Today David Brooks knocked it out of the park. His article in today's NYTimes reveals how hopeless the Clinton fight is and accurately predicts the negative impact it will have on whomever is the Democratic nominee in November, most likely Obama. But one bit Brooks leftout was the added fodder that HRC's Bosnian misspeak will give to the Republican canon this fall if she manages to wrest the nomination from Obama. Sure, the misspeak reveals HRC's tendency to exaggerate her achievements as though she's holding court at a cocktail party surrounded by a captive audiece of tipsy people eager to hang on to an intimate story (albeit false) told by a former First Lady. But more than that, her fake story is a story that will pale in comparision to any "war tale" that McCain cares to share in the fall. In January I visited the famous Hanoi Hilton. I walked away with a tremendous amount of respect for John McCain, even though I would never vote for him for the same reasons I would never vote for HRC: the Iraq War Resolution. Their votes were the same yet there is a difference between their motives. As I was standing in the Hanoi Hilton looking into windowless cells that were smaller than the average American walk-in closet, a concrete bed on either side with irons at the foot to keep a prisoner in place, I couldn't help but wonder about John McCain's funny looking jaw that was perhaps broken during interrogation and poorly mended, or the limited mobility of his shoulders as a result of the beatings he withstood. I admired his survival even though I strongly disagree with his war views, war vote, and practically every other political view he has. But unlike HRC's vote I can understand where McCain forged his politics and why he cast his vote that way. He's a cold warrior. For HRC the war vote was just another version of the Bosnia sniper fantasy. She took a calculated political risk that the Iraq war would go well enough that she would end up looking "tough enough"' to be president, just like she took a calculated risk that the Wright story last week would provide adequate media cover for her to slip this Bosnia falsehood into voter's minds. Hers is a life of political calculation, not principle.

While Obama will face McCain as a man who has never seen war (or Europe for that matter), there are a majority of Americans who do not agree with the Iraq adventure and McCains support of it. Obama has the best chance of winning the war argument and the economic disaster it is for our country.  Even if McCain tries to portray him as inexperienced Obama will not have to explain away a falehood and can rightly claim the high-ground on judgement.   Afterall the 4000 fallen soldiers are a reminder of how bad their judgement really was.  For HRC she will be left to defend a calculated vote, not unlike the calculated statement on Bosnia.

As Brooks describes, HRC's politics were forged through a lifetime of self-serving political maneuvering first for her husband and then for herself. The recent revelation that her opposition to NAFTA was rooted in the 'timing' of its passage ahead of her healthcare initiative rather than in the 'substance' of the treaty itself once more spotlights her habit of revising history to suit her purposes. Again the facts reveal the same unflattering truth; no cause is as important as her cause. and her personal quest is rooted in nothing more substantive than her own ambition. The nomination is now her "cause du jour" and is a must win even if it means the real "cause du jour", e.g. bringing an end to Republican rule of our country, fails.

It's all about her.

Today David Brooks knocked it out of the park.  His article in today's NYTimes reveals how hopeless the Clinton fight is and accurately predicts the negative impact it will have on whomever is the Democratic nominee in November, most likely Obama.  
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/opinion/25brooks.html?pagewanted=printp

But one bit Brooks leftout was the added fodder that HRC's Bosnian misspeak will give to the Republican canon this fall if she manages to wrest the nomination from Obama.  Sure, the misspeak reveals HRC's tendency to exaggerate her achievements as though she's holding court at a cocktail party surrounded by a captive audiece of tipsy people eager to hang on to an intimate story (albeit false) told by a former First Lady.  But more than that, her fake story is a story that will pale in comparision to any "war tale" that McCain cares to share in the fall. 

In January I visited the famous Hanoi Hilton. I walked away with a tremendous amount of respect for John McCain, even though I would never vote for him for the same reasons I would never vote for HRC: the Iraq War Resolution.

Their votes were the same yet there is a difference between their motives.  As I was standing in the Hanoi Hilton looking into windowless cells that were smaller than the average American walk-in closet, a concrete bed on either side with irons at the foot to keep a prisoner in place, I couldn't help but wonder about John McCain's funny looking jaw that was perhaps broken during interrogation and poorly mended, or the limited mobility of his shoulders as a result of the beatings he withstood.  I admired his survival even though I strongly disagree with his war views, war vote, and practically every other political view he has.  But unlike HRC's vote I can understand where McCain forged his politics and why he cast his vote that way.   He's a cold warrior.

For HRC the war vote was just another version of the Bosnia sniper fantasy.  She took a calculated political risk that the Iraq war would go well enough that she would end up looking "tough enough"' to be president, just like she took a calculated risk that the Wright story last week would provide adequate media cover with the press while she slipped in this Bosnia falsehood into the minds of voters.  Hers is a life of political calculation, not principle.

While Obama will face the same man who many will respect for his service to our country, there are a majority of Americans who do not agree with the Iraq adventure and his support of it.  Obama has the best chance of winning the war argument, and even if McCain tries to portray him as inexperienced Obama will not have to explain away a falehood.  For HRC she will be left to defend a calculated vote, not unlike the calculated statement on Bosnia. 

As Brooks describes, HRC's politics were forged through a lifetime of self-serving political maneuvering first for her husband and then for herself.  The recent revelation that her opposition to NAFTA was rooted in the 'timing' of its passage ahead of her healthcare initiative rather than the 'substance' of the treaty itself once more spotlights her habit of revising history to suit her motives.  Again the facts reveal the same unflattering truth; no cause is as important as her cause, and her personal quest is rooted in nothing more substantive than her own ambition.  The nomination is now her "cause du jour" and is a must win even if it means the real "cause du jour", e.g. bringing an end to Republican mismanagement of our country, fails.

It's all about her.

Larry David understands the danger of Clinton near a Red Phone.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-david/on-the-red-phone_b_90338.html

My only question is when looking at the photo montage at the end, exactly how many monster-like Hillarys can the average person spot?

I spied at least 15. 

The end of my post was cut off somehow.  It reads:


Her foreign policy advisor Richard Holbrooke was in charge of that effort for the Clinton Administration, but I have never read that HRC was involved as part of an official negotiating team. 

Does anyone know?

I wonder.  Given the recent news about Kosovo claiming independence I am curious whether she is trying to associate herself with real-time, unfolding international events by taking more credit than she could possibly deserve for the results of the negotiating team.  Holbrooke was the negotiator back then.

During the debate in Austin, Texas HRC slipped in a comment about how she had negotiated in Kosovo. 


CNN transcript:

CLINTON: What I mean is that, you know, for more than 15 years, I've been honored to represent our country in more than 80 countries to negotiate on matters such as opening borders for refugees during the war in Kosovo, to stand up for women's rights as human rights around the world. I've served on the Senate...

One of the recent TPM posts challenged Obama supporters to identify weaknesses that the GOP will potentially exploit and use against Obama in the general election.  The post also asked why Obama hasn't done more to end the war in Iraq.  That's a good question given that he publically spoke out against the war before the authorization vote.

On actively opposing Iraq on the Senate floor, my guess is that as a junior Senator Obama is smart enough to know that a person gets nowhere trying to shovel snow in a blizzard. Until now, there has been a virtual whiteout of support from our elected officials, save a few like Russ Feingold and Carl Levin in the Senate.  The few that stand up and try are still ridiculed as quitters. This is among the many elected officials still in the Senate and Congress who who were responsible for the authorization in the first place. Let's remember that it has only been recently that even expressing opposition to the war in public did not invite accusations of being "unpatriotic" and bring public ridicule for not supporting the troops. We have Cindy Sheehan and others like her to thank for changing the perception that "support" can actually mean bringing the troops home.

So on that one, I have to say that Obama is one Senator. He's not Superman.

Without a doubt, the GOP will have something about drug use or lack of experience to use to attack Obama. But on experience there is an equally strong argument against the kind of experienced team John McCain will be bringing or keeping in a GOP Administration. Remember how everyone was so comforted by Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Cohen/Pearle/etc...because they were the most experienced foreign policy team our nation had ever had? They've given "experience" a bad name. Now, the experience argument is easily won by the judgement and instinct argument, which Obama does have on his side. The war judgement call can easily be played against McCain's "straight-talk" fearmongering about another war with Iran. What a colossally bad idea that would be...and no question that it will be a real possibility in a McCain Administration, that is if Bush or the Israelis don't beat him to it before 01/09.

The old "tax and spend" democrat red-herring won't work this time around either because most everyone ( except rich people) will be for a redistribution of the bush tax cuts toward the middle/lower class. They can use that attack all day to raise the awareness that Obama is actually going to do something about reversing them.  Get to it, GOP! 

No doubt, Karl Rove is going to work at channeling Lee Atwater's spirit to conjure the most damaging thing possible against Obama. The beauty is, "we the people" will have a chance to say piss off; No we're not going to let the GOP swiftboat and slander, and steal our future any longer. And it is not about slinging more mud at them, but about stepping out of the mud pit: Let the pigs stay in there and eat their own crap.

As for weaknesses I perceive, well, the one that sort of bugs me is that Obama talks a little slow. My husband does that and it always tempts me to finish his sentences, which isn't appreciated. With Obama, I seem to be so engaged in listening, and hanging on to his every word, that I become patient. I genuinely feel patient while waiting for the end of his thought. So, that is one of his weaknesses that is helping me develop and practice a new personal strength!

I'm sure there are faults and mistakes throughout his past, but Hillary has plenty too. There must not be anything criminal or we would have a whiff of that by now. He doesn't seem to be the philandering type, nor a wheeler-dealer type, so there's a decent chance that he might just be a well-intentioned, thoughtful man who is very smart, committed to his country, God, and family, and who wants to use his gifts and good fortune to make the US a better place for all of us.

It certainly doesn't hurt to believe that.  Isn't he innocent until proven guilty? 

I have had the great fortune of living abroad for the entire Bush adminstration.  While it has spared me much of the day to day heartbreak that my fellow American's have undeniably endured during this tragic period on our nation's history, I too have suffered in foreign lands by seeing the perception of my country degrade and diminish in the eyes of so many around the world, and am saddened when I return annually to an America with an irrational fortress mentality.
 
During these past 7 years I've lived in 4 different countries.  The first was France, where my family arrived in the summer  before 9/11.  I had already lived in France and heard many "thanks" from French people (over the years prior to this return) for America's role in WWII.  I had also heard many remarks of admiration for all of the good things that America represented; openness, ingenuity, etc.  French people that I met, young and old, loved America. 

My kids began a local French school on September 4.  The kids didn't speak any French and we were an oddity; the one foreign "American" family in the entire school.  I'll never forget how the entire school reacted to 9/11.  How they reacted to us.   I had just seen the plane hit the second tower on CNN at home, and had to leave before watching the entire thing unfold because I had to collect the kids from school.  Afterall, 9/11 happened in the afternoon in France. 

When I arrived at school I saw the long line of cars that stretched around 2 blocks with parents waiting for children, all of the doors open, people listening silently to radio news broadcasts about the attack.  As I walked past them, people who only knew that I was the one "American" mother were quick to address me and say how sorry they were, how tragic for my country.  Many asked whether I had family who might have been hurt, where I was from, etc.  They were genuinely shocked and hurt.  They were all listening, and waiting along with every other American to see what might happen next.  They were with us. 

Over the next two years, all of the misguided talk of war against Iraq replaced the genuine feeling of solidarity that anyone in France had after 9/11. And why not?  The French became the enemy solely because they didn't agree with the Iraq war.  The entire nation became the object of ridicule and America embraced silly, jingoistic Republican battle cries declaring that French Fries would henceforth be Freedom Fries as though such proclaimations would ring the Liberty Bell loud enough to be heard across the Atlantic!

Take that France!  Nevermind that the French themselves call French Fries, "fried potatoes" and the concept itself originate in Belgium, (supposedly).

By the time I left, I was having rather heated discussions about the invasions of Iraq.  I opposed the war from the first hints that it was coming.  Not because I'm anti-war, but because a cursory read of Middle Eastern history since WWI would make it clear to anyone why military invasion in that region just doesn't make sense....almost NO upside to that misadventure.  It wasn't a secret, then or now.  Yet I was left defending my country, which I did, against calls to have the UN oversee any post-war operations.  No one cared about Saddam, but they did care about the US playing occupying force.  I countered these argument saying that while the invasion was a mistake, I believed that no other country would be better to "reconstruct" and "bring democracy" to Iraq than the US.  We had a history of doing such remarkable things...remember post-war Germany?  Remember post-war Japan? We knew how...

To a person, every Frenchman or woman said, "yes, of course, but this is not a world war...this is an American war with American goals.  The goals are not limited to ousting a dictator.  It is different."

For those bloggers who will jump on the argument about French interest, please realize that I am not so naive as to suggest that France (and Total) didn't have economic/oil designs, and that there were certainly more than a few political and economic imperatives that the French had in mind...but remember, I was talking to average French people...not government officials.  They knew the Iraq war was stupid.  The American public didn't.  We were duped...they weren't.

Fast forward to the next year and the Australians, even though they were part of the coalition of the willing they were anything but willing "IN" Australia.  Aussie's were scratching their heads as to why any one of their troops was going to war...but PM Howard would eventually pay the political price for that decision.  More than a few Aussie's expressed their view of Bush.  "He's a wanker!..."  I would only add to their comment "a bloody wanker!" which would always get a big round of laughs. Yet my anti-war/Bush comment didn't stop more than a few from speaking their minds and saying things like, "you Yanks think you can bloody invade anywhere you want!" 

Aren't we the peace-loving, democracy building country?

Then came Japan.  Boy.  By this time it was already difficult to meet people and tell them I was American.  It became apparent that many would try to work out what "kind" of American I was; the Gore/Kerry supporting kind or the Bush/Cheney kind.  I got to the point where it was easier to clearly identify myself as the kind of American that wasn't a Bush supporter; one that was anti-war.  This was almost always met with a sigh of relief.  Even Japanese taxi drivers would ask me whether I liked Bush, often giving me that famous Japanese "backward hiss" while saying, "Yeah...Bush...I don't know...America...really great country....but Bush.......yeah....I don't know....a little......dangerous."  [I think you have to know how Japanese speak to really appreciate the hesitation to say anything bad, and the fact that they said anything at all was indication enough that it was bad.  I guess you have to be there!]

Now Singapore. It is interesting because I was pleased to discover other Americans here who think like me, who have had more than a few uncomfortable moments with their Nationality while being abroad.  Not all, mind you.  There are a fair number of "enfranchised" corporate-folk who believe that Hillary is the anti-christ and Obama must be her illegitimate offspring somehow.  To these folks McCain is a clear thinker, and nevermind that he wears those kaleidascopic goggles that somehow show that the war in Iraq makes sense, and that the surge makes progress even though young soldiers are killed everyday. 

I struggle with American citizens who can NOW view the war as a good thing, even though I, to a certain degree, can understand that twisted world view from McCain.  Over Christmas this year I visited the famous "Hanoi Hilton" where he was held for those many years, right in downtown Hanoi, and it was truely a gruesome place.  And boy, did American's look like saints compared to the colonial brutality of the French!...But on the same trip I visited the Bomber airplane wreckage in the middle of the city and reflected on the absolute horror those people must have experienced night and day knowing that awesome, superior airplanes would fly over their homes and bomb them at random.  I realize that the US didn't bomb indiscriminantly over Hanoi, but we did bomb.  And people died.  That said, the Vietnamese, much like the Iraqi's (hopefully) someday, seem to be getting about building their economy and finding ways to make money and look back at the senseless American aggression against their country as a tragic chapter in their nation's history that is worth forgetting while worth profiting from as a tourist attraction.

They got my 5 bucks.

And won't it be a thrill to visit the "green zone" and "Sadar City" someday knowing that our nation was responsible for untold Iraqi deaths?  Forget the "Saddam killed his own people" BS...they didn't do a thing to us, nor did they threaten our power...and there are a tub-load of Iraqi's that are dead because of our actions.  And we wonder why people don't like us?  Don't trust us?

I digress.

So, I'm going to look at the close of the Bush Administration as the hopeful ending to a tragic chapter in America's hisory.  I choose to believe that my country will turn the page on the past, and choose a new direction for the future. We have a lot of damage to repair, both at home and abroad.  Looking to past leaders will not take us forward.  They've had their chance.  It's time to give change a chance and invite a new vision with new leadership into our government.

We have to do it.  Yes.  We can.  Yes.  We will.

Choose to leave partisan rancor in the past and embrace a new tone for our politics in the future.  The world is waiting for us to redefine America.  I am too.