To: Hillary Clinton Dead-enders
From: The Rest of Us
Look, I know you guys are feeling under siege right now, and don't want to say anything that will simply drive you further into a defensive crouch. But the situation demands I ask you to ask you a simple, straightforward question:
Are you giving Hillary the same kind of pass on her obvious personal and professional flaws that Republicans gave George W. Bush eight years ago?
There were reams of evidence before he was elected to warn us that George W. was a lying, cheating, self-indulgent, know-it-all, before we turned the keys to the nation over to him. Nevertheless half the nation decided to buy the packaging in the hope that the product inside lived up to its marketing.
It didn't. In fact the product turned out to be so toxic it ruined our economy -- and likely much of the world's. It also tainted our international reputation, drained our treasury and has nearly gutted our military.
That's what you get when you ignore obvious, documented character flaws in a candidate for the most important job on earth.
At least in that case we liberal/progressive types can shift the blame for GW Bush on America's paleo-conservatives -- the sort who still believe Nixon was framed -- aided and abetted by our knuckle-dragging, "my country, right or wrong," high school drop out demographic.
Who will bear the blame this time around if we send another flawed individual to the White House? An individual who has and continue to display obvious personal and professional flaws. I say "obvious," even though polls show that millions of you out there still either don't see them, or refuse to see them.
So here are just a couple of the most recent clues to the kind of Presidency we'd get if you Hillary Clinton supporters are successful and, against the odds, she actually beats John McCain.
What is about these stories you don't "get?"
Re: The Bosnia Matter
No, I'm not talking about the lie she told about being under sniper fire on her visit to Tusla. She blamed "lack of sleep," for that lie. But anyone who has ever really been shot at knows that dozy, drugged, drunk or deranged, you never forget it. And visa versa.
No, I'm not going to beat that horse again, because there's worse... much worse.
Christopher Hitchens writes about the real Bosnia disgrace in the current issue of Slate Magazine:
The key factor in Bill's policy reversal was Hillary, who was said to have "deep misgivings" and viewed the situation as "a Vietnam that would compromise health-care reform."
The United States took no further action in Bosnia, and the "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs was to continue for four more years, resulting in the deaths of more than 250,000 people.
“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.
Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story, which Mrs. Clinton had first heard from a Meigs County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputy in late February.
“We reviewed the medical and patient account records of this patient,” said Mr. Castrop, the health system’s chief executive. Any implication that the system was “involved in denying care is definitely not true.”
We just had a president who started a war on conveniently wrong intel. Do we want another president who "never investigates a convenient story too far?"
Re: Trade Agreements
During the Ohio primary Hillary claimed she was always against NAFTA, even though we can watch video of her on YouTube campaigning for NAFTA. But, like the Bosnia story, there's more. Hillary also assured hard hit, unemployed Ohioans that she wanted a "time out" for any new treaties with south of the border nations.
Oh, really? Then why was her chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn, pimping for just such a trade agreement -- and right in the middle of the campaign, no less?
Sen. Clinton, as well as the labor unions, opposes such a trade agreement and Penn’s efforts, who allegedly met with representatives of the Colombian government to help promote the agreement, were the last straw. Penn, regarded by many as one of the architects of the Clinton campaign, left the campaign on Sunday.
I want someone I can trust. I want a president who knows what her top aides are up to. And I want a president that does not try to have things every which way she can finagle.
Do you really believe Hillary had no idea that Mark Penn, one of the Clinton's closest friends for a quarter-century, had no idea he was also selling his services to the Columbians? I don't.
But wait, there's more:
We've all become all too aquatinted with the Bush administrations very own for-pay militia, Blackwater. The company has been as close to mercenary force America has ever seen. In Iraq it has become the US State Department's very own little army, which has run amok at will, gotten away with it and gotten paid for it.
Despite all the bad publicity Blackwater has earned the US, the State Department just agreed to renew the company's contract for another year in Iraq.
AP -- Amid investigations into fatal shootings of civilians and allegations of tax violations, Blackwater USA's multimillion-dollar contract to protect diplomats in Baghdad has been renewed, the State Department said Friday...A final decision about whether the private security company will keep the job is pending, the department said. Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater is one of the largest private military contractors, receiving nearly $1.25 billion in federal business since 2000, according to a House committee estimate.
Wanna guess who is Blackwater's chief lobbyist: Mark Penn.
What? On March 28 Hillary Clinton told a crowd in Fayetteville:
Nevertheless, there was Hillary's chief strategist bellied right up to the Blackwater feed bin alongside Ken Starr.
Did Hillary know? Of course she knew. The Clintons have an opposition research operation that would be the envy to the old KGB. She knew. She didn't care. Why? Because Penn's ethical code -- what little there is of it -- dovetails perfectly with hers. (As in --"It's nothing personal. Just business," -- as usual.)
Look, you Hillary people -- all the rest of us ask is that you pay attention to these things. They are real. They matter. Character matters. We've just -- barely -- survived two terms of a president who had his own perfectly clear flaws which, had they been taken seriously 8 years ago, maybe a million Iraqis and 4018 American soldiers would still be alive today. And that's just for starters.
I will end by letting Christopher Hitchens have the last word on this. Again, writing on Mrs. Clinton, "don't take the focus off my healthcare program by bombing the Serbs:"
Let the memory of the truth, and the exposure of the lie, at least make us resolve that no Clinton ever sees the inside of the White House again."
So, can you hear us now?
