Hillary Insults Voters...

The following is a column authored by Mary Mitchell which appeared in today’s Chicago Sun Times.

Hillary insults voters in attack on Rev. Wright

MARCH 26, 2008

BY MARY MITCHELL - SUN TIMES COLUMNIST

What I find the most sickening about politics is that some politicians think the American people are idiots.

No, strike that.

Some politicians depend on them being idiots. That’s how they get elected.

For instance, what are voters supposed to believe about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s back-handed criticism of Sen. Barack Obama’s decision not to disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., his former longtime pastor?

After three weeks of acting as if the cat had her tongue, Clinton coyly told reporters on Tuesday that "he [Wright] would not have been my pastor."

"You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend," she said.

Voters who are still trying to sort out fact from fiction with respect to Trinity and Wright are not supposed to notice that Clinton is taking the low road.

Instead of following Obama’s lead and using this incident to seek racial reconciliation, Clinton is further fanning the flames by attempting to paint herself as the more racially sensitive candidate.

"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus, saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said. "I just think you have to speak out against that."

Since Obama has already spoken out against Wright’s remarks, Clinton is simply trying to milk the controversy for political advantage.

But Americans are supposed to be too dumb to see that.

Indeed, the fact that Clinton found her voice on this issue on the same day she was outed as having misstated her Bosnia experience is merely a coincidence.

Is it Clinton’s fault that she was asked about the Wright controversy during an editorial board meeting with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review?

Is it her fault that she was put on this spot at the same time some of the media were grilling her about her embellished account of her 1996 Bosnia trip?

Of course not.

Nor is it her fault that the American people seem to be more upset by Wright’s remarks about race than about Clinton’s obvious lies.

Few of us have ever had to dodge gunfire as Clinton claimed to have done, but if we had, we would remember it.

So Clinton’s explanation that she "misspoke" and that she was "sleep-deprived" when she retold the bogus incident (more than once) was insulting.

But here’s what I find depressing.

Like former President Bill Clinton, who became unglued in South Carolina and began exploiting our racial divisions, Hillary Clinton is playing the same game.

The Clintons are no strangers to the black church when they are campaigning.

They know Obama went as far as he could go in addressing this issue, and that he has left it up to the voters to decide.

The Clinton strike Tuesday was a shameful attempt to manipulate those voters.

After all, given that Clinton is embracing the support of a governor who has publicly declared that white men in Pennsylvania won’t vote for a black man, she isn’t the one to talk.

hillary "misspoke" her experience, religious tokers, and bullshit immunity for a badge...

just how much of hillary’s "experience" is based upon lies? oh, right, she isn’t lying, she’s only "misspeaking." the clinton camp has wanted us to believe that she somehow has this vast foreign policy experience (which in itself isn’t much of a selling point considering the foreign policy wogs are the fucknuts that got us in this disaster in the first place) from her time as a first lady (most likely because if you look at her experience and not that of her husband it doesn’t amount to much more than a few foundations and less time legislating than her opponents, with a little corporate boardroom thrown in on top...just what we need, another hack of a "liberal" that will bend over for walmart). the latest being her big speech in which she "misspoke" about her trip to bosnia, claiming to have landed amid "sniper fire" and having to run with her head down to get to the base. funny thing hillary, there are pictures of you with your daughter (which raises the question, if this were such a high priority foreign policy trip wrought with danger, why the fuck is your teenage daughter with you?) calmly hob-nobbing with an 8 year old girl in front of smiling suits (and not a single soldier in sight) at the same time you claimed to have been running for cover from the constant sniper fire. so there you have it...hillary for president - when a little girl in a ponytail calls the white house at 3 a.m., she’s equiped to answer the call...

oral arguments were heard before the tenth circuit concerning some purportedly religious tokers this week. the church of cognizance got busted with a few hundred pounds of pot...their claim being that for them, marijuana is not only the tree of life, but it is the deity itself. now before you roll your eyes and claim "bullshit" know that the founder has spent his life researching this, even teaching himself cuneiform to brush up on zoroastrianisn, the oldest known religion, and decipher what truly is the "tree of life" from said sect. through a lifetime of research, he determined it was marijuana - a belief that evolved into marijuana also being the deity incarnate. and so he registered a religion based upon "good thoughts, good words, and good deeds." and so marijuana is a sacrement that is the cornerstone of their religious belief system...and the border patrol arrested them and charged them with trafficking narcotics. forgetting for a minute that it is entirely assinine to outlaw marijuana while celebrating alcohol...why the fuck are we spending our tax dollars on going after some old burnouts that went through 20 years of trouble to develop a way to legally smoke pot. even if the religion is a crock of shit...anyone willing to go through that much trouble for a joint deserves the right to enjoy it without harrassment. for fuck’s sake, these folks earned it...

the supreme court agreed revisit the issue of "qualified immunity" once again. for those of you that don’t know, "qualified immunity" is the fun doctrine that lets cops run all over your civil rights, lie about it in court, and then you are basically just fucked. any other person commits a wrong against you and they are subject to civil suit and damages...governmental agents do it, and they are immune from everything. I ask you a simple question - how the fuck does this make sense? you want to make sure that law enforcement obeys the commands of the constitution? make it hit them in the pocket books, because I guarantee you the worry of suppression doesn’t do shit to keep them in line - especially when they have spent generations perfecting the art of "testilying." it will never happen, but governmental agents and agencies need to know that illegal actions don’t pay just because you have a shiny badge from the taxpayers.

don’t ask me where I heard it first...

the old guard must go and richardson does something right...

hillary, in her continuation of bill’s quest to destroy liberal america and the democratic party, just refuses to accept the reality that has been staring her in the face for the last few months...she cannot legitimately win the nomination. the only hope she has is that the democratic establishment decide it would be best to destroy the party in the mistaken belief that hillary somehow would spare better in the general than obama. unfortunately, there are a lot of shitbags that agree that destruction of the democratic party, at a time when obama is attempting to use it to forge a lasting new "new deal" coalition, is the job of the democratic elite. james carville thought it an "act of betrayal" that bill richardson would do what was right and endorse the candidate he felt was best suited for the times - because if the machine worked properly, he would "owe" it to the clintons to endorse hillary. and in perhaps the least noticed, but most telling comment of a clinton supporter as of late, the governor of pennsylvania declared of the nomination process that "our job is to nominate the candidate with the best chance to win." forget for a minute that in a general election hillary’s voters will cross to obama, but obamas will abandon the democratic party, and possibly the process itself, and just take that statement in...

"our job is to nominate the candidate with the best chance to win." that statement is exactly why a politician like obama is so necessary for the democratic party to be saved from itself and the true america to again gain a foothold in washington. a democratic governor does not think it is necessary for the nomination process to be a contest of who is best suited for the position of the president and who best represents the ideals of the democratic party...he feels it is about who can finally perfect the failed election strategy of the gore and kerry campaigns and manage to squeek just enough electoral votes to get the white house back so that the democratic party can continue on a path towards conservatism.
governor rendell, after his idiotic "our job" comment, implied that it should bother democrats that obama trails mccain in polls in jersey, ohio, florida and missouri (more of the same failed strategy of moving right and only focusing on a few states while ignoring your ideals). apparently those of us liberals, progressives, working stiffs, blue collar, struggling folks in the rest of the country don’t count for shit in their democratic party.

this has always been my problem with the democratic party...the establishment is full of phoney fucknuts that don’t give two shits about the american people, the country or the world as long as they are "winning" - and it is exactly why my generation, at a time when the democratic party should have been stomping the republican party, has declared itself "independent" in increasing numbers. if the party follows the lead of the clinton machine...I, for one, will dance on it’s grave...and then I will weep, because one of the greatest chances in history will have been wasted, just to stroke the ego of a family that feels the white house is a right for them...your time has passed clintonites, you fucked everything up when you could have helped so many. for the sake of us all...go home and shut the fuck up.

which brings me to bill richardson, a man that many of you know I hold with just about no regard whatsoever. richardson endorsed obama, finally. we all knew he wanted to, because his non-endorsement of hillary was as clear a sign as any that he did not favor clinton. I hate to give richardson any credit...but this endorsement will be huge in the long run. obama has scored the endorsement of two hugely popular governors in the southwest (gov napolitano of arizona being the other), a region of growing political importance. more importantly, richardson represents one of the ultimate super-delegates in this contest...a man with actual foreign policy experience (not faux-experience based on landings "under sniper fire" that never happened) - built largely on his ability to be a pig with the best of them no doubt - that is telling the world that obama is well-equiped to handle the demands of world leadership...a man that should have run to the clinton camp given his ties to bill (although one wonders how much shit bill talked about hillary to richardson)...a man that, no matter how much he believed in a candidate, would never, never, never put his name behind someone he felt might lose under the circumstances...a man that is the only hispanic governor in the country telling hispanics obama is the one that understands and will help, not the wannabe cracker from the northwest suburbs of chicago. this endorsement is big and will have huge ramifications for obama come the general election...and for richardson come january - I always thought he wanted secretary of state...but a vice presidential nod would not surprise me now that he has learned to dress and talk.

all the others getting lost and found...

a message to my single-plank riding friends...

yesterday was another beautiful bluebird spring day at taos and the end of an era.



today, for the first time ever, you, my single-plank riding friends, have the opportunity to experience taos as us die-hard two-plankers have since it’s inception in 1955.

enjoy it.

and please know...it is not that I hate you...it is that taos is a very special place, often shared with special people (in liger helmets)...



and you will love it. and I hate that...because I am selfish.



but having introduced two newbies to the wonder that is taos ski valley in the last few weeks...I’ve recognized that this is a place to be shared.

welcome.

just don’t fuck up the snow.

the death of a party, improving human rights, and "supporting" the troops...

you got to give it to hillary clinton, she seems to have a drive within her that blinds her to anything but obtaining her birth/marriage right of occupying the chair where her husband used a cigar (we hope not a cuban...what with those dirty commies being under an embargo and all) on another woman. in the process of trying to be the "come back kid" (an amusing term for a self-crowned nominee that will only now win in one of two ways - murder or theft...the american way), hillary may very well accomplish something I have been seeking for some time...the death of the democratic party. I’ve been unbelievably peeved at the democrats for simple echoing the conservative movement’s talking points for years and have hoped beyond hope that some day the democratic party would finally fail when the people realized it abandoned us long ago. unfortunately, now that hillary is beginning to look as though she will succeed at this monumental task of dismantling the party of the new deal - it comes at a time when so many of us hoped that our voices would be heard by the party again, and we chose obama as our spokesman. so now we have hillary clinton...a "liberal" that is doing all she can to make not only obama unelectable, but ensure that half of her party bolts as a result...we have a "liberal" declaring that to be president you must be militaristic to a fault. we have a "liberal" declaring you must have more ties to entrenched interests than anyone else to occupy the white house. we have a "liberal" race-baiting to secure votes. we have a "liberal" surrounding herself with bigotry. we have a woman hell bent on overturning the popular vote by some old white men in the party that, just 8 years ago, cried and cried and cried that the popular vote had been over-ruled by a handful of folks in robes.

the death of a party...it came as no surprise.

good thing the olympics will be in beijing because now the world can pressure the chinese into observing basic human rights. or else they can just recognize that they have the "globalized" economy by the balls and do whatever the fuck they want...jail dissenting journalists and the most recent - relive some of the great moments of government brutality by sending in convoys of heavily armed troops to confront a few hundred students and monks. the result - beatings and a few dead so far...and its only going to get worse. I’ve got five on the administration saying "hey, stop that now" while never even remotely threatening economic sanctions (but then china doesn’t have black gold...or many brown people). for all our ridiculous ideological talk...we pretty much fucked ourselves when we bought into "globalization" - but then I guess a nation that is still in its infancy can’t really be expected to understand shit about historical trends.

good thing conservatives "support" our troops as much as they do...otherwise we might be concerned when soldiers, taken from the ranks of the poor and disadvantaged, lose benefits when they can’t finish their tours of duty. yup...get your leg blown off "defending" your country and they yank your GI Bill...apparently you are supposed to walk it off - or rather hop it off. the pentagon has been slashing benefits for years while forcing overtime (cutely termed "stop gap") on people that were forced into the military because Big Business has made sure that the same thing happened in the civilian world. sucks to be working class these days - lose your job when the democrats set up trade agreements to fuck you...which means you lose your health insurance because the democrats forced the trade agreements when they could’ve given you universal health care (pretty much the democratic way of pissing on you after giving you a severe beating)...which means you are in serious shit...which leads you to the armed forces recruiter - who promises you great benefits like you once enjoyed thanks to your union and the new deal (since sold out by the democrats), and so you sign on the dotted line. then you find yourself shipped off to some god-forsaken desert where the locals can’t wait for you to leave and some IED blows your leg to pieces. unfortunately, your tour was about to be up in a month and you can’t finish it...so all those benefits promised to you are taken away and you are back to your hometown in a run-down wheel chair, now with respiratory problems thanks to the mold in the veteran’s hospital, and you look with scorn on the boy king as he pats soldiers on the back and tells the country how much he respects you and those that fought along-side you...but you know they really don’t give two shits about you, and they never did. and you start to wonder who it is that is actually "supporting" the troops...

in clinton’s america it is good to be a black man...

nothing says old establishment democrat like bigotry...and now we have more confirmation (as if we needed it) that hillary and the people she surrounds herself with are chalk full of it.

twenty years ago ms. geraldine ferraro uttered these strom-esque words about jesse jackson - "if jesse jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race." comments very becoming of the first woman to be on a major presidential ticket. apparently comments so indicative of the kind of character hillary looks for that it earned her one of hillary’s top spots in the campaign and status as a major fundraiser.

well, twenty years later, and ferraro being one of clinton’s top advisors, one might expect her to at least have learned some tact and begun to hide her bigotry...unfortunately that apparently did not happen. mirroring a statement she made in a radio interview days before, this time within earshot of written press, she declared for the world that barack obama is lucky to be a black man in america:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is." yup...obama best thank his lucky stars that he was born to a kenyan father, had dark skin and is named barack hussein obama...because that inevitably gets you far in america. nevermind that black men suffer unemployment more than any other demographic group in america (white women over age 25 - 2.5 to 4.7 percent depending on marital status - black men over age 25 - 6.6 to 10.5 depending on marital status). nevermind that being a black man makes you more likely than any other demographic group to wind up arrested, prosecuted and in prison (see below)...

nevermind that there have been how many black senators since reconstruction? three if you count the lucky duck barack obama (who might I add...was challenged by another black man - the voters didn’t have much choice). five if you want to count the two from reconstruction. in the current senate alone there are three times as many white female senators as there have ever been black senators of any gender.

yup...it’s damn lucky for barack obama that he is a black man in america. we should all have it so good.

inevitably, these frighteningly rove-ian limbaugh-esque comments created a bit of a firestorm (thanks clinton camp - for ensuring that there are currently two republican assheads running for president). somewhat reminiscent of the hysteria that the clinton folks created after one of obama’s top advisors called hillary a monster (which, it seems, may not have been so far off). of course, ms. power was off the campaign the next day. clinton’s response to such bigotry from one of her right hand women? not much. after a few days of silence, she "rejected" the view. (surely she recognized the amusing aspect of her failing to both reject and denounce support, and advice, of a bigot after attacking obama for not both rejecting and denouncing the voiced support, without advice, of an anti-semite...of course plenty of jews are crackers too, and we are all scared of a militant black man...so I guess when a white woman voices bigotry towards black men it isn’t so scary). well...she didn’t "reject" at first, she only "disagreed." a few days later she "disagreed and rejected"...so maybe in a while she will get to rejecting and denouncing.

and while clinton failed to do what a true leader would have done (pretty much her m.o.) and quietly hoped it would go away rather than taking out the trash. although eventually ferraro would quit the campaign - it would not be with an apology (since she is "absolutely not sorry" for her hatred of black men) - and it would not be before she came back with the ultimate cracker comment - "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?"

yup...we are attacking you because you are white. it has nothing to do with your blatant racist bigotry declared in support of a major presidential candidate. it has nothing to do with your inability to fathom that if any demographic in this nation is "lucky" to be who they are - it would never be black men (unless you consider joblessness, lower pay and incarceration as wonderful benefits). it has nothing to do with the shame that you have brought upon the democratic party (which is difficult to do, since we all know how shameless they can be). it has nothing to do with how incredibly and astonishingly fucking moronic your comments were and continue to be. it has nothing to do with the fact that in a race where we should be celebrating that a woman is running against a black man, you instead attempt to throw us back in the 1800’s.

ms. ferraro - you are being attacked because you are a bigoted shitbag. it is just that simple.

although you did get one thing right (as stated on Daily Kos) - obama would not be in this position if he were not a black man...

If he were a white man...

the race would be over...

and he’d be the nominee.

diddleless libraries, you paying frogs, hillary hates you, and other random thoughts...

I've been working...a lot. for those that are curious - a motion to reconsider the two year sentence imposed on elton richard has just been filed. it is a giant of factual analysis if I don't say so myself...but it also means I need to get back to the rest of life...and before delving into the next brief, here's some shit on my mind...

the albuquerque public library system just declared that sex offenders are no longer allowed on the premises of any public library. and once again we see the paranoia at work - the "don't ever give any hope of rehabilitation and we should kill them all the second they are accussed" crowd speaks again. once you get past the reality that this is utterly unenforceable (although I am picturing terminator-esque face scans at the doors of all public buildings in albuquerque) - you realize that is is also utterly fucked up. these people have served their time, and then some. they are on lists with their pictures posted online declaring them to be the lowest of the low - a sex offender. (nevermind that if you are a 19 yr old senior in high school and happen to get a little physical with your 16 yr old sophomore girlfriend you are, technically, a sex offender). and now they can't even go get a goddamn book from a public library. nothing like some good old fashioned american limitations on "public" - its practically a national pasttime.

few days ago we learned that not only is the military's budget ridiculously bloated and dragging us all into the easily foreseen sink-hole that is the graveyard of economic hegemon's past - but now the administration is using it as a way to transfer your tax dollars not just to the richie rich's in new york and little connecticut, but to the french. how interesting that the same people that wanted french fries renamed "freedom" fries have now used american tax dollars to put approximately 15,000 american workers out of a job in favor of handing a huge contract to a french company. (yes, jobs will supposedly be created in alabama - but a hell of a lot less than boeing had promised). there was a time when republicans were respectable (of course that was about 150 years ago) - there was a time when the granddaddy of them all could rightly say "republicans are for both man and the dollar, but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar." abe, for your sake, I hope there is no afterlife - because if you can see this, man you must be pissed...

hillary is patting herself on the back and claiming a big victory, crediting her bullshit rove-ian tactics...of course it is still virtually impossible for her to win the nomination without underhanded backroom deals. every time this woman gets a chance to show that she actually does care about what is right, that she actually does give two shits about this country - she blows it. when bill pushed NAFTA over healthcare - she fell in line. when her husband walked all over her for decades - she became a feminist hero for letting it happen again (someone still needs to explain this one to me). when presented with the possibility of another war that made no sense - she did not even read the report before voting to give the boy king the green light. when presented with the best thing to happen to her party, to the left, and to the country's politics in decades - she slanders it. so tell me...why does anyone respect this woman?

and another thing - isn't this celebration a little odd in the way the post new hampshire celebration was odd? two weeks ago her lead was 25 points in ohio and 10 in texas...cut in half in ohio and barely won in texas...how exactly is this a comeback?

hillary wants the two to run on the same ticket...perhaps it looks as though her best shot at getting into the white house is with "clinton" in small print under "obama"...

brett favre retired...never imagined I would say this, being a bears fan and all, but the game won't be the same without him...there is always something wonderful about a man realizing it is just that, a boy's game...and playing it like one...

spring training is in full-swing...and with a fuld pie in center - how can the cubs not win it all?

the california supreme court heard arguments on gay marriage...the state attorney general's office (taking a page from the boy king's administration and arguing against civil liberties) stated that we just need to give society time to adjust. which is why jim crow was necessary...society just wasn't ready for them uppity negroes, especially those ones that wished to (gasp) marry a white person. good god...how will society ever survive if devoted lovers are allowed to publically declare their loyalty to one another? it would be the end of family values...

so you're gonna save the world? you're not saving anything...