18 posts tagged “2008 primary”

080422 Dominion Post p 1 on Hillary Clinton

A lot of people call George W. Bush a dumbass, because they say he is ignorant about foreign policy and the names of leaders.
   Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton says she is smart and experienced, even if she has memory and “misspeaking” problems caused by sleep deprivation.
   Here’s the latest one that made the front page here in Wellington, New Zealand, in the Australian-owned Dominion Post newspaper. Sen. Clinton called Helen Clark the ‘former prime minister of New Zealand’ even though she’s still in office.
   If she gets in, Americans are still going to get comments about a dumbass, ignorant president from us. So much for restoring America’s international prestige—when she makes mistakes like this.
   No doubt it was caused by sleep deprivation again.
   If you can read the article, the latest Clinton “misstatement” managed to remind the New Zealand press about her gaffe that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, something later revealed to be complete fiction. The Bosnian sniper-fire incident is also in there.
   She’ll say anything, it seems—and in my book, that’s not presidential. The anti-Bush types say that if the world could have voted a US president, he would not have got in. It seems that if New Zealanders could vote in anyone into the White House from here, Hillary Clinton doesn’t look like our pick.

I always enjoyed seeing Johnny Carson on late night TV. I didn’t know he was still alive.
   Oh, wait! It’s John McCain!

Forwarded to me by a friend, an article that shows Sen. Clinton’s lying goes way back, before she was a politician. Excerpts:

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the [House Judiciary Committee]. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation—one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.
   Why?
   “Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

Read the remainder of the article at http://www.northstarwriters.com/dc163.htm.

From the Associated Press:

Former President Clinton says Democrats concerned about what the deadlocked presidential contest between his wife and Barack Obama may be doing to the party should just “chill out” and let the race run its course.

   Not great advice: ‘Chill out about my wife’s lying.’ This is effectively the idea.
   Sorry, Bill, been there before.
   In 1992 and 1996 we were told by then-Governor and President Clinton to ignore his past and focus on the future. Well, we all know what ignoring the past gave us: a controversial president distracted by the Lewinsky scandal, making him an easy target for the Republican Party.
   The trouble is, they all seem pretty controversial.
   But Americans should not forget a candidate’s background and choose not from one who can play the people or promise the earth. That past will impact on how (s)he does the job.
   Of course Mr Clinton has to ask us to forget in order for his wife to be in with a chance. I just would not be surprised if this becomes Sen. Obama’s catchcry if any controversies stick to him.
   My advice, nevertheless, will remain the same. Never forget, America. Not about your values, your freedoms, and certainly not about 9-11.

American Infidel posted an excellent piece from Cross Action News on how the US political system has been compromised, by Carl Parnell. Some excerpts:

   However, as seen in these different opinions, politicians have been blamed for the failure of America’s political system. But, one respondent to the survey voiced a strong opinion that put the blame on average Americans. Her opinion was:

Our Constitution frames the best form of government on the planet. The balance of powers and the system of checks and balances provided a framework that allowed our young country to grow and develop and remain despot free for the last 220 years. The government itself is not what I have lost faith in. “We the People” is what I have lost faith in.

   And advice for the electorate follows (my emphasis), and I have to agree with it as I have never, in the elections I have participated in, voted for personal gain. Even for those who do not believe in God or in prayer, the remaining advice is still useful:

   “Of the people, by the people, for the people” means the people should educate themselves and elect leaders at all levels that work for them. The people should watch what those elected officials do and boot them out of office when they no longer work for the people. The caliber of citizens and politicians has declined in the last 220 years.
   Therefore, America’s political system is at a crossroads in 2008. When the American electorate votes for the President of the United States and for any members of Congress in November 2008, they must absolutely know the true facts about each candidate. Citizens of the United States must not permit the race, gender, or political party of the candidate be a determining factor in who wins the election. Citizens of the United States must not let personal economic gain become the deciding factor in which candidate they vote for in any election. Citizens of the United States must vote for candidates who have the true qualities of great leaders, such as those possessed by America’s forefathers. Some of these qualities would be honesty, integrity, morality, faith in the nation they serve, faith in the people they serve, having the character of a statesman instead of the character of many modern-day politicians. Of course, true representative leaders of the United States should always pray to God before voting on any legislation that affects the greatest nation in the world.
   However, if America continues to elect people to office that assume the role of a politician instead of a statesman, America may lose more than just the faith of its citizens toward its political system. America may possibly lose its status as the greatest nation in the world.

   There is still support for the US around the world—but they need a beacon to look up to rather than to criticize. In November, vote to make America great again—not just in economic terms, but in terms of the true leadership and morality that it can stand for.

There you have it: Hillary Clinton says that sleep deprivation caused her to lie about being under sniper fire in Bosnia. Guess she isn’t the sort of president we would want answering phones at 3 a.m.
   But as Andrew Sullivan reports, Sen. Clinton actually made the same claim back in February and now wonders if she was sleep-deprived then.
   He also digs in to Sen. Clinton’s quotation, ‘Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else … For the first time in 12 or so years I misspoke.’
   Sullivan writes in The Atlantic (original emphasis):

Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else. This is close to clinical delusions of grandeur. Does she really think that most of the time she is above being human? Do you know any human being who hasn’t misspoken in the last twelve years once? Or would ever claim such a thing? I sure couldn’t. And this from a candidate whose most famous campaign ad rests on her ability to make national security judgments at 3 am!

   He continues, and I have to agree increasingly more:

Bill Safire was right: she is and has for a long time been a congenital liar. I don’t mean by that that she deliberately and pre-meditatedly decides to deceive people. I mean she has long since forgotten the difference between truth and untruth (enabling addicts can do that to people). I mean that by seeking power and self-advancement for so many years, at the expense of any other human values, she has lost all sense of what the difference between truth and falsehood is, who she is, what really matters or any fundamental sense of perspective.

In closing: ‘She is a lost and dangerous soul, as her husband still is. She is, in my view, unfit to be president. Truly, deeply unfit.’
   And you thought I had it in for the senator from New York.

The reasons I haven’t been fully supportive of John McCain have largely been from GOP-voting friends who have met him. They speak of a man who seems empty with a cold handshake. McCain supporters might say that that is a sign of a man who hates political functions and prefers getting on with the job. I guess it could be seen both ways.
   He has been the butt of my own jokes. On television a couple of years ago, I asked the audience, ‘So what party is this guy with again? I can never tell.’ There has been a perception of McCain being not conservative enough and even in the lead-up to his party’s nomination for the presidency there were members of the religious right who felt the senator from Arizona could not possibly be their guy. Hence, former Gov. Mike Huckabee looked more palatable to them; while the technocrats could not fathom anyone like Huckabee getting the nomination.
   Examine McCain’s record and he’s a pretty consistent conservative, from his time in Congress (where he was a supporter of Ronald Reagan), so this perception may have been an invention of the media and his opponents. Remember, when he and George W. Bush were battling it out in 2000, things got dirty as both ran attack ads. McCain came off pretty terribly.
   In fact, when I looked at McCain’s record today I am not too sure why there may be some liberal support for him, although he might be able to use that to his advantage with the voting public. Unless people like George W. Bush have been even more staunchly conservative and have offended those liberals.
   While voting for the War on Terror Sen. McCain also had amendments to bills added, such as ensuring that the US did not engage in illegal torture of its PoWs. That is easily explained: if you were beaten up and tortured yourself over a five-and-a-half year period, you’d be pretty averse to seeing another human being go through the same thing.
   I write of him now not because I have suddenly picked up a GOP baton and figured he’s the best choice for President, but because he hasn’t really had any time in the limelight.
   The media are chanting either Obama or Clinton, although more seem to be wondering why Hillary Clinton is still in the race. She must either know she’s a fading cause célèbre, or the Clinton fear-mongering tentacles of Arkancide run deeper in the MSM than we can give them credit. Unless she has a genuine chance, prepared to come on stream if something happens to Obama.
   I have written about Barack Obama on this blog because being a minority I want to redress the balance of some of the racist tendencies of some MSM coverage. Politically I do not agree with him any more than I agree with many of the contenders for their parties’ nominations. From memory most of the candidates have a 60 to 70 per cent similarity with my views, which makes you wonder if they are just all saying the right things.
   I feel similarly when I defend John McCain. He is the subject of less media coverage (which is the bias here), and he is the subject of ageism as America goes around with this notion that only a younger person can be a dynamic president.
   This is not just a US phenomenon: the west loves the idea of a young, glamorous leader.
   The US’s finest hours have come from experienced, wise presidents, backed up by strong and wise first ladies. JFK did not live long enough, in my view, to have given the country a “finest hour” in his presidency, though he was inspiring; historical presidents such as Adams, Lincoln, Hoover and FDR were hardly young men.
   In this election, Americans need to consider not just the candidate’s stated position but what their past says about their characters—not what the MSM, attack ads and campaign lies say.
   They need to strip away the biases of age, race and gender as each principal candidate has suffered from prejudice of one sort or the other.
   They need to examine McCain’s 27 years in elected office, without the rhetoric, just as they need to examine Obama’s 12 and Clinton’s eight. (If Obama is inexperienced, according to Clinton, then what does that make her?) And if we are to consider Clinton’s time as First Lady of the country and of Arkansas as she wishes us to, then the record of Lt Cmdr McCain and later Capt McCain needs to be considered, too.
   Because the next four years are not about trying to restore Camelot in the White House: they are about putting a person in the White House that can only preach honour but has shown it.
   Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, what we foreigners want to see is trustworthy leadership. Honour begins at home, and who do you want saying, ‘The buck stops here’?
   If voters dislike spin then who has offered the least spin, the candidate on whom you can rely most? Or that other countries can rely on most: that America’s enemies will know their days are numbered, that America’s allies will know they have a real friend, and that those who fell out with America know that the nation will in fact consistently and genuinely stand for freedom and liberty?
   Men like me were brought up to admire the US for its service to humanity and freedom, and its opposition to Communism, and we want to admire it again. It should not be a country perceived as slogan-heavy and substance-free, yet the perception has shifted toward this since the 1960s. A candidate who resorts to such techniques does not necessarily fit in the 2008 scene and, sadly, that is how I perceive Sen. Clinton. If McCain is really a maverick, then he might shake things up as much as people hope Obama will.
   This should be a race between McCain and Obama, and the next months, hopefully, will reveal it is just that.

I am not Sen. John McCain’s biggest cheerleader by any means—heck, I even made fun of him on national television—but there are aspects of his life where you think, ‘Man, this guy has served his country.’ And when I say ‘served his country,’ I don’t mean taking a trip to Bosnia with Chelsea Clinton and coming under sniper fire. Some quotes about his past, which might explain just why he has his fans. First, from VietnamWar.com:

John McCain’s 5½ years of captivity in North Vietnam were divided into two phases. Early on, this son and grandson of high-ranking Naval officers was accorded relatively privileged status. Then he refused early release—which he saw as a public relations stunt by his captors—insisting that POWs held longer than him should be granted their freedom first. Thereafter, McCain was treated much more severely, but he also had an opportunity to bond with his fellow prisoners.

   So this captured PoW, a Naval Lieutanant Commander, who had suffered two fractured arms, a fractured leg, a bayonet wound in the foot, said: I’m not going home early, no matter how bad.
   He was then beaten every two hours in the second phase, while suffering from dysentry, and later two to three beatings a week. While not the worst given out to PoWs in Vietnam, McCain said he discovered where his breaking point was.
   When running for Senate, and accused of being a carpet-bagger, McCain responded to a journalist:

Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.

   I know this is McCain in his past, and not everyone agrees with him today, but these aspects don’t seem to be brought up much in the media. He holds a Silver Star, Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart and a Distinguished Flying Cross, and retired in 1981 in the rank of Captain.
   If the American election is about experience, as Sen. Clinton says, then John McCain looks pretty unbeatable. But, this election is about so much more.

Sen. Hillary Clinton admits she made a mistake about her Bosnian “sniper fire” story:

“I did make a mistake in talking about it, you know, the last time and recently,” Clinton told reporters in Pennsylvania where she was campaigning before the state's April 22 primary. She said she had a “different memory” about the landing.
   “So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I'm human, which, you know, for some people, is a revelation.”
   “This is really about what policy experience we have and who’s ready to be commander in chief. And I'm happy to put my experience up against Senator Obama's any day.”

   No, Senator. This is really about honour. But if it is about experience, Sen. Obama has had four years more than you have in elected office.
   He has a voting record that Americans can examine.
   Sen. McCain has had even more experience, so if this is the issue, then why don’t Americans all vote Republican?
   And, Americans will now be thinking the following: do I want someone in the White House who can’t recollect when she was under sniper fire?
   I mean, it’s a pretty big deal to be shot at.
   It’s a very big deal if your own daughter is with you when you first claimed that you were shot at. I would be remembering, ‘I was scared for my daughter.’
   But now it seems you might not have ever had that emotion.
   It’s a big deal to not admit to the mistake for such a long time and defuse the situation.
   If you were Sen. Capt John McCain, USN (retd.), a man who served his country in war, then you could be forgiven for mixing up when you were shot at. The guy has been shot at plenty.
   Just imagine how bad your recollection might be if you had to take a call at 3 a.m.

Hillary Clinton tells a big porky and got found out—just that it’s Easter and there are fewer media around. From The Huffington Post:

If you’re Hillary Clinton and you’ve just been caught in a “whopper,” the only thing to be grateful for is that it’s Good Friday and people are distracted. How bad could this story be for her? When you tell the American public you faced gunfire, and it turns out all you really faced was a little girl with flowers—well, that’s as bad as it gets. When you dramatically say you made a journey that was too dangerous for the President, only to have it revealed that he made the same trip two months earlier—and that your teenaged daughter was by your side—that only makes it worse. …
   Just this week Sen. Clinton said that she landed in Bosnia under “sniper fire,” adding: “There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

   Apparently, this is one of the many Clinton myths about her ‘experience’. It’s a way of making her seem more experienced than Barack Obama, who has had four years’ more time in elected office.
   I can’t imagine the media letting Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain off the hook if they told this big a porky.
   The Post wrote this update, even if assuming Sen. Clinton’s recollection was true:

It requires enormous suspension of disbelief to accept the idea that Hillary brought her 16-year-old daughter too a place that was considered “too dangerous for the President” and exposed her to live sniper fire. Do those pro-Hillary commenters really believe she did that? If so, they should be concerned about her judgment. …
   But the media wants a prolonged horse race, so Clinton will get a pass while we continue to be hammered with clips of Jeremiah Wright making statements Obama repudiated a week ago. The press is once again influencing the outcome of American elections—and that’s not democratic.

   Whenever you are puzzled about ‘Why?’, the answer is simple: follow the money.