Why We Deserve Hillary Clinton
March 15, 2008
Believe me, it didn’t start out this way. I started as a Barack supporter and I still am, but I have realized of late that because we are who we are that maybe, just maybe, we deserve Hillary Clinton to be the next POTUS. But if you are the Liberal Progressives I suspect you to be, right now you’re feeling sick. Let me explain.
Barack Obama is not anywhere near the perfect candidate. I am not a delusional devotee nor am I easily swayed by anybody’s propaganda. His position on nuclear power, his lack of really energized environmental positions, and his lack of authentic foreign policy experience is real and not something the Clinton camp has made up. He is just as lacking as any other human being volunteering, even pursuing, the most volatile and powerful political position on the planet. Nope, he isn’t perfect. But I’m not after ‘perfect’, Prince Charming, Playboy Playmates, or Enlightenment. I’m after ‘human.’ At a Clinton organizational meeting here in Silver City, I sat in to hear what was going on. Sure, if she were to win the nomination I would vote for her over John McCain any day. But at that meeting I heard from the same entrenched Democratic power crowd, the same crowd that chanted ‘si se puede’ in another generation, that they would never, NEVER vote for Barack Obama!
Now, I’m from the South and I grew up surrounded with racist code words and innuendo. When I heard this from the Hillary supporters I knew exactly what they were saying because I’ve heard it a thousand times before. They wouldn’t vote for Barack because he was Black. The cover argument was that Hillary was more ‘experienced,’ that she was ‘a woman’ and, therefore, somehow more competent than a Black man, that he was ‘unelectable’ (ie. He’s Black), and that it was ‘time’ for a woman to be president, and that woman was Hillary. All of this was issuing from the mouths of Hispanics that a generation before were fighting for this very same opportunity, this very same recognition, that race is supposed to be an inconsequential element in political decision making in America. It’s all about fairness and equality. Equal opportunity. ‘Si se puede!’ Yes, we can! But you can’t. Especially if you’re Black.
And then came the primaries. And the primaries. And more primaries. I’m writing this shortly after March 4th and Hillary has won 3 of the last 4 state contests. In these contests she said (and I’m quoting here) that she is prepared to be president, that John McCain is prepared to president, and that Barack Obama gives good speeches. She has accused Obama of being two-faced regarding NAFTA (a story which turns out to have been an exaggerated plant by the Clinton campaign), accusing him of financial chicanery for a house deal in Chicago with a known developer of ill repute, and hammering away at her charge that he is ‘not ready’ for the presidency (ie. that he is inexperienced and incompetent, more code words for ie. He’s Black ), and that she, ultimately, would make a far better Commander-in-Chief.
I’m not high or anything, but suddenly I’m getting a flashback to the 1990’s, déjà vu all over again. It was the Bill and Hillary Show, live from Washington, DC., and it was in your face 24/7. Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, bombing aspirin plants in Sudan, $43 million dollars spent on a Whitewater investigation, ties to Walmart, Lincoln bedroom sleepovers, backroom negotiations for health care reform, NAFTA, right wing conspiracies, left wing promises, the Contract on America, what the definition of ‘is’ is, Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth Starr, “I have never had sex with that woman!”, Waco, wackos, Tomahawks over Baghdad, Vince Foster, and the growing calls for impeachment, Impeachment, IMPEACHMENT! And where was Hillary? Hiding in the closet? Working on women’s and children’s issues? What about the starving women and children in Baghdad without meds or clean water or electricity? Where was her voice then? Where was her good judgment then?
I have one haunting vision that I can’t get out of my head. It was 2004, the Democratic National Convention. There was John Kerry saluting, looking stupid, there was Howard Dean remaining cool, there was Bill Richardson as a rumpled M.C. And then there was Barack Obama, a skinny, virtually unknown Black Senator from Illinois. He gave a speech, that was it. He didn’t reinvent the political wheel or cure our ills. What he did was light a fire in the listeners’ hearts with, of all things, simple words. I remember this moment because it was the first time in a long time that I recalled what it was like to be inspired and what a threat true inspiration was. It was a quiver of flaming arrows. It was a loaded mind instead of a loaded gun. It was Joan of Arc with a heart on fire. It was (and I hesitate for fear of implying optimism) a chance to hope.
But I trump this with the vision that I can’t shake. While Barack was giving his speech on working to organize in the poorest neighborhoods in South Chicago, while the audience of die hard Democrats, union members, and party officials sat rapt with attention, tears welling up in their eyes, their throats choking, their minds suspended in disbelief at the impassioned eloquence, there was Hillary.
In the balcony booth above the fray below, she sat with Chelsea arm in arm. In their hands were long stem champagne glasses, full to the brim. CNN caught her sipping. Twice. Finally they got word to her that it was inappropriate and the glasses disappeared. But Obama didn’t.
So now she wants to be Commander-in-Chief. Now she wants to exercise judgment and leadership. Now she wants health care. Now she wants her finger on the trigger, surrounded by red phones at 3am and champagne and power and her husband who, by his adulterous actions and the accounting of many, brought us George Walker Bush.
If Hillary Clinton is elected to be President of the United States, then we, by our failure of action, deserve all that she will bring. I expect, at the very least, a rain of frogs.
–Richard Earnheart
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