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As the USS Barack Obama is running into increasingly stiff headwinds the
star of Hillary Clinton is rising higher and higher over the liberal
horizon. Buyer’s remorse over Obama’s presidency and the prospect of
ignominious defeat at the polls with the President probably dragging
underwater a slew of Democratic legislators frantically trying but
failing to detach themselves from his sticky coattails make for a
powerful potion of nostalgia for the former First Lady of the United
States, once a prohibitive favorite to become the second president named
Clinton. The highly favorable backdrop (today, anyone would look good
compared to Obama) and Hillary’s sky-high ratings (over 60 percent, even
up to 70 percent in some polls) make her the Democratic Party’s Great
White Hope (metaphorically speaking, of course).
Sorry, Hillary aficionados, your hopes are an impossible dream. There is
no way you can run your horse unless Obama withdraws from the race.
There is good reason for that. By monopolizing the black vote the
Democratic Party clutched to its chest a tar baby from which it can
disengage itself only at its peril. It has become so beholden to the
African American electorate that the tail is now wagging the dog, and no
Democrat will dare run against the Hope and Change Prophet at the risk
of alienating the most dependable bulwark of their Party or maybe even
provoking inner city unrest. Still hope springs eternal, and the “run,
Hillary, run” thunder rolls ever more deafeningly in the liberal
echo-chamber. So much so that even some in the conservative blogosphere
tremble at the prospect of facing the Joan of Arc of the Democratic
Party in 2012.
Suppose the Democratic grand poobahs muster enough courage to challenge
Obama and run the former First Lady against him. Quite apart from the
danger of offending the black electorate, the enormous difficulty of
challenging a sitting president with his immense resources (ask the
Kennedy clan about Uncle Ted’s attempt to unhorse the hapless Jimmy
Carter) and the proven viciousness of the Obama operatives, here is the
big question: What will she run on? Is she any different from Obama? Not
much. Like the President, she is an acolyte of Saul Alinsky, that
original community organizer (she even wrote her senior thesis at
Wellesley College on the radical guru, disagreeing with him on tactics
while warmly embracing his ideology). She fully shares Obama’s
redistributionist views; her failed health care reform plan was a
prototype of Obamacare; throughout her lifetime, she has unswervingly
hewed to the left-liberal line - just like Obama. In a word, she is
Obama’s ideological Siamese twin.
She must present a plausible rationale for running against her boss.
Would she try to sell herself as a patriot who has submerged her ego for
the sake of the country to provide adult supervision in the romper room
of infantile Marxists? Bob Gates could present himself in this light,
but not Hillary, a faithful water-carrier who in any way has been
playing a barely noticeable part in the administration. She is an
outsider in a regime whose head honcho surrounds himself with praetorian
Chicagoans and trusts nobody else. Hillary was allowed on board
primarily to neuter her and for no other purpose - other than maybe
taking the fall for the Boss if push comes to shove. She has to take
orders from the people truly close to Obama, like Samantha Power who had
famously called Hillary a “monster” during the last presidential
campaign. How can she criticize the policies she has faithfully
executed? If she disagreed with them, why didn’t she resign in protest?
How can she attack Obama’s record without looking as a hypocrite? Bob
Gates fought a valiant if losing battle for the interests of the
Pentagon and made no secret of his disagreements with the President.
Does anyone remember a single instance of dissent on the part of
Hillary? Neither can I.
And what are her accomplishments as Secretary of State? The only
memorable episode in the foreign policy drama starring Hillary Clinton
was her ridiculous, badly botched attempt at statesmanship when she
presented a giant, red RESET button to the Russian foreign minister. Not
only was it transcribed in Latin letters rather than Cyrillic as
elementary courtesy would demand, but the Russian translation was wrong:
“overload” instead of “reset”. Mr. Lavrov couldn’t resist the temptation
to embarrass his American counterpart, gleefully pointing out the
mistake. In that sorry episode Hillary played the part of that guy from
the joke: “Hey, you were hit and did not react. - I didn’t react? Who do
you think fell down?” Other than that she has left no mark, faithfully
executing the orders coming down from the White House and looking like
an undistinguished gofer. Is she a force in her own right, the master of
her domain, a John Foster Dulles or a Henry Kissinger? Not hardly, as
John Wayne would say.
And then there is the issue of character. During the eight years of Bill
Clinton’s administration, Hillary’s public standing followed what seemed
to be an iron law of nature: as soon as she faded into the background,
her ratings went up; no sooner would she force her way to front than her
popularity would take a dive. Small wonder, for who could help
shuddering involuntarily at the aura of cold fury emanating from her;
watching those pallid eyes blazing with demonic hatred; hearing those
blood-curdling screeches that substituting for oratorical flourishes or
the inane cackling that passed off for laughter in embarrassing
situations. And how about the steady stream of “I mean’s” and “you
know’s” that adorned the conversation of the “smartest woman in
creation”. It is to her near invisibility that she owes her current
popularity. But once she steps into the glare of the limelight, all
those memories will flood back.
And then there is her extensive lurid record: the Whitewater affair, the
cattle-futures scam; the White House Travel Agency caper; the cover-up
of her philandering husband’s hyperactive “social life” by setting up
and running a secret goon squad to intimidate and muzzle dozens of his
paramours; the looting of the White House; the tender kiss the
profoundly moved First Lady from Washington planted on the cheek of the
First Lady from Ramallah after hearing Suha Arafat denounce those
dastardly Jews for poisoning Palestinian wells (Hillary thereby achieved
the impossible: in 2000, running for the Senate in New York, she managed
to drive down the Jewish vote for a Democrat to barely above 50
percent); the innumerable little silly lies that flew out of her mouth
as effortlessly as from Joe Biden’s. The only miracle of her sordid
public life is that she somehow managed to stay one step ahead of the
law and avoid prison. Anyone else would land behind bars for a fraction
of what she had done, but the ostensibly blindfolded Goddess of Justice
studiously averted her gaze from the 43rd First Lady. There is no
telling whose reputations were at her mercy in the mountain of FBI raw
files Bill and Hillary Clinton took care to procure as soon as they
ensconced themselves in the White House.
To sum up, politically, the Secretary of State cannot challenge the
President; she carries too much baggage; and on top of that, she fails
to offer a genuine alternative to the current occupant of the White
House. Why would the voter who has grown sick and tired of his old car
trade it for an identical model except for the hood ornament? So how do
liberals spell relief? It’s anybody’s guess, but it surely ain’t
H-I-L-L-A-R-Y.
©V.Volsky
Previous publications:
#9,#8, #7(1,2),
#5,
#4 2011 |