Yeah, another Hillary Clinton 2016 imminent announcement thread. The other one is getting long and acrimonious. And love her or hate her have your reservations about her, HRC’s announcement is a big fucking deal.
Some wag in comments here (I think) suggested that HRC should use Elf Queen Galadriel’s speech from Lord of the Rings* in her announcement:
Both awesome and disturbing on multiple levels but unlikely. Open thread.
*I realize this text is from the movie rather than the book. It’s shorter, and I like it better. Yeah, that’s right; I think P. Jackson actually improved on J.R.R. Tolkien, at least in this one instance. Now if that’s not two conversational hares that will set the hounds baying at Balloon Juice, my name’s not Betty Cracker. (Oh wait…)
Corner Stone
Man, if that’s acrimony then I been doing it wrong!
opiejeanne
I missed the acrimony? I miss all the fun.
samiam
She is way too neocon for my liking but if it’s a choice between her an another Bush well it’s a no brainer. A very depressing no brainer. Not a lot of daylight between her and McCain when it comes to foreign policy. That mostly means bomb anyone who disagrees with you.
askew
My only hope is that this announcement isn’t focus group tested to death and doesn’t come across as detached and arrogant as her last one.
On a more exciting note, SNL knows who O’Malley is. Yes, they compared him to a Simpsons character, but at least they know his name. He’ll be up to 10% in the polls in no time.
I am spending today bargain shopping at the outlet mall and getting a gift package ready for a new mom who is coming home from the hospital. Nothing is more fun than shopping for baby clothes.
Baud
@Corner Stone: Yeah, compared to what’s coming down the road, we were practically having group sex in the last thread.
askew
I do have to say that it shouldn’t be too much to ask if we have to suffer 8 more years of Clinton drama that we don’t also have to pretend to take Chelsea seriously. I can’t believe Elle put her on their cover for becoming a mom. The asskissing from the media and Hollywood this time around is going to be painful.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: Actually, you’re right — my bad! I was catching up on other, more acrimonious threads and got caught up in the cumulative effect. The last thread was foreplay. If you play your cards right, maybe this one will get ugly!
samiam
The good news is that she drives the wingnuts almost as crazy as Obama does. The NRA meatheads are already starting in with the apopolectic “Hillary is going to take away our guns” nonsense.
Anyone the wingnuts dislike can’t be all that bad.
WaterGirl
Betty, I love that quote in this context, and I am always a big fan of your photoshopping.
Speaking of “or my name’s not Betty Cracker”… I was looking for a good recipe for dinner rolls for easter last week and I sort of ended up stealing from two different recipes to make mine. I was trying to type something like “my version of Betty Crocker’s dinner rolls” and I’ll be damned if it didn’t take me 3 times before I could type “Betty Crocker” instead of Betty Cracker.
Fair Economist
@samiam:
HRC supports the negotiated deal where Iran won’t make the materials for a bomb. McCain wants to go to war instead. That’s enough daylight to drive an 18-wheeler through.
scav
Have some Piaf for soundtrack going forward. Somehow Non, Je ne regrette rien seems to fit both sides of any (non-)acrimony. Plus, comes with a father acrobat, a mother Italian-born café singer, a maternal grandmother flea trainer and a paternal grandmother that ran a brothel in Normandy. (centenary of her birth)
Snarki, child of Loki
Needs moar TREMBLE AND OBEY!
WaterGirl
@Baud: Finally! Sex where you don’t have to use protection. Yay.
(except for protection against the name-calling, that is)
Hey, I went back to bed at 6:30, fell asleep right away and slept soundly for two hours until Mr. Bear unleashed his secret weapon. Mr. Bear alone cannot make me get up, but he has learned to get the puppy riled up, which does work. Too many smart animals in this house..
JPL
Just like the swift boaters slammed Kerry’s military service, some group will slam The Clinton Foundation. The truth doesn’t matter to fox news viewers.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
*begins ladder drills*
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Excellent. When I wake up early, I usually can’t get back to sleep, and it ruins my whole day.
mai naem mobile
@JPL: yes, because helping poor brown people is always,but, always wrong
WaterGirl
So far, ideas for the democratic equivalent of republicans speaking to their base where they live, which is “at the intersection of hate & fear” are:
hope & change and hookers & blow
Snarki, child of Loki suggests “tremble & obey”, though that might not have been the conversation she was contributing to. :-)
Surely there is a way to define ourselves that simply. I just can’t seem to come up with it.
boatboy_srq
Maybe it’s just me, but between the quote and the explanation for it, I laughed my a## off back there.
Baud
Bonus points for Hillary if she uses bqhatevwr in her tweet.
Davis X. Machina
Been done.
the Conster
I know lots of women of a certain age that will be excited to vote for her. I can’t imagine anyone not named Koch being excited to vote for Bush. If that’s the choice, so be it, but really, America? [insert Peggy Lee singing here].
the Conster
@WaterGirl:
Reality Based
SiubhanDuinne
@samiam:
MMFA headline:
Could this guy possibly be more oblivious to his cocoon of privilege? Or any more offensive to all women and all people of color? Just … wow.
WaterGirl
@Davis X. Machina: Not sure if that was intended as a serious link, but I would have had to sign up just to see what it was, and I didn’t.
Mike J
@JPL:
And then the so called liberals will blame Clinton for being lied about. “blah blah blah, tired of the drama, blah blah blah.”
Baud
@WaterGirl:
It’s a bible quote. Worked for me on the mobile site.
Davis X. Machina
@WaterGirl: hmn.. I didn’t
Plan B.
Bobby B
The Corporation has chosen her, it’s up for grabs who They will choose to be her republican opponent. The TPP has no opponents at all.
Tree With Water
Hillary Clinton supported the Bush-Cheney War, and defends her decision by claiming good people were misled by faulty intelligence.
And that is damnable lie, even for democrats willing to overlook it.
JordanRules
@WaterGirl: What was wrong with Hope & Change?
askew
@the Conster:
All of the women of a certain age that I know are die-hard Dems and won’t support Hillary. None of them are particularly political but they really have strong feelings about her. They make my vitriol towards her look like a love letter. But, they don’t hate her as much as they do the entire Bush family. So, maybe that will be what wins Hillary the general. She sucks less than Jeb.
Citizen_X
@WaterGirl:
Hammer & sickle.
JPL
@Tree With Water: At the time, she was not alone. We wouldn’t be able to run anyone, if you demanded agreement on all the issues.
Davis X. Machina
@JordanRules:
Too many people woke up around March or April of 2009, didn’t see a fully-fledged Scandinavian social democracy, got disgusted and quit.
The rest looked around come November or December, didn’t see Canadian single-payer health care provision, got disgusted and quit.
That’s what happened. Oh, and they never did get their new bicycle.
Villago Delenda Est
@samiam: This was always Bill Clinton’s greatest strength…his rabid enemies were beyond being despicable, beyond being loathesome, beyond hatred itself.
Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we’ve had since Eisenhower.
JPL
Rather than come up with a phrase, I’d rather point out that we need to define the republicans.
Anti-science
War mongers
Privatize Soc Sec
Privatize Medicare
Good by to public education
Anti right to vote
Someone earlier mentioned the party of hate and fear. I think that is correct.
Davis X. Machina
@JPL: It’s hard to do Hope and Change in a Divide and Conquer world.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster: If you think Hillary’s appeal is limited to “women of a certain age” only, possibly you underestimate the appeal to women in general, who are tired of two centuries-plus of all-male presidential contests.
Hillary and my mom were about the same age, and I’d be thrilled to vote for a woman for president, even if HRC isn’t my first choice. My 16-year-old daughter is excited about the chance to vote for HRC (and will be eligible to cast her very first vote in time for the 2016 election) for that reason.
As I keep saying, the opportunity to break the gender barrier ain’t everything, but it’s not nothing either. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how big a deal it turns out to be, but my guess is it will be significant.
Davis X. Machina
@askew:
Nobody Pauline Kael knew voted for Nixon.
PhoenixRising
@Davis X. Machina: Would this be a good time to remind the true leftists that, while I’m also unhappy that we can’t have a truly progressive candidate who was against the last war when I was, I’m pretty happy with my socialist Obamacare?
I used to want a candidate who agreed with my apparent precognition in seeing the BS for what it was. Then I became the second half of our self-employed married couple to be diagnosed with cancer while raising a child, and I’m now delighted with any candidate who doesn’t think I should be living in a van down by the river because I was unlucky enough to get sick.
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: I was wondering if his secret weapon was sex-related. It made me grin that you would share such a thing with us, but then it was revealed that you were talking about the puppy. Whew.
Gene108
@Tree With Water:
Then why did Obama pick Joe “voted for the Iraq war” Biden as his VP? Why do people support Obama, when the man he picked to be “one heart beat away from the Presidency” damned himself to hell, along with Hillary, in the fall of 2002?
In the defense of Congressional Dems, Bush & Co were talking about getting inspectors back into Iraq, which they spectacularly succeeded at after the AUMF was passed. If the neocons quit there, their “tough guy” approach would have been successful. There was no reason to think a U.S. invasion of Iraq would be imminent, once the inspectors were let back in.
The AUMF was Congress punting its authority to declare war to the President, which it has done, since December 8, 1941. It has done this with President Obama as well.
the Conster
@Betty Cracker:
My daughters like me are Obots, and like me want the best possible president and really don’t care about gender. I guess the gender thing is a thing though, and if it’s a thing then the Democrats need to claim it before Nikki Haley or godhelpus Joni Ernst get their shit together and get there first.
Roger Moore
@the Conster:
Or Bush.
rikyrah
Cuomo Cancels Meeting with Family Members of People Killed by Police
Friday, April 10, 2015 at 10:38 PM EDT
In 2006, Sean Bell was killed by New York City police officers in hail of gunfire just hours before his wedding. The case sparked a national outcry about the excessive use of force.
Along with the members of 17 other families, Bell’s father, William, was scheduled to meet with Governor Andrew Cuomo at 1 p.m. on Friday. But the governor canceled his appointment with the relatives of those who have died at the hands of the police. It’s the second time Cuomo has done so.
“Well, he’s been postpoining them. For what reason, I do not know,” William Bell said.
Cuomo is working on a package of criminal justice reforms that includes a special monitor being appointed in cases where civilians are killed by police.
“The cops are working with the DA. The DA can’t, he ain’t going to prosecute the police officers. He gets his information from them,” William Bell said.
But families say a special monitor is not good enough. They want an independent prosecutor automatically appointed in all cases.
http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2015/04/10/cuomo-cancels-meeting-with-family-members-of-people-killed-by-police.html
MattF
@Davis X. Machina: Farther back, my dad thought that Stevenson would beat Eisenhower because everyone he knew was voting “All the way with Adlai.”
Josie
I have in my family a perfect example of a low information voter. My youngest son (now 30-ish) never was interested in politics and, during intense family discussions, would wander off to play the guitar. He likes Ms. Clinton very much, even liked her better than President Obama during the primaries. He would be excited to vote for her this time and thinks she is a smart, capable person who has put up with a lot of bad treatment. He could not care less about the email kerfluffle or anything else the opposition has thrown at her. I hope he is indicative of other voters out there.
ETA: I am an Obot, have always been, but I will happily vote for Clinton.
Davis X. Machina
@PhoenixRising: No revolution without martyrs. We were going to build a nice monument out of the melted-down girders of United Healthcare’s corporate HQ, and put your name on it, too.
Ingrate.
samiam
@Fair Economist: There is a difference between political theater and first instincts when the rubber meets the road. Their voting record is very similar when it comes to neocon oriented votes.
In her book she said she disagreed with Obama and felt that the US should have armed Syrian rebels. That is very typical of her neocon tendencies right there and that is also what McCain was pushing for.
Safe to say that she will be getting just as much campaign money from defense contractors/weapons manufactureres as any Repub candidate.
Gene108
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah, Bush, Sr and Reagan were just about to push the military to allow gays to serve in the military, but that dastardly Clinton stole their thunder. They were also pushing hard for the Brady Bill to become law, but again Clinton stole their thunder.
Please, Clinton was no Republican…
Also, too Bush, Sr and Reagan were pushing hard to get the Fundies a few feet away from the doors of abortion clinics, but Clinton co-opted another part of the Republican platform when he got legislation passed to have buffer zones for people protesting outside abortion clinics.
Also, three Ike, like LBJ, Truman and Clinton pushed hard for universal healthcare for all.
Bystander
Nothing says, “I’m a Roosevelt Dem” like “I would rather see a bellicose, farright wingnut in the WH than sully myself by voting for HRC.”
I’m very wary of the origins of sanctimonious pronouncements that I keep reading on here. HRC voted for Jr’s war but that is not the same as starting a war. Nobody can convince me that if Bill or HRC had been in the WH on 9/11 that they would have plunged us into the disaster which the unapologetic warmongers of the repub party did.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: I had a dog who would get the older one all excited about going out, let him go out, and have the house to himself for a little while.
Sharp little guy, that one.
WaterGirl
@Davis X. Machina: Thank you!
PhoenixRising
@Davis X. Machina: It would cost less to nationalize BCBS, United, etc than we’re spending to subsidize them.
However the savings would only come after the folks who are currently pushing paper for BCBS got new jobs. And what you don’t want is for those same people to be handling your cell phone billing. They’re…not the sharpest.
Major Major Major Major
I am… feeling fine. Just completely things-are-ok, what-I-recall-normal-people-feel fine. Well, things are somehow more blue in appearance, but that could just be normal color perception returning, there’s a few studies on that.
Talked to my mom about Hillary yesterday. She said that women of their shared generation are the first ones that were “truly equal”, and that men of a certain age will just never forgive them for that. (She’s in VC and tax law so she’s had to deal with a lot of assholes.) That she finally has a boss she likes and it’s because it’s the first time she’s had a younger boss, from a different generation. It was an interesting chat.
the Conster
@samiam:
Her biggest single contributor in 2008 was Haim Saban, so yeah, Israel will be “safe”.
Gene108
@samiam:
And Obama’s approach to Syria has been such a smashing success…
Sorry, but who knows what would have happened if we armed rebels. Maybe Assad would have been deposed and the civil war would not have spilled into Iraq.
schrodinger's cat
@WaterGirl: How about bitch and moan or complain and carp?
askew
@Betty Cracker: I know I got crap for mentioning it but the Bloomberg poll that was released shows that she 83% of the country says that her gender won’t influence their vote and that she is getting almost no crossover support from independents and Republican women. I think she’ll inspire some people to rush out and vote for her but I don’t think that her gender is going to be a big GOTV winner for her.
Heliopause
So I was cruising down the Google News page a few minutes ago and the top story in the science section teased me this:
“In the finding that could significantly transform recognised opinions of the fact that world is effective, the workforce of astronomers brought by means of Chris Milne of the College or university of Az (UA) possesses identified that supernovae are not even, although diverse—a discovering that lifts concerns about how precisely significantly ‘dark energy’ is in your world in addition to just how fast your world is actually widening.”
Man, science is just getting too specialized for a simple fellow like me.
WaterGirl
@JordanRules: I loved hope and change, and it was perfect for 2008.
But with republicans going off the deep end and I think pretty much committing treason with some of their actions, I don’t have much hope at this point and I certainly don’t think any candidate can change Washington at this point.
I think we’re more at the “hold the bastards back at the gate” point than the hope & change point we were at in 2008.
Gene108
@Major Major Major Major:
Glad you are doing better.
schrodinger's cat
@Gene108: So arm ISIS? That would have worked out really well.
cahuenga
Hooray. The Goldman Administration’s 6th straight term is at hand.
rikyrah
The Hill ✔ @thehill
De Blasio won’t endorse Clinton without details on her ‘vision’ http://bit.ly/1FMYc1F pic.twitter.com/WsGBJJBaQB
the Conster
@Bystander:
Nobody here has said that, but hey, don’t let that stop you from constructing that lovely strawman.
MattF
@Heliopause: That’s been translated from an unknown language.
schrodinger's cat
Women leaders are not necessarily better or softer, case in point Maggie Thatcher and Indira Gandhi.
I predict that Hillary will be more hawkish than Obama has been.
ETA: Although, I am sure she will be better than any hairball the GOP primary electorate hacks up.
Mike J
@Bystander:
If Gore had been president the networks would have been talking about invasion 24/7 (exactly like they were), Republicans would have been screaming for impeachment. Then on Thanksgiving day he would have pulled bin Laden’s head out of a box on national TV.
satby
@WaterGirl: This.
askew
@Davis X. Machina:
Why don’t you quote that to the people who are using antidotal evidence to say why Hillary is going to win the presidency on a wave of excited female votes? Sick of the hypocrisy around here. If you don’t think antidotal evidence is valid, then bitch about both sides doing it.
Baud
@PhoenixRising:
That makes no sense. The need for a subsidy wouldn’t go away simply because they are nationalized.
satby
hmmm
WaterGirl
@JPL: I agree that we have to define the republicans. I think it’s noteworthy, though, that we can find two words that pretty much sum up what they are about, and the emotions they prey on in their base.
I think we ought to be able to do the same for the democrats. Are there 2 or 3 or 4 or even 5 words that describe who we are, what we stand for, and what we aspire to? Short and sweet.
I am at a loss to know what those words would be.
Davis X. Machina
I know. The persistent failure of a social democracy to spontaneously materialize, in a country where easily half the political nation doesn’t even think the word ‘society’ applies to any actually-existing thing, puzzles me too.
Josie
@askew: Um – I think you meant “anecdotal.”
schrodinger's cat
@Heliopause: That sounds like Palin level gibberish. The problem is English not astrophysics, I think.
JMG
@askew: Whenever ANYTHING specific to any candidate is mentioned, a majority of those polled, usually a large one, say it won’t affect their vote. People are big liars, and one of the lies they like best is that they are rational, calm deliberative citizens who weigh each of their votes with the gravity of Pericles. Then they vote for a mayor because they went to school with his or her sister-in-law.
Polls would be better if pollees were self-confident enough to answer, how the hell should I now, the damn election isn’t until next year!
rikyrah
@JPL:
The Clinton Foundation is shady as phuck.
cahuenga
@Josie:
I sorta like “antidotal evidence”
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Sure. The problem is, unless those words are circular firing squad, you’ll never get Democrats to agree on what words to choose.
askew
@WaterGirl:
Just want to say I am sorry that CS and others attacked you in the previous Hillary diary just because you agreed with me on one minor point. You’ve been more than reasonable about your reservations on Hillary (unlike me) and don’t deserve the insults and derision that I’ve been getting here for months now.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne: Whew is right! Mr. Bear is my kitty, and he knows that the sure-fire way to get me out of bed is to rile up the puppy.
edit: I will need to be more careful when I switch topics in a comment!
Josie
@cahuenga: It does have a ring to it.
Mike J
@schrodinger’s cat:
Looks like it’s from a spam “news” site where a program scrapes other sites and tries to rewrite to generate hits.
askew
@JMG:
That may be true but the poll so far shows that Hillary’s gender isn’t going to be the path to the WH like so many of her supporters think it is. Obama’s race isn’t the reason he won in 2008 and Hillary’s gender won’t be the reason she wins (if she can win) in 2016. Obama won because he inspired the voters to believe and he is best politician of his generation. I can’t see a path to victory for Hillary that doesn’t rely on her GOP candidate being worse than her, but I am more than happy to be wrong.
scav
@Mike J: Seems to be working too.
MattF
@Mike J: Looks like the output of one of those correlated gibberish generators. There’s an old one called ‘Travesty’ that I have a copy of… somewhere.
WaterGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Bitch and moan? Depends on whether we are going for descriptive or aspirational. :-)
Villago Delenda Est
@Gene108: NAFTA. Ending “welfare as we know it”. The era of big government is over.
All pretty much Rockefeller Republican points of view.
The problem here is that the Overton Window has shifted very much to the right since the days of LBJ, so that Clinton is technically a Democrat, but not all that much different from Eisenhower in many ways.
Don’t get me wrong…I voted for Bill Clinton twice. Because the alternatives were far worse than Bill Clinton could be. This will be the case with Hillary.
Gian
@Betty Cracker:
when I think of how white women voted for Romney over Obama, despite the odious policies, because of their tribe, I hope they’ll flip the other way for Hillary.
Which tribe is stronger GOP, or sisterhood?
JordanRules
@Gene108: If Congressional Dems didn’t think war with Iraq was imminent was the AUMF a combo of the historical punting you mentioned and the climate in the country at the time?
I remember it feeling imminent and the ties to AQ and Iraq being constantly repeated along with Hussein’s ability to attack in like 40 minutes with his WMD stash, even though behind the scenes shit was being discredited left and right. Much of the public didn’t know that until later.
Roger Moore
@Heliopause:
That article appears to have been badly translated from a different language. As I understand it, they’re claiming that Type 1a supernovas are not all equally bright. That’s a big deal, because that’s been a major assumption underlying work on dark matter and dark energy. The theory is that if you see a Type 1a supernova, you can look at its brightness to see how far away it is and its red shift to see how rapidly it’s moving away from us. That should give you an idea about how rapidly the universe is expanding. If they aren’t all equally bright, and especially if they are systematically different depending on their distance, then this approach is flawed and much that we believe we know about dark matter and dark energy is wrong.
Corner Stone
So Jeb put out a video criticizing Obama and HRC’s foreign policy. That is just too damn funny.
different-church-lady
@Baud: OK, this is all moving a bit fast for me. Maybe just start with a coffee date and see how that goes first?
JMG
@askew: Obama won in 2008 because he opposed the Iraq War, allowing him to get the Democratic nomination, and because he WAS the Democratic nominee when the Republicans were presiding over said war plus a global financial collapse. Yes, he’s a gifted politician. But if Hillary had been the 2008 nominee, she would have won by as much or more.
JordanRules
@WaterGirl: I guess that was my point, Hope and Change is it. If we can’t use it anymore that’s a different thing, but I think that is us.
MattF
@Roger Moore: Well, the original article appeared in the latest Science magazine, so it was translated from English.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: I don’t know. I think the Clinton Foundation, CGI, is a reflection of it’s namesake: Well-intentioned, overly ambitious, more than a bit sloppy, self-regarding and given to starfuckery, but I’ve never seen any evidence of actual corruption. I do think HRC would’ve been better off keeping some distance from it. There were enough whispers about Ron Burkle in ’08, fercrissake. This is one of those cases where I really hope she’s going to have someone around whose aware of how things look to people who don’t share the Clintons’ perceptions of themselves.
different-church-lady
@askew: Chelsea has more “genuine accomplishments” to her name than Hillary. FACT.
Mike in NC
Lady Clinton to launch her campaign on the very same day that “Game of Thrones” returns on HBO. A mere coincidence?
White Walkers for Bush!
Villago Delenda Est
@JMG: Let’s not forget to give John McCain credit for being a fuckup, both in his selection of a running mate, and in his ridiculous reaction to the economy melting down. His performance in that regard is epitomized by his cancellation of his appearance on the Letterman show and then Letterman showing him talking with Katy Couric at Black Rock. Sure, he had to get back to Washington THAT VERY MINUTE, instead of doing the honest thing…telling Letterman he needed to talk with Katy instead of him because of the economic crisis.
scav
Some real supernova jargon for comparison (I so rather enjoy the vision of double-degenerate mergers, especially when combined with explosion models and apparently potential offspring. The soundtrack for that . . . . )
So, probably not so much dodgy translation as the output of those whatevers that seem to run coherent text through a food mill to fool the spam filters? The Hardron Collider is on-line again, isn’t it? Perhaps it’s been repurposed.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike in NC: Winter is coming.
El Caganer
Betty, if you’re less than thrilled with Tolkien’s verbosity you’re not alone. In Natural History of Make-Believe, John Goldthwaite writes (at least in my interpretation) that he finds Tolkien pretty boring. He also skewers C.S.Lewis, and anybody who does that can’t be all bad. Interesting book.
As far as the topic of this post, HRC meets all of the legal requirements to run for President. Good for her. Hope she enjoys the ride.
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne:
No, he’s a salesman who
understands his customers.
ETA: edited from first draft, because quite clearly there’s very little room for him to be more offensive to women and blacks
Tree With Water
“Hillary Clinton supported the Bush-Cheney War, and defends her decision by claiming good people were misled by faulty intelligence. And that is damnable lie, even for democrats willing to overlook it”.
I would be haunted had I been a member of congress that sanctioned the Bush-Cheney War, even had my decision been made in good faith. Untold dead, massive sufferings unleashed, our very own mangled in body still alive and living amongst us.. and on.
Is Hillary Clinton haunted? It doesn’t seem so to me. But if she is, I wonder about her unrest. What forms it, and how does her conscience abide the great and continuing slaughter of the Bush-Cheney War?
cahuenga
Pullease. The Clinton Foundation is, and has been, nothing more than temporary employment for friends and future campaign personnel
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Arguable, it’s just as arguable she would have fucked it up, especially if her nomination had come after she started poisoning the Dem primary (“hard–working, white Americans”, Bobby Kennedy, etc). Another likely counterfactual is McCain wouldn’t have picked Palin if he didn’t stupidly and cynically think all women pols were interchangeable.
askew
@JMG:
I fundamentally disagree with the idea that Hillary would have won the general election and she definitely wouldn’t have done better than Obama. But, we’ll never know which of us is right so it is silly to even argue about it.
samiam
@Gene108: Lol…oh puuulease. Like arming rebels would have made the region less of a powderkeg. Haha
I don’t know if you are just trolling but thanks for the laugh anyways.
I’m sure arming and training Osama bin Ladens army sounded like a really good idea to the Neocons at the time too. What did we learn from that experience….hmmmm?
askew
@different-church-lady:
I find the idea that we are supposed to care about any of the offspring of presidents who aren’t in public office eye-roll worthy.
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
Really? What accomplishments does Chelsea have that are more significant than Hillary’s time as Senator and Secretary of State?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: I always thought–again, counterfactuals is all bunk– but I always thought Hillary, on Bill’s advice, would have been right in there with McCain, suspending her campaign and posing for photos with him.
Baud
@askew:
coughInternetcough
Baud
@Roger Moore: Has Hillary ever been on the cover of Elle?
Betty Cracker
@askew: If you’re referring to me, I didn’t say that. I said my guess is it’ll be a significant factor, not a sure winner. If you’re going to complain about people mischacterizing your view, it’s probably a good idea to avoid the same damn thing yourself.
PaulW
I just finished my blog article on Hillary’s candidacy.
I’ve been writing about each candidate as they become likely to run for 2016, applying Professor Barber’s Presidential Character chart to determine which are decent candidates (Active-Positive) and which to avoid (Anything Republican because they’re campaigning on Destruction as an ideology at this point).
My article focuses a bit more on the open and active hatred that exists towards Hillary (my abuse of the word “hathos” will be apparent quick enough), but also suggests how Hillary might function as President: more akin to LBJ as Active-Negative (successful legislative/administrative efforts but alienating and inflexible).
Still, her status as Active-Negative will be 100 times better than the eventual Active-Negative Republican candidate whose platform of “punish the poor, expel the browns, bomb everybody else” will make Hillary akin to Teddy Roosevelt.
I know, damning with faint praise and all, but dammit progressives/leftists we’re not going to get the sainted purity candidate you keep fantasizing. Vote for Hillary because she will FIGHT FOR YOU AND YOUR CAUSE.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gene108: I get you’re a Clintonite, and good on ya, I think we’re gonna need people like you, but when you’re making @samiam: look thoughtful and perceptive… maybe time to take a breath.
different-church-lady
Hey, I got a suggestion: instead of new Hillary threads three times a day for the next 18 months, let’s just repost this one over and over again. Because nobody’s saying anything here that they haven’t already said fifteen times already, and I don’t see that changing down the road.
askew
@Betty Cracker:
Wow, that was ugly and unnecessary. I certainly took your repeated comments that you know some women who are excited to vote for Hillary as the main reason she is going to win. It’s been said by Hillary supporters going back to the 2008 primary. If that isn’t the point you were making, then I apologize. I am not sure what point you were trying to make then. You know some women who are excited about Hillary and think other women will feel the same way? Good. I know people who are excited to vote for Rand Paul and think others will feel the same way unfortunately.
PaulW
@Baud:
We’re not voting for glamour, we’re voting for leadership.
If looks determined Presidencies, we’d be in the third term of Cindy Crawford by now and facing a serious challenge from Michelle Pfeffier (whose re-appearance in pop songs like Uptown Funk suggests a surge in voter likeability).
JordanRules
@askew: Meh, Elle puts famous people on their covers. She’s famous because of her makers. I’ll be happy to read about what Sasha and Malia are up to years down the road if they are so inclined to indulge in that side of human nature and pop culture.
eyelessgame
I had minor quibbles and disappointments with the LotR trilogy but many of the best lines in the movies were not from the book, e.g. “One does not simply walk into Mordor”.
askew
@different-church-lady:
It does have the added benefit of having even more posters here hurling insults at me which seems to be the new BJ sport. Not so much fun for me but others seem to enjoy it.
JordanRules
@PaulW: This comment was in reference to Chelsea being on Elle and others commenting on who had more accomplishments. Nothing to do with the Nixon vs. Kennedy argument. :)
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore: You’ll have to ask askew: it’s a play on her/his assertion from last night.
WaterGirl
@askew: Thanks for saying that, but I don’t think anyone deserves insults and derision just because they are vocal about not liking Hillary Clinton or not wanting her to be president.
I am beside myself with frustration and anger about this. Two BJ commenters that I deeply respect and admire made Hillary related personal attacks last night and today that were undeserved, and that was the icing on the cake. (As you may no doubt guess, I am not talking about CS.)
This place is my political refuge, so when even the good guys resort to name calling and act like assholes it’s very discouraging. How to we make it through the next 18 months when even the reasonable people act like assholes.
If there indeed is such a thing as Hillary derangement syndrome, then it surely exists on both sides when people who support Hillary can’t tolerate any negativity toward her. I’m not talking about comments like “I’ll never vote for that crazy, war-mongering bitch”; I’m talking about sincere comments where reasonable people can disagree.
edit: satby, just thought I should say that I am not talking about you even though I publicly took issue with something you wrote earlier.
cahuenga
I sure wish we could drop the “purity” dog-whistle crap. Yeah, we get you are always open to infinite compromise, message received.
And that is also why we are where we are. So, kudos, I guess.
Villago Delenda Est
@eyelessgame: A fantastic line. One that J.R.R. himself was far too stuffy to come up with.
Peale
Man, i wish Edwards were still around.
PaulW
@Corner Stone:
This is all they have. They have to accuse Obama (and both Clintons) of being failures to avoid accountability for their own disastrous Bush the Lesser administration.
It is, by the by, a favored tactic by Rove and the other GOP campaign managers: attack your opponent’s strength to make them appear weaker on the issue than they really are. The trick is to make the media question your opponent more than they question the GOP.
JordanRules
@askew: Betty did clarify it in her response saying she thinks it will be a factor, not a sure winner.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t think she would have made the same spectacular mistakes as McCain did in the process, though, which was to give Letterman a window to mock him incessantly for two weeks with cheering crowds behind him.
Heliopause
More from the same site:
“When a missile or a meteor strike our earth, the destruction is inevitable and we can behold it right from our eyes what it does with the surface of our earth. Well, it is natural that we can’t avoid seeing the havoc it causes to the surface of the earth, what it does to the plates under our feet. No one seemed to be interested in recording the impact.”
“As soon as My spouse and i needed the item out from the container, Apple’s new MacBook viewed as well as sensed like an ipad. The notebook is actually Apple’s lightest as well as thinnest nevertheless as well as borrows lots of the iPad’s patterns, such as having less any lover.”
These damned ivory tower liberal eggheads! Talk English!
PaulW
@JordanRules:
Oh. Because I would totally back a Michelle Pfeffier administration on the policy merits, I just want you to know that.
askew
@WaterGirl:
I think you are getting blowback because I have been so negative towards Hillary. Sorry about that. I am not very well liked here and have gotten attacked in the past over this issue, so I am not terribly surprised by it. Oh, well. At this point, there is nothing I can do to change how people here react to me so I just have to ignore it.
Villago Delenda Est
@PaulW:
The vermin of the Village are more than happy to fulfill this expectation.
Wipe them out. All of them.
askew
@JordanRules:
And I apologized to her for lumping her in with other supporters who assume Hillary’s gender has already won her the WH.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: I sincerely believe that John McCain, beyond all the warmongering, delusional arrogance and pathological bitterness about everything from Vietnam to Bush 2000 to Obama 2008, is quite simply not that bright– he wasn’t last in his class at Annapolis because he was a charming rogue with no time for books. What I respect about HRC most of all is her intellect, but there are frightening parallels between their unhinged reactions to That One.
edited, Jeebus I need new glasses
SiubhanDuinne
@MattF:
I remember it as “I’m madly for Adlai.”
rikyrah
@askew:
There was a comment over at Coates’ after the 2008 election from a Republican who worked for Bush 41. She said that Barack Obama had to raise almost a billion dollars to win the Presidency, and he needed every dollar because he wasn’t just running for himself, but he had to over the demonization of the Black Man since we arrived on these shores in the 1600’s.
JordanRules
@askew: I’ll be honest, I agree with you about Hillary and don’t know if I’ve seen other commenters who think her lady parts make her inevitable.
I think the way SOME of tghe commenters have been acting, and WaterGirl’s post addressed that nicely, may be clouding some of the issues here. And always remember it’s the intertoobs and people feel me more empowered to be assholes behind their keyboards. You are not in a corner. :)
rikyrah
@Gian:
will point it out again…
the Female Gender Gap in 2008 and 2012 is because of NON-White women.
dollar to donuts, if you depend upon White women to give you a gender gap…that’s a losing proposition.
JordanRules
@rikyrah: With this talk of how women voters will respond etc, I think it’s also an important reminder that women were granted the vote in this country two and a half decades before black folks were.
satby
@WaterGirl: That’s nice, because so far the only direct personal attack I noticed was that I got called a liar in the previous thread for voicing my decidedly lukewarm opinion.
Making me think that this will be the year I just look into expatriating myself. I hear Costa Rica is nice.
WaterGirl
@askew: The two comments I alluded to were not even directed toward me, and only one of them was directed toward you.
I am well aware that this is a refuge for a snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals, but this slapping down of everyone who disagrees about Hillary feels different to me than the usual slapping down that happens every day, and I just wanted to say that I don’t like it.
edit: added a missing word
JordanRules
@WaterGirl:
Co-sign!!
Davis X. Machina
If the electorate looks at all like the country it’s drawn from, it won’t even be close.
If.
different-church-lady
@Davis X. Machina:
To paraphrase Adlai, “Yes, but we’ll need a majority to win.”
ThresherK (GPad)
@Davis X. Machina: I would add “Nobody Wayne LaPierre knows voted for Obama.”
LaPierre simply has a more ‘authentic’ peer group, if I listen to the coverage.
Tenar Darell
I picked a great piano recital (and soloist) and even weather for this “outing with the father” day. Ji, at the Gardner. (I’m getting compliments before a note even played). /patting self on back
Roger Moore
@Davis X. Machina:
Which is why the Republicans are doubling down on voter suppression. They’re also talking about rigging the electoral college by changing the way electors are allocated in the states where they lost the presidential vote in 2012 but have control of the state legislature. That way they can still win the election even if they lose the popular vote badly.
Tree With Water
I wonder how many VA hospitals Hillary has seen fit to visit since 2003? If a South African-style reconciliation apparatus is ever designed here in the states to confront “the un-confrontable”*, I would think a lifetime of penance emptying bed pans at a VA hospital would be a fitting one for those members of congress who supported the Bush-Cheney War.
*(that bad people disregarded viable intelligence for ulterior motives, to better gain the people’s approval to wage war).
dogwood
@PaulW:
I’m pretty familiar with Barber’s work on presidential character, but it’s been a few years since I retired as a secondary AP political science teacher. It can be misleading I think to rely on the connotations of “active/passive, “positive/negative” to come up with the assumption that a “negative” score in that element of the chart means apresident has the effect that you predict for Clinton.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Tenar Darell: Congratulations. I have no idea who Ji is, but if you’re at the famously infamous museum, from the art theft, you picked a good weather day for it.
Plus that “museum mood” always goes well with live music.
Corner Stone
Wow. Victimization, how the fuck does it work?
Gene108
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think at the core of Bill Clinton’s view of government is that it could be effective and a tool to help people, without being a Great Society “big government” program. “Big government” had become a cudgle to beat Democrats over the head with for the past twelve years. The approach had to change because the public was demanding change away from it. This approach is one reason FEMA became functional for the first time ever under his Administration. Existing government programs can work better, so no new ones are needed.
His 1993 agenda was pretty liberal: Universal healthcare, gays in the military, a tax increase and increase in the gas tax, and gun control. Most of that agenda blew up in his face and helped split the Democratic Party.
After losing the House, he did what he felt he had to do to secure his re-election chances. I think in retrospect he could have stuck harder to his core convictions.
Also, I disagree that the Overton Window has moved to the Right. On social issues it is more liberal than ever. Conservatives in Indiana got beat over the head for trying to discriminate against gays. Thirty years ago the roles would have been reversed.
On economic issues, I think there is a stronger push for more liberal economic programs after a generation of drifting the other way. it is just going to take time for course correction to take hold.
different-church-lady
@Gene108:
Although it is fascinating to chew over the fact that said beating took place away from the ballot box.
Corner Stone
@Gene108:
I had, and have, severe disagreements with a lot of the actions taken by the WJC admin, but it’s always amusing to see people with the idea that 2012=1992.
Mnemosyne
@JordanRules:
Um, black folks in the Jim Crow South, you mean. Black men in non-Jim Crow states were not denied the vote once the 14th Amendment was passed. Black women were not allowed to vote until the 19th Amendment passed.
eemom
All the hype and drum rolling about her announcing today and the fact that it still hasn’t happened is kind of another fuck up, imvho.
Not earth shattering. Just annoying.
dogwood
@PaulW
To hell with Michelle P, I’d could get behind a Bruno Mars candidacy if he’d promise to campaign in those hair curlers while Donald Trump sends his team to Honolulu to ferret out his birth certificate.
JordanRules
@Mnemosyne: I was going to make a distinction about the 15th Amendment and the VRA but not necessarily the same one you did, but thought most folks would get my point. States not in the South disenfranchised to a very large degree, non-white voters after the 15th. Some Western states wouldn’t even let black folks in after the civil war or considered it a crime if they stayed longer than a certain number of days.
the Conster
@eemom:
SO fucking annoying and so fucking Hillary-like. Remember her GBCW speech conceding to Obama? Is it always gonna be like that with her? Yeah. No.
Mnemosyne
@JordanRules:
I would like to see your links for that. As far as I know, black men were not legally blocked from voting in existing Union states like New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, etc., the way they were blocked in Jim Crow states. The question of black settlements being uprooted and driven away in Western territories and states post-War is a slightly different question from which states enacted legal segregation that blocked people from voting.
At a minimum, it’s way, way more complicated than simply claiming that white women were allowed to vote before black men (and women) were, which is what you seemed to be saying.
Fair Economist
And the announcement is out. No specifics, but calls for less inequality and more chances for everybody. Looks good to me, and certainly made me feel positive about her campaign.
Betty Cracker
@askew: Self awareness. It’s also a thing!
JordanRules
@Mnemosyne:
That’s fair, I’ll agree with that. At most I’ve seen references to disenfranchisement in “some northern and western states” or things like “in the south especially”. The black population was so large in the South after the 15th and the other ways blacks were discriminated against in other areas ie. blacks being removed or declared illegal by some statue lead me to take that leap; I don’t think it was a very long one though. Grandparents told me of literacy tests in Arizona in the 40’s.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@JordanRules:
It’s interesting to read the text of the 1964 VRA, because most of the places that were specifically legislated to require pre-clearance were in the south, but there absolutely were scattered counties in other states that were also specifically required to file for pre-clearance. I know there was at least one county in California (Alameda, IIRC), and possibly more than one. So, yes, complicated all around.
I found out recently that Glendale, the LA suburb I lived in for 10 years, was a sundown town until the 1980s. The neighboring city of Pasadena was not segregated, and there was an infamous brawl between the two high schools over one of Pasadena High School’s star players of the day: Jackie Robinson.
ETA: The main difference is that the Jim Crow states legally barred black men (and later black women) from voting while it was more scattered and less organized in other states and usually focused on strategies like preventing people from living in certain cities or areas rather than barring them entirely from voting. A legal form of gerrymandering, if you will.
ruemara
Peter Jackson improved on nothing from the books. NOTHING. and that includes this speech with the worst, most corny special effects possible.
Ian
Wow. Them is some fighting words.
askew
@Betty Cracker:
Nice response to a sincere apology. Such pettiness.
Just Some Fuckhead
@askew:
I agree with this. I think Democrats need what basically amounts to a novelty candidate in order to attract the attention of folks who lean Democratic but mostly can’t be bothered to vote. Otherwise you are looking at a 51-49 race that could go either way. HRC’s been in the public eye way too long to capitalize on the novelty factor. In fact, I can’t think of a single thing over which to become excited about an HRC candidacy. Maybe a 40 year old Fleetwood Mac campaign song?
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: Hahahah!
I know that I posted to you, but for some reason you became werebear in my head on that comment so Mr Bear became your assumed husband.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne: Okay, with the new context, I went back to my original comment. That is funny!
JordanRules
@Just Some Fuckhead: You kinda crystallized it there. That’s how I see it going down too.
yastreblyansky
I just learned today why I was unable to read BJ without crashing my Mac at home and PC at work (Chrome vs. Shockwave) and fixed it. I’m so glad to be back!