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I will not support Hillary Clinton for president
By Molly Ivins
01/20/06 "CS"
-- -- AUSTIN, Texas --- I'd like to make it clear
to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not
support Hillary Clinton for president.
Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation.
Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is
not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable
of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is
enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri
Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning,
are just contemptible little dodges.
The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I
spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn
it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country
is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular
politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are
times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can
provide relief.
If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to
speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find
some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do
it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud,
"Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy --
rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man
trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The
majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in
Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65
percent) of the American people want single-payer health care
and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86
percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage.
The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing
Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The
majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting
domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising
taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it
takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent)
thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support
a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE
YOU AFRAID OF?
I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining
elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway
("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the
damn polls?
Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who
writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic
Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the
defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are
attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006
and 2008."
This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi,
emboldened by "a string of bad new from the Middle East ... into
calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic
folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden
and Joe Lieberman.
Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership.
Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the
lies they continue to dump on us daily.
You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad
Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking.
I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his
district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to
OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.
Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for
Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only
reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else
who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has
made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform,
electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put
up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics
continue to run your town.
Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully
card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War
brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went
around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were
"German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German
shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for
opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain
what loving your country really means. That, or you could just
piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate
them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the
Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of
bad news."
Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is
as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up
and fight, we'll find someone who can.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2006 CREATORS
SYNDICATE INC.
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