A case against Hillary Clinton

[SixPackInBoxers]

The Case Against Hillary Clinton

Why on earth would we choose to put the Clinton family drama at the center of our politics again?

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Jan. 14, 2008, at 12:15 PM ET

Seeing the name Hillary in a headline last week—a headline about a life that had involved real achievement—I felt a mouse stirring in the attic of my memory. Eventually, I was able to recall how the two Hillarys had once been mentionable in the same breath. On a first-lady goodwill tour of Asia in April 1995—the kind of banal trip that she now claims as part of her foreign-policy "experience"—Mrs. Clinton had been in Nepal and been briefly introduced to the late Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest. Ever ready to milk the moment, she announced that her mother had actually named her for this famous and intrepid explorer. The claim "worked" well enough to be repeated at other stops and even showed up in Bill Clinton's memoirs almost a decade later, as one more instance of the gutsy tradition that undergirds the junior senator from New York.

Sen. Clinton was born in 1947, and Sir Edmund Hillary and his partner Tenzing Norgay did not ascend Mount Everest until 1953, so the story was self-evidently untrue and eventually yielded to fact-checking. Indeed, a spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton named Jennifer Hanley phrased it like this in a statement in October 2006, conceding that the tale was untrue but nonetheless charming: "It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add."

Perfect. It worked, in other words, having been coined long after Sir Edmund became a bankable celebrity, but now its usefulness is exhausted and its untruth can safely be blamed on Mummy. Yet isn't it all—all of it, every single episode and detail of the Clinton saga—exactly like that? And isn't some of it a little bit more serious? For Sen. Clinton, something is true if it validates the myth of her striving and her "greatness" (her overweening ambition in other words) and only ceases to be true when it no longer serves that limitless purpose. And we are all supposed to applaud the skill and the bare-faced bravado with which this is done. In the New Hampshire primary in 1992, she knowingly lied about her husband's uncontainable sex life and put him eternally in her debt. This is now thought of, and referred to in print, purely as a smart move on her part. In the Iowa caucuses of 2008, he returns the favor by telling a huge lie about his own record on the war in Iraq, falsely asserting that he was opposed to the intervention from the very start. This is thought of, and referred to in print, as purely a tactical mistake on his part: trying too hard to help the spouse. The happy couple has now united on an equally mendacious account of what they thought about Iraq and when they thought it. What would it take to break this cheap little spell and make us wake up and inquire what on earth we are doing when we make the Clinton family drama—yet again—a central part of our own politics?

What do you have to forget or overlook in order to desire that this dysfunctional clan once more occupies the White House and is again in a position to rent the Lincoln Bedroom to campaign donors and to employ the Oval Office as a massage parlor? You have to be able to forget, first, what happened to those who complained, or who told the truth, last time. It's often said, by people trying to show how grown-up and unshocked they are, that all Clinton did to get himself impeached was lie about sex. That's not really true. What he actually lied about, in the perjury that also got him disbarred, was the women. And what this involved was a steady campaign of defamation, backed up by private dicks (you should excuse the expression) and salaried government employees, against women who I believe were telling the truth. In my opinion, Gennifer Flowers was telling the truth; so was Monica Lewinsky, and so was Kathleen Willey, and so, lest we forget, was Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who says she was raped by Bill Clinton. (For the full background on this, see the chapter "Is There a Rapist in the Oval Office?" in the paperback version of my book No One Left To Lie To. This essay, I may modestly say, has never been challenged by anybody in the fabled Clinton "rapid response" team.) Yet one constantly reads that both Clintons, including the female who helped intensify the slanders against her mistreated sisters, are excellent on women's "issues."

One also hears a great deal about how this awful joint tenure of the executive mansion was a good thing in that it conferred "experience" on the despised and much-deceived wife. Well, the main "experience" involved the comprehensive fouling-up of the nation's health-care arrangements, so as to make them considerably worse than they had been before and to create an opening for the worst-of-all-worlds option of the so-called HMO, combining as it did the maximum of capitalist gouging with the maximum of socialistic bureaucracy. This abysmal outcome, forgiven for no reason that I can perceive, was the individual responsibility of the woman who now seems to think it entitles her to the presidency. But there was another "experience," this time a collaborative one, that is even more significant.

During the Senate debate on the intervention in Iraq, Sen. Clinton made considerable use of her background and "experience" to argue that, yes, Saddam Hussein was indeed a threat. She did not argue so much from the position adopted by the Bush administration as she emphasized the stand taken, by both her husband and Al Gore, when they were in office, to the effect that another and final confrontation with the Baathist regime was more or less inevitable. Now, it does not especially matter whether you agree or agreed with her about this (as I, for once, do and did). What does matter is that she has since altered her position and attempted, with her husband's help, to make people forget that she ever held it. And this, on a grave matter of national honor and security, merely to influence her short-term standing in the Iowa caucuses. Surely that on its own should be sufficient to disqualify her from consideration? Indifferent to truth, willing to use police-state tactics and vulgar libels against inconvenient witnesses, hopeless on health care, and flippant and fast and loose with national security: The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut. Of course, against all these considerations you might prefer the newly fashionable and more media-weighty notion that if you don't show her enough appreciation, and after all she's done for us, she may cry.

http://www.slate.com/id/2182065/

I don’t often find myself in agreement with Hitchens but I do here. The truth is rather an alien concept to Bill and Hill.

 

[jetsonboy]

"The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut." This statement proves he is just a Clinton hater. Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' most experienced candidate.

 

[Maklaar13]

"The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut." This statement proves he is just a Clinton hater. Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' most experienced candidate.

I agree with you wholeheartedly.........

 

[LaloGS]

Give it up for sixpack. He can't give it up himself. . . He likes pissing into the wind too much.

 

[kaleman77]

At least Hillary and her surrogates have not called Obama...Macaca Obama. That's a start. Maybe the racial cease-fire will hold.The Obama Eruption has been handled kinder than the Bimbo Eruption. That's a start.

 

[SixPackInBoxers]

"The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut." This statement proves he is just a Clinton hater. Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' most experienced candidate.

Experienced? As set in her ways I suppose you mean.

She was wrong about all the important maters of our time. Her handling of healthcare under her husband. About her disaterous vote for an Irag invasion. About her vote on Iran.

We have her record. And experience tells us she is unfit to lead the country.

Her record (experience) is one that any one in their right mind will obviously reject. Fortunetly we have her track record before we vote - it is a terrible one - and frightening if she ever got near the levers of power.

Thank goodness we have had that experience so that we can reject her's - and move on.

 

[NickCole]

Experienced? As set in her ways I suppose you mean.

She was wrong about all the important maters of our time. Her handling of healthcare under her husband.

The taskforce's proposal was to mandate employers to provide health coverage to employees through HMOs. That may or may not have been the best way to go, but rather than work with her and the taskforce to come up with a better way, Republicans and the insurance industry sought to destroy her credibility. Who was trying to be productive and work to solve a problem for the American people and who wasn't?

About her disaterous vote for an Irag invasion.

In her speech right before casting her vote she said, "... Some people favor attacking Saddam Hussein now ... However, this course is fraught with danger. ... So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option. ... I believe the best course is to go to the UN for a strong resolution that scraps the 1998 restrictions on inspections and calls for complete, unlimited inspections with cooperation expected and demanded from Iraq. ... Even though the resolution before the Senate is not as strong as I would like in requiring the diplomatic route first and placing highest priority on a simple, clear requirement for unlimited inspections, I will take the President at his word that he will try hard to pass a UN resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible. ..." http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html

Hillary Clinton voted to give the President authorization to use military action after he assured her he would give inspectors time to complete their work. Instead he pulled out the inspectors and started a war.

Hillary Clinton is not responsible for Bush's decisions and actions, only of believing the President of the United States wouldn't lie about starting a war.

About her vote on Iran.

What adverse consequences have resulted from her vote?

We have her record. And experience tells us she is unfit to lead the country.

Saying it doesn't make it so. Prove it.

Her record (experience) is one that any one in their right mind will obviously reject. Fortunetly we have her track record before we vote - it is a terrible one - and frightening if she ever got near the levers of power.

Hillary Clinton has been near the levers of power for decades. As First Lady of Arkansas and then of the United States she worked for change and progress in substantive ways. To keep this brief I'll cite just two:

As First Lady of Arkansas she won a hard-fought battle to institute mandatory teacher testing and state standards for curriculum and classroom size.

As First Lady of the United States she was the major force behind SHIPS (State Children's Health Insurance Program), which provides health coverage for thousands of children whose parents are unable to.

That's the positive change she's made when she's merely near the levers of power. At the levers herself, there's every reason to believe she'll be the instrument of much more positive change.

 

[JayHawk]

As First Lady of Arkansas she won a hard-fought battle to institute mandatory teacher testing and state standards for curriculum and classroom size.

Oh so she started "No Child Left Behind" Excellent achievement. Trumpet that one to the (m)asses because the rest see her for who she is.

The best part about all this is there is sooooooo much material to work against Hillary.

For your next trick Nick, watch the second video in the Hillary 08 thread and refute those blatant lies that come directly from her mouth.

I thought you guys were looking for a truthful leader after George Bush.

 

[naked gent]

The taskforce's proposal was to mandate employers to provide health coverage to employees through HMOs. That may or may not have been the best way to go, but rather than work with her and the taskforce to come up with a better way, Republicans and the insurance industry sought to destroy her credibility. Who was trying to be productive and work to solve a problem for the American people and who wasn't?

Lets try and keep it accurate Nick. While I concede that she was likely to have problems with the forces you mention her attempt to forge her plan in secret eliminated any possibility that they could work with her task force.

What she learned from the experience, given her current plan, was to place the burden of solution on the individual rather than the insurance industry or Washington. Worse still is that she refers to this mandate as providing you insurance which is twisted language at best.

Hillary Clinton is not responsible for Bush's decisions and actions, only of believing the President of the United States wouldn't lie about starting a war.

It was obvious to all but the politically ambitious what the Bush administration had in mind for Saddam before her vote. They were not coy about their intentions. However, had Mrs. Clinton complained about being duped in the summer of 03 and did not wait until the war and, worse still, the polls all went to hell I might give her the benefit of the doubt but as it is, in good conscience, I can't.

 

[jetsonboy]

So Obama is ready to lead this country? Give me a break!

 

[JayHawk]

exactly. neither of them.

 

[Spensed]

So Obama is ready to lead this country? Give me a break!

Either Obama or Hillary might end up leading the country and I'm sure either of them would do fine for different reasons.

What Obama lacks in experience, he makes up for in vision and fresh thinking, and, what Hillary lacks in charisma, she makes up in sheer determination.

Both are streets ahead of any of the Republican grifters.

 

[starlight70]

Both have the strengths, and their flaws.

I'd like to see a Black President. I'd like to see a female President.

But I can't help to think that Obama is greedy for wanting to run to be a President only after one term. Wait your turn, Barracks.

 

[PSCGuy]

"The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut." This statement proves he is just a Clinton hater. Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' most experienced candidate.

No she's not. Please, the 35 years thing is an invention of Mark Penn because it sounds really good. Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Bill Richardson all have more experience in US government and world affairs than Clinton does.

That said, she's not a bad candidate. I like her more and more recently, as my respect for Obama wanes.

Hitchens is a Clinton-hater latching onto whatever he can to discredit her. I don't really care what she did to get here; I care what she'll do when she gets into office. And given what I've seen from her, and that includes EVERYTHING, so don't think I'm avoiding her Iraq "framing", I think she'd be a good president.

 

[PSCGuy]

exactly. neither of them.

Question, mazda. Why do you have a pro-Obama quote in your signature when you clearly don't support him?

 

[Kurn]

For your next trick Nick, watch the second video in the Hillary 08 thread and refute those blatant lies that come directly from her mouth.

Refutation? There are several statements which are valid in their respective strategic context.
In other words, she doesn't give us the children's version.

As President she will give primary focus to our troops and to our security.
Why? For the obvious reasons and secondly, it has a very real and vital Keynesian aspect that will help our country economically in a benefit-advantaged way.

You're hearing lies, Mazda because you're pre-conditioned to interpret them that way.
I know, I've done it, too. At both ends of the political spectrum.

America needs to return to its own center.
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[Kulindahr]

"The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut." This statement proves he is just a Clinton hater. Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' most experienced candidate.

Yeah...
Experienced at lies, among other things.

You know, your statement in bold is kind of like a judge saying "Overruled", and someone saying, "This statement proves he is just a defendant hater".
Actually, such a conclusion on the basis of such a simple statement reveals a bias on the part of the speaker/writer.

In her speech right before casting her vote she said, "... Some people favor attacking Saddam Hussein now ... However, this course is fraught with danger. ... So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option. ... I believe the best course is to go to the UN for a strong resolution that scraps the 1998 restrictions on inspections and calls for complete, unlimited inspections with cooperation expected and demanded from Iraq. ... Even though the resolution before the Senate is not as strong as I would like in requiring the diplomatic route first and placing highest priority on a simple, clear requirement for unlimited inspections, I will take the President at his word that he will try hard to pass a UN resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible. ..." http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html

Wow.
The President does "signing statements", and the Senator does "voting statements".