Why Not Hillary

This is a letter I wrote to my sister and one of my best friends, who asked why I'm not a Hillary fan. This is what I wrote back:

First of all, I do want to like Hillary and I often do. I find myself defending her, even though, the truth is, I don't know what to make of her. She's worked her ass off in the Senate, and the criticism that she did so just to make her bid for the presidency I think is hollow and perhaps tinged with ugly reactions to unabashed female ambition. I think she wins the Government Experience category hands down, but I'm not sure that's an obvious plus. Frankly, I wish more presidents had experience being community organizers in our cities, or had spent time fucked up on drugs, so that when they do things like set a national drug or education policy, they know first hand what the fuck they're talking about, what we're actually up against. (Government Experienced people are absolutely capable of fucking up the government and us—see Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice, two of the most experienced, "qualified" people in Washington.)

But on that topic, Barack's not running on experience, but that one term in the Senate is a really impressive roster of activity, bills, passion projects, and bipartisan cooperation on the environment, campaign finance, and transparency in federal funding. (Though he is wrong about ethanol.) In my opinion, Hillary's experience claim over Obama's has one real point of noteworthiness: her hellish experience with the Republican machine when Bill was president. I don't know that her tactics for dealing with those guys are ultimately going to be more effective than Obama's, but she sure knows what the fuck she's talking about with them. And, frankly, as long as Obama is pro-choice, they're gonna go after him with pitch forks and hunger for his blood. I worry that the same way he seemed phased by vituperative bullshit in the debates he'll be dumbfounded by the attacks for the extreme right he is obviously in for if he wins.

I also do not hold it against Clinton that she doesn't stir a crowd like Obama. I think with Hillary we have a case of the smartest girl in the school running for student council president. To win, she's got to win the popularity contest, but she is not good at manufacturing popularity where she doesn't already have it. That's a real obstacle in her campaign, but it's not a problem with me. I don't need a president who has a talent for being likable. People love that about Bill, including me, but it did fuck all for his effectiveness in the White House. So my reservations about her are not about that. (To use that famous W. Bush president test: sure, I'd love to have a beer with Hillary, but nowhere near as much as I want to have a glass of, oh I don't know, pisswater with Barack--but that's not a plug for his campaign so much as it is evidence of my ridiculous crush on him.) I do absolutely love how Obama stirs a crowd—and stirs me—but I recognize that that is a rare gift, and it's shitty to hold it against someone for not having it.

I also don't buy the claim that she won't work across party lines to achieve her goals. Because she has: she has worked closely in the senate with people like Trent Lott, Republican from Mississippi who was an enthusiastic member of the witch hunt against Bill and with Lindsey Graham, the House impeachment manager over Bill's trial (citation: January 28 New Yorker article by George Packer).

I'm the same age as Chelsea, and I often think that if Chelsea were, say, one of my friends from high school (she went to school near me), I'd love her mom. Hillary is really smart. She speaks her expertise fluently, and her combative debate style means that when she's at the table with the assholes running the world, she will not cower and will probably impress the good ones as well as the bad. It is a presidential skill. The debates greatly showed off that side of her. I also do think she's mostly motivated by a desire to make shit better for more people.

My biggest complaint with her is I don't think her political persona is guided by integrity. I really don't. I think she takes pragmatism to the brink of going whichever way the wind blows…and then crosses that line. There have been some public moments where something she did reeked of opportunism or just plain bad judgment, and she's had nothing convincing to say in her defense.

FOR EXAMPLE, THE WAR VOTE:

The biggest example for me is her Iraq war vote, and the whole controversy over the National Intelligence Agency report. She keeps repeating the line: "My vote was a sincere vote based on the facts and assurances that I had at the time." But either she did know better or she should have, and that truth is made clear here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/magazine/03Hillary-t.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1201618916-cGtAIp6JTmLiJaxFrhJ5uQ

(It's a long article, but the page that starts really going into her not reading this report is page 3, here:)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/magazine/03Hillary-t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=3&oref=slogin

To sum up the story, Jeff Gerth is calling Hillary out on her "sincere vote…what I knew then" catch phrase about the authorizing force vote by saying, Okay, Clinton, you really should have known more at the time. Your other democratic senators read the Intelligence report which outright contradicted the Bush-Cheney story about Saddam and the situation over there, and if this is something that you are saying "was one of the hardest decisions of your life" why didn't your soul-searching take the form of reading a 90 page document that was our best estimate of the situation over there? No, but instead of doing that, she parroted the Bush-Cheney line when she spoke before the senate. The Times sums up her turn on the senate floor at the time of the Iraq vote as follows:

…she went on to offer a lengthy catalog of Saddam Hussein's crimes. She cited unnamed "intelligence reports" showing that between 1998 and 2002 "Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program." Both the public and secret intelligence estimates on Iraq contained such analysis, but the complete N.I.E. report also included other views. A dissent by the State Department's intelligence arm concluded — correctly, as it turned out — that Iraq was not rebuilding its nuclear program. Clinton continued, accusing Iraq's leader of giving "aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members."

But the report from the N.I.A. said that the evidence that Iraq was stockpiling WMDs is questionable, and that there is virtually no support for the claim that Saddam was doing any favors for al Qaeda. In fact, all the intelligence agencies pretty much agreed that Saddam and bin Laden were not about each other at all, bin Laden opposing Saddam's secular government (and all secular governments), and Saddam being like, why do I would these violent pirates running amok in my country, telling the people who I'm trying to control what to do, trying to get them to, ultimately oppose me? The argument that Saddam is aiding al Quaeda is an argument that plays on the assumption that all mean Muslims are aligned and don't act in their own best interest, you know, like everyone else.

This is what Nicholas von Hoffman (the Nation) has to say about her vs. Edwards in that same same vote/report:

In fairness to Hillary, she is not the only Democratic presidential aspirant who had a chance to read the National Intelligence Estimate and did not. John Edwards did not read it either and also voted for war. Since then Edwards, unlike Hillary, has recanted his vote, but he still has some explaining to do. Also with some explaining to do are Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd, two other Democratic senators running for the nomination. But Hillary is the only one saying that she would still vote for war knowing what she did then. (my emphasis)

Obama was not in the senate at the time, but he was an outspoken opponent of Bush administration policies on Iraq. In the fall of 2002, before the war started, he addressed an anti-war rally in Chicago, saying:

"I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Quaeda."

I'm so glad that statement is on the record because his prediction, five years later, is dead fucking on.

But Clinton not reading that report kills me. It was confidential, and only available to Senators. We don't get to read that stuff. The whole idea behind electing people is that they actually know more than what we do, are better at their jobs than we would be, and that's why every policy decision in the senate is made, well, in the senate, and not, say, by national referendum. That she had access to our most accurate evaluation of the situation in Iraq and didn't fucking read it before authorizing the president to use force…I'm sorry, force is not a vote, it's not a decision, it's force, meaning guns and bombs and airplanes and human lives. Authorizing force is an authorization of death of people on many sides. Do your goddamn homework. It's a disgraceful moment, which she has done nothing but avoid with an unsatisfactory sound bite. You know what? If Chelsea were a marine, she'd have fucking read the 90 pages.

Oh, when asked if she read it, she refuses to answer the question. And I'm sorry, just because we're used to that shit from politicians doesn't mean it ain't some Bull. Shit.

HER CAMPAIGN

I'm getting disenchanted with her campaign, Barack or no Barack. A particularly shameful bit of campaigning is here:
http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-clinton-call-2/

Her basic pitch, that she is effective and pragmatic (and wink wink, willing to be nasty) but ultimately working for the good guys, is backed up by her Senate record....But stuff like the above campaign message about John Edwards... that shit is nasty and, to use the word of the moment, fucking divisive. And I'm trying to summon my sympathy for her by being thinking stuff like, well okay, her claws are so sharp because they had to be that sharp to get into the ring with the Republican beast that attacked her family during Bill's terms, but damn. But let's ask, is it a plus that Hillary came of age, politically, in that most bitterly hateful of environments? Barack's campaign is making such a point to not be about that shit, he's saying play clean, play clean, because this is the kind of crap that makes politics irrelevant to like half the country. Her team is looking dirty. I found myself nodding a lot to Bob Herbert's editorial on Saturday: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/26/opinion/26herbert.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Her team is also looking kind of full of shit. See the Washington Post's Dana Milbank call out her Florida "victory party" farce for what it was:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/29/AR2008012902998.html

ATTRACTING PEOPLE WHO DON'T NORMALLY GIVE A FUCK

For me this is one of Obama's crucial selling points over Clinton.
In January 2008, Obama won the Iowa caucus with 37.58% support, ahead of 29.75% for John Edwards and 29.47% for Clinton. The biggest part of that significant lead came from record turn-out of voters under 30—the majority of whom were first time primary voters. To me that means, usually young people, who don't see enough of a difference between this or that democratic candidate and so stay home, went out to say, I want this democratic candidate. Barack is speaking to people who aren't usually interested in listening. His massive volunteer campaign staff largely consists of people who have never volunteered for a political candidate. To me this indicates he is chipping away at one of our biggest national problems, that people simply do not engage the political process. This taps into a scene from last Saturday in Fort Greene: a bevy neighborhood 8 year olds having a bakesale for him. How exciting is it that an eight year old is moved to bake for a presidential candidate? This guy means they might be more active, engaged citizens when they're old enough to have real influence. My seven-year-old godson really responds to him too in the most visceral way. (Obama says on T.V. "There is nothing false about hope!" and he replies in earnest: "That is very true.") And there's nothing wrong with a president who actually inspires, who is actually appealing to people's best nature.

From Obama's victory speech in South Carolina:

[W]e're also up against forces that… feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It's the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon.

And I now must wonder if, in fact, I make such a point to be areligious and unpatriotic because I so resent the forces Obama bemoans here. Political candidates humiliate us, profoundly, when they appeal to religious and patriotic loyalties that summon our most defensive, fearful, bigoted selves. And, fine, let's entertain those tactics in the name of pragmatism; let's say those tactics win the day, and we learn, once again, that the surest road to the White House is the divide and conquer superhighway. Could we really love the man or woman perched in the Oval Office who brought that out in us? (That from my first post.)

I think Hillary has and will continue to stoop to those tactics to win. I don't know if it's her nature or her political upbringing by the conservative right during Bill's terms (or both), but it's there. Bob Kerrey going on on Larry King about Barack being decended from Muslims, his middle name is Hussein (all true, but I am deeply suspicious when your opponents keep bringing that up) and that HE SPENT TIME IN A MADRASA?? Which is a LIE. So where exactly do you come up with that shit, and more importantly, why?? If yall don't offer a better explanation, I'm going to go with what it looks like: that you are gagging us with our Anti-Muslim sentiment and trying to get us to puke it up all over Barack. Same deal with the Bill-Jesse-Jackson crap on Monday. Ultimately, maybe those little quibbles disappear when someone is president, but Bill's Jesse Jackson maneuver was calculated to play on the fact that, if you throw it out there, people will associate Barack with Jesse because they're both black, even though Barack is wayyyyyyyyy mainstream (he out-fundraised Hillary for the majority of fund-raising quarters!) and Jesse wasn't really every mainstream. Even though Jesse was running heavily on race and Barack has not made his campaign about that (everyone else is doing that for him, to his obvious dismay). Even though ultimately Jesse's campaign was insignificant in that race (it was historical, but it didn't effect the other candidates or their campaigns much; he wasn't a real threat). But Bill was out to belittle Barack's accomplishments and his candidacy by aligning him with another black man, one who is famous for losing, one whom we know is no real political force today. And shit like that, damn, okay, it's not criminal, it's not an authorization of force in Iraq, but it's dirty and cheap. And like I said, just because we're used to it doesn't mean it doesn't suck shit through a sock.


OBAMA'S RECORD

Charles Peters in the Washington Post on Obama's senate record is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303_pf.html

and his other bills in Illinois and the Senate are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

It's good. But the late term abortion thing drew criticism and it should have.

And in conclusion...

FROM TONI MORRISON'S LETTER OF ENDORSEMENT TO OBAMA:

I have admired Senator Clinton for years. Her knowledge always seemed to me exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert….I cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America.

Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me "proud."

That in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.

When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's citizens as "we," not "they"?

That was Toni. This is me again: And in conclusion, I'll say it again: there is absolutely nothing wrong with the president of the United States being hot.