelligence that you come across as intense, that you have strong views. I’ve always felt that the way she is singled out and attacked is very indicative of how society reacts to smart women.”

Ms. Brierton, you have it all wrong. Society doesn't single her out for ridicule because she's intelligent. It singles her out because she's shrill, and she instinctually goes into attack mode herself when someone opposes her viewpoint. Intelligent people are called "intelligent," whether male or female. Obnoxious people are called on it whether male or female. Think Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton, Jerry Falwell, etc.

If you wish to see how society acts toward a smart woman who accomplished much during her career, look no further than Millicent Fenwick. She was elected to congress at age 64 in 1974, and served for many years. She previously worked as an editor at Vogue, and became involved in politics during the 1950s, when Hillary was still in diapers. Though a Republican, she was adored by the press, even by Gabe Pressman, who is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. Any woman who can pull off that sort of lifetime achievement, and smoke a pipe, is far more of a pioneer than Hillary.

“She goes to a women’s college, gives that gangbuster graduation speech, then goes to Arkansas, continues her career in the stellar way, makes more money than her husband, has only one child,” Ms. Parke said. “Then she becomes the first lady, makes the cookies remark, tries health-care reform, but when it doesn’t work, she has to become the housewife of the White House, because that’s the required persona. Now that her husband’s out, though, she can go back to pursuing her own career.”

I question whether Hillary ever left her career behind while in the White House. Travelgate? Filegate? Whitewater? The Rose Law Firm, and all those "lost" (presumably incriminating) documents? She was doing her thing behind the scenes all along, laying the groundwork for the next phase of her life. Does anyone think she wasn't a carpet-bagger when the Clintons decided to move to NY, so she could run for Senate? Neither she nor Bill had ever lived in NY prior to that Senate seat being up for grabs. It was highly opportunistic, like everything she does.

Professor Colony and others sound rueful, too, about what they see as Mrs. Clinton’s political compromises. “She reaffirms for me the fact that as soon as you get into politics you have to compromise on your goals, if not your ideals,” the professor said. “It’s incredibly upsetting, but I think it’s a fact of life.”

I don't think Hillary's compromising her goals at all. She's running for president. The fact that she has opposition merely reinforces that we live in a democratic republic, not a banana republic.

Katie Couric, Political Pundit

There was a fascinating "news" article on CBS's blog section today from Katie Couric. It was nothing more than a video clip of an op-ed piece, but it was presented with her sitting at what could be a news desk "reporting" into the camera. Her topic was Barack Obama. The text headline accompanying the video clip read:

" Is America ready for a President who grew up praying in a mosque?"

Clearly Ms. Couric has an agenda. It's obvious who she will not be voting for in the 2008 Presidential election. Her tactic was interesting. Rather than attack Obama for his mixed racial ethicity, she went after his family member's religion, specifically Obama's childhood exposure to Islam through his step-father. She dismissively mentioned the fact that he also occasionally set foot in church as a kid.

I am by no means a fan of Obama, but my issue with him is strictly his left wing moonbat voting record, not his race nor his exposure to any given religion. To watch Ms. Couric focus on the religion of his stepfather as the reason not to vote for him is insulting. I do not need Ms. Couric to tell me what to think, nor what to focus on, in selecting the candidate who will ultimately receive my vote.

The management at CBS has a habit of letting such fake news items go. They should have fired Dan Rather a lot sooner than they did. I won't even get into the knee jerk reaction they had to Don Imus (that topic requires a separate entry), other than to say it was the polar opposite of how they handled Rather.

Suffice it to say that Katie Couric is no political pundit. Do not mistake her for one.

Rabid Neighbor Bites Edwards

FROGGIE, Staff Writer


Marty Johnson didn't even know that his next door neighbor had spoken to the press until his cell phone rang on his way home from a fishing trip Monday afternoon. More calls followed.

The first two were from lawyers wanting to represent him in a slander case. That was when he learned that Elizabeth Edwards had called him "a rabid, rabid Republican," and went on to say that she "didn't want her children going near him."

Johnson thinks the Edwardses are ticked off about the sign he put up on his fence. "It says 'Go Rudy Guiliani 2008.' They see it every time they enter their driveway. That, and they don't like poor people they way they claim."

Johnson owns 42 acres adjacent to the Edwardses, on which his birth home lies abandoned, facing their property. He lives in a single-wide trailer, and rents another building on his property to an auto mechanic.

"The whole thing seems silly to me" said Johnson. "I'm a retired landscaper, so I do a little hunting and fishing now and then. Unless her children look like catfish or squirrels, I'd never mistake them for good eats. Elizabeth, on the other hand . . . well, I'd be tempted to go bite her on the leg."

Powered by ScribeFire.