Andrew Sullivan has some strong words in response to Hillary’s comparisons of herself and one of our most flawed presidents:
Johnson risked his entire coalition on the issue of civil rights – a heroic act that still reverberates today. The Clintons wouldn’t risk a smidgen of a percentage point in a Mark Penn poll for the duration of a news cycle. That’s the difference.
TeddySanFran over at FireDogLake apparently has not read anything by George Will in the past decade or so, referring to Will as “GOP Cheerleader Number One” – which I am not sure he has every been. And certainly not during the Bush administration – as he has been very critical of the president.
He essentially admits as much, but if so, he should avoid making comments like that one so he doesn’t look foolish.
[digg-reddit-me]In 1992, a man from Hope inspired Americans, and a plurality voted him into the White House. But something less hopeful lurked underneath the surface of this aspiring political dynasty. Joe Klein, writing as Anonymous in his fictionalization of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, Primary Colors, told the story from the perspective of an idealistic young aide corrupted both by the process and the charismatic candidate himself. The major subplot of the novel involved a close and lifelong friend of the Stantons (representing the Clintons) who when confronted with the venality, ruthlessness, and pure lust for power of the candidate and his wife killed herself in anger and sorrow.
George Stephanopoulos, writing in his memoir of the campaign and early Clinton presidency, attributed the suicide of the close Clinton confidante and advisor, Vince Foster to a similar emotional breakdown. ((Page 187 of All Too Human.)) Writing shortly after Foster’s death, Margaret Carlson of Time magazine, quoted Foster as saying: “Before we came here, we thought of ourselves as good people.”
Politics, as Stephanopoulos describes it delicately, is about “play[ing] the game for the sake of getting good things done.” Any realist – any student of history – any politician – will tell you that there is a large element of truth to this. What was Lend-Lease but part of a game FDR was playing to drag us into World War II? What was Lincoln’s careful campaign formulation of allowing slavery to stay where it was but preventing any new slave states from from joining the Union if not a political stratagem? But there is a sense among those who worked with the Clintons that they sold their soul to win this game – that their lust for power overrode all ethical impulses, and that they sullied everyone who believed in them.
There is a risk of this disappointment in every campaign – including Barack Obama’s. Power corrupts. Washington corrupts. Dreams and ideals and promises are broken upon hard reality.
But sometimes, our leaders, all too human as they may be, help us rise above the game. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream; John F. Kennedy called on a nation to go to the moon; Abraham Lincoln called on the “better angels of our nature”. All of these men were corrupted by power; none of them were perfect; they were all politicians. Yet each man met their moment; each individual transcended mere politics even as they participated in the political game. They had the judgment to know when to compromise and when to stand firm.
The Clintons had their chance. They demonstrated their character – and were found wanting. Bill Clinton recently said that to vote for Barack Obama is to “roll the dice”. He had a point. Obama may be corrupted as easily as the Clintons were. But at least with Obama, there is a chance the story might turn out differently. We need to, in Bill Clinton’s words, “roll the dice”.
[digg-reddit-me]George Stephanopolos wrote in his memior, All Too Human, about a conversation he once had with journalist I. F. Stone:
“You covered Washington for so long,” I asked, “weren’t you ever tempted to go into politics yourself?”
“Once,” he answered. Sixty-five years earlier, when Izzy was in high school, the political “boss” of his class had offered him a place on the editorial board of the school paper ‘his dream job’ in return for campaign help. But whatever temptation Izzy felt was quickly overwhelmed by a wave of nausea and a vow never to approach active politics again.
I respected that sentiment, envied it, felt slightly shamed by it, but didn’t share it. My new work seemed too thrilling to renounce, and I was a natural at the game of politics: at knowing who knew what I needed to know, at absorbing the rhythms of legislative life by walking the halls, at preparing committee hearing questions for my boss that might get picked up by the press, at learning to anticipate his political needs and to use his position to advance my issues too, at succumbing to the lure of the closed room and the subtle power rush that comes from hearing words I wrote come out of someone else’s mouth.
A democracy needs people like Izzy on the outside to keep it honest, but it also needs people on the inside to make it work – people who will play the game for the sake of getting good things done. But you have to be careful. Your first deal is like your first scotch. It burns, might make you feel nauseous. If you’re like Izzy, once is enough. If you’re like me, you get to like it. Then to need it.
George Stephanopoulos
All Too Human
pages 17-18
The only times I believe her – really feel the conviction and weight behind her words, actually believe she is speaking from her heart, instead of uttering poll-tested phrases designed to manipulate – are when she is talking about herself.
Her new ad airing in South Carolina is a great example.
[digg-me]
via Marc Ambinder
I’m wondering who this quote is supposed to refer to:
Over the last week I listened to you and in the process I found my own voice. You helped remind everyone that politics isn’t a game.
Which couple has been accused for the past twenty years, by liberals mainly, of believing politics is just a game? Barack and Michelle? John and Elizabeth?
Peggy Noonan had an interesting point (via Andrew Sullivan) backing this point up:
Was what is called sexism part of the story? I suppose, and in a number of ways. When George Bush senior cries in public, it’s considered moving. Ditto his moist-eyed son. But in fairness, they have tended to appear moved about things apart from themselves, apart from their own predicaments. Mrs. Clinton was weeping about Mrs. Clinton. If a man had uttered Mrs. Clinton’s aria – if Mr. Obama had said, “And you know, this is very personal for me . . . as tired as I am . . . against the odds,” and gotten choked – they would have laughed him out of town.
Even one of Hillary’s other breakthrough moments before the New Hampshire primaries was about her:
The other moment from last Saturday’s debate that got a lot of airtime also demonstrated my point – at least to myself.
For me, the drama in this is not the idea Hillary is presenting, or the message. What is interesting and compelling is that Hillary is talking about herself. Obama and Edwards talk about the changes they want to make – and they use their life stories to illustrate their commitment to change, and why they believe what they believe. When John Edwards talks about how his father worked in a mill – and he does often – it’s not that interesting. What is interesting is how this “son of a mill worker” has dedicated his presidential campaign to helping those like his father. When Barack Obama tells his stories – of his unlikely candidacy, of his traveling to South Carolina and getting fired up – he is using them as an example of the idea he is trying to get across. When Hillary Clinton finally “welled up” – the subject was herself; her “new” campaign is about her finding her voice; when she talks about change, aside from her nakedly strategic attempt to get Edwards to join her in attacking Obama, she is touting herself.
In order to be a politician, one is required to be at least a little narcissistic. As one of the candidates said: “I think if you don’t have enough self-awareness to see the element of megalomania involved in thinking you can be president then you probably shouldn’t be president.” Certainly Barack Obama, John Edwards, and the rest of the candidates for president feel this election is the culmination of their lives and careers. Each of them acts as if they were meant for this moment, as if they were made for it. There is no other reason they should be running.
The problem with Hillary is that ambition and narcissism and megalomania are not some of the factors pushing her to run. They are all she has.
FactCheck.org had this to say about the Obama smear email I wrote about yesterday:
Such attacks usually can be disproved with less effort than it takes to forward them to others. The statement that Snopes endorsed the false claim that Obama is a Muslim radical is an example. So we find it disappointing that they continue to circulate.
via Andrew Sullivan.
So, now those forwarding these email are not only seen as lazy and gullible (by me), but also as, for some reason, making a greater effort to forward these lies than it would take to check their veracity – which kind of contradicts the laziness thing on a level.
[digg-reddit-me]My father received the Obama smear email today. There seems to have been an addition to the email since Snopes first refuted it:
We checked this out on ‘snopes.com‘. It is factual. Check for yourself.
However, if you go to search for the story at Snopes.com…
Claim:Illinois senator Barack Obama is a “radical Muslim” who “will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”
Status: False.
It is interesting though that the author does not say that Snopes said the item was factual, but only implies it by stating such in the next sentence, creating the illusion of a logical train of thought.
PBS created a timeline entitled “Anatomy of a Smear” last week that is useful. PBS’s piece shows that CNN, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, ABC News, and other news organizations have investigated the claims made in the piece and found every verifiable claim to be false.
The real question this email should bring up is this: Who is making this stuff up, and who are they trying to fool?
The claims behind the email are demonstrably false, and have been widely reported as such. These smears have appeared in a number of emails, although they all follow the same story line. Someone is obviously deliberately perpetrating a falsehood – and the lies have come up during the Iowa caucuses, as well as from a campaign staff of one of Obama’s rivals.
Someone is betting on the laziness and gullibility of the American people. The question is: Who?
Commentators and candidates have drawn many parallels from today’s Democratic candidates to historical figures and elections.
[via reddit]
[digg-reddit-me]Hillary Clinton has been described as Nixon and LBJ, including the latter by herself. John Edwards has been described as a FDR (mainly by himself), William Jennings Bryan and a Bobby Kennedy. Barack Obama’s historical analogues have been far-ranging. Ken Burns has compared Obama to Lincoln. David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has as well, as seen above. JFK’s top speechwriter has compared Obama to President Kennedy. Before his Iowa win, intelligent pundits saw parallels to failed liberal candidates: Adlai Stevenson, Bill Bradley, and Gene McCarthy.
But it wasn’t until Hillary took a swipe at Obama that the parallels to Barack to Martin Luther King, Jr. became evident. The main theme of the 2008 is, and will be, change. Americans know that we need to tackle many long-term issues:
Our current politics – based on tears and smears, on the Bushes and the Clintons, on money and more money – is unable to produce meaningful or lasting change.To vote for Clinton or Giuliani or Romney or Thompson or Huckabee (and to a lesser extent McCain ((The McCain of 1999 to 2002 could have changed politics. The McCain of today is still an honorable man – but despite his commendable honesty, I am not sure how much he would be able to, or willing to try to, get done.)) ) – is to vote to continue the politics of the past decades, producing gridlock and negligible progress, even as Cassandras continually point out our impending doom.
There are three candidates who embody three very different approaches to change: Ron Paul, Barack Obama, and John Edwards.
Ron Paul is quite clearly a reactionary – and in this case, I do not mean it to be derogatory. He wants to trim government to a radical extent – back to the period before the Civil War. I doubt the change he desires is possible – and, although I agree with his positions on many contemporary issues, I believe he goes too far in rejecting the American tradition after 1860. I believe there is much to criticize in the American tradition after the Civil War – but also great progress. Ron Paul’s opinions are a valued addition to the public debate.
It is easier to compare Barack Obama and John Edwards to each other, rather than to Paul. They agree on many policies and in their general themes. Their differences are about how they would lead us to the future – how they would accomplish change. When Hillary said that Barack was not Martin Luther King – it occurred to me that the movement he represents, and the figure he projects, recalls the relationship of Martin Luther King to John Edwards’s Malcolm X.
In many ways, the success of Obama is due to Edwards’s harassment of Clinton.
Anyone can see the relationship between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X can see the parallels. (Which makes Clinton, unfortunately for her, LBJ again.)
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X’s disagreements about how to accomplish change were more fundamental than the current divide between Obama and Edwards; but both King and Malcolm X recognized in the other the same desire for change, and respected each other as individuals and as leaders. When I saw John Edwards defend Barack Obama against Clinton – this is what I thought of – not that the boys were ganging up on her as she suggested.
Martin Luther King succeeded where Malcolm X did not because King bet that he could bring achieve more by appealing to all Americans, rather than a select group. Barack has made a similar bet. While in King’s day, the Jim Crow laws divided Americans into blacks and whites, our politics today has divided America into Red States and Blue States, liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats. We have been divided into two teams – we on our respective team, often without a clear rationale, adopt positions and defend our teams against all opposition. Many others are turned off from politics by the partisanship entirely. Yet polls show that agreement exists among working majorities on how to tackle some of our major long-term problems; and even larger portions of Americans agree that something must be done to attempt to deal with the major problems we will soon face.
Obama’s bet, like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, is that with a respectful and intelligent dialogue, he can change our politics; and by changing politics, we can change America’s path together.
It is supremely unlikely that he, or we, can accomplish this. But we owe it to ourselves to try.
[digg-reddit-me]According to the exit polls, Democratic primary voters who had positive feelings about the Bush administration voted overwhelmingly for Hillary. Via Sullivan.
Which kind of makes sense. Which other candidate on the Democratic side would reinforce the partisanship of the Bush years? Which candidate would embrace most enthusiastically the new and improved presidential powers? Which candidate would solidify Bush’s legacy, by bringing Democrats aboard Bush’s agenda on executive power and a “tough” foreign policy?