So, like a few days later, Hillary's all sad and everything that he stole her thunder. I was watching the news last night when Charles Gibson literally started talking about how the media would "talk about" her declaration for "days." Since when did the act of talking about something become news in and of itself? Hillary's declaration to run for President, which surprised no one, isn't just news - the future of talking about her declaration to run for President is now Prime Time worthy.
More than ever, the media is hopeless. Is anyone, except the media, really excited about Hillary's declaration to run for President? I have no doubts she'd be an okay President. Her husband was a decent one and she's made a fairly effective Senator. However, I'm not excited about Hillary. I'm certainly not going to contribute to her campaign at this point, or concede the entire election to her. Heck, I don't even think she's odds on to win the nomination. I'd give that recognition to Barack Obama, who has at least began to speak with a little clarity about Iraq.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's running. Democrats need a true, spirited nomination process to find the best candidate. However, I just hope this time around people stop thinking they know what makes an electable President before the actual election. People need to find the candidate they think will make the best President, both in terms of policy and competency, and vote for that person. That's all there is to it.
If any of you think that person is Hillary Clinton a little more than a year from now, mark it down. I, for one, have no idea who I'll vote for at this point. However, I can tell you with certainty that my analysis of whatever goes on will extend far beyond the chit-chatter that the media elites just love to pretend is actually news.
PS: The audacity of my spelling mistake in the title! Yikes.
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12 comments:
Barak Obama? What does he know? Ted Kennedy knows more about government than Obama will understand in twenty years!
The problem with American politics at this juncture is that it is now political platforms and stands by poll. Polticians change their minds whichever the wind blows. Sen. Kerry can't even make up his mind re what he wants to have for lunch. America needs a candidate who is a bedrock American, not a political opportunist, or a candidate of the special interestgroups but a candidate of the people and for the people.
While I agree with you anon, some people would say most of what you were describing would fit President Bush. Sometimes governing by popular will isn't such a bad thing. I come from the perspective that Presidents ought to try to change popular will if there's something they feel strongly about - ie convince the general public from their leadership position - not ram it down their throats. George Bush believed whatever the hell he wanted to believe and he was "the decider," popular opinion be damned.
On the other hand, great Presidents in the past convinced the American public of a new conventional wisdom - be it either FDR and his New Deal or JFK and spending who knows how much launching rockets toward the moon. I doubt either of them would have been conventional wisdom if not for the fact that those Presidents *convinced* the public too.
Hearing you talk about how governing by popular will is not a bad thing, while fighting to deny a vote to the popular will on gay marriage, is strange.
I actually agree with Joe, well kinda. Obama has cast some really questionable votes while in teh Senate. He's definitely a DLC moderate conservative. His record may be a fraction better than Hillary's, but not by much. Yeah, he gives a good speech but those who don't want Hillary shouldn't want Obama. He's not really a progressive.
Anon, this is getting old, already. If you're willing to put every potential marriage in the Commonwealth up to a potential vote, yours too! then I'm with ya. When you're willing to vote on whether you're allowed to speak, live, or marry, the get back to us. Till then, you're just an over entitled bigot who wants his rights and freedoms but wants to take everyone else's away. Popular will doesn't mean that if we get 51% we get to dunk you in the lake until you drown just because you're annoying, and it doesn't mean you get to tell me what color to paint my walls, if I'm allowed to have kids, or who I can marry. Our state Constitution gives lots of rights and protections to people who aren't you, sucks to be you, there are plenty of states to choose from.
Just to clarify, by "questionable votes," I mean things like the bankrupcy bill, not stupid meaningless PR stunts that the Republicans dreamed up to cover impossible situations to deceive the public, waste public time and money and score cheap political points, like what Joe's talking about.
My least favorite person in history is John Adams.
Because when the SJC was deliberating whether or not to outlaw slavery, they went to him and asked him if his intention in writing the Mass Constitution was to outlaw slavery.
HE SAID YES! Not, like he shoulda, Let the People Vote.
Nobody in this damn state has ever gotten to vote on whether or not we can have slaves.
IT'S SO UNFAIR
Where is the popular will, how can we call ourselves a democracy if I can't decide that Mr. Crenshaw my neighbor should be my property?
This sucks, and I need Peter Porcupine, all lovers of the People, VOM, to help me sign petitions, meet me at the Watertown Panera Bread. Be there or hate Democracy!
Joe, I don't want to mean, but do you have any rudimentary understanding of human biology?
How does a fetus "survive" an abortion? I wouldn't go out on a limb and say that's the stupidest thing ever said in the history of the world. Because I'm polite. And there's always Congress, and I'm sure they did debate this.
Okay, let's review, fetuses grow inside the mother. Fetuses are aborted during the first trimester of pregnancy and into the second. At that point, fetuses are what we call "nonviable." That means, they can't live outside of the mother because especially in the first trimester when 90% of abortions are performed, they're approximately the size of a grain of rice and lack certain amenties like major organs and the cerebral cortex. Even if they were extracted whole, which they're generally not because that would not be the safest medical procedure.
I suppose in theory it would be possible for a fetus to "survive" the tiny number of third trimester abortions except for the fact that again, the safest procedures for extraction (see "D&X") also don't generally include intact extraction, and oh, yeah, third trimester abortions are only done if they're medically necessary, which means that either Mommy will die without it (and that being the case, it's not coming out intact because that's dangerous to her life) or the fetus is so catastrophically damaged that it either can't be born alive or can't possibly survive and some doctors don't really want to force anyone to go through a dangerous labor under those circumstances (in which case it's also not coming out intact because that's dangerous to the mother's life, funny lot those doctors they tend to choose the most medically safe procedures, the ones that are least likely to result in the woman's death).
But no, I sure wouldn't call writing a phony bill about something completely made up that has less than a one in 21653267237 zillion chance of happening, (and if it did happen, the "survivor" would get treatment anyway beacuse it's a hospital and that's what doctors do unless they all drop dead of shock in which case it's hard to legislate what happens next, so writing a bill for political reasons probably unnecessary anyway), a cheap stunt.
Because, first off, it's not like you guys are trying to claim that anyone who voted against the phony bill is a bad person. So clearly, not dreamed up as a cheap stunt to demonize opponents over, um, nothing, or generously, something completely fabricated and bs. And second, what I'd call it would be a breather. Day One on Repub Congressional Agenda: Cut Medical Care for Babies. Day Two: Cut Medical care for Infants. Day Three: Cut medical care for Teens.
Day 5: Cut Medical care for College Students. Day 6: Cut Medical care for Young Adults. Day 7: Cut Medical Care for the Middle Aged. Day 8: Cut Medical care for the Elderly. Day 9: Cut Medical Care for Veterans. But right in the middle, the sherbet intermezzo if you will, Day 4: Ensure A Fantastic Superhuman Level of Care Beyond That of Any Other member of the Human Race to Aborted Fetii And We Don't Have to Worry About the Cost, They're Obviously Not Going to Need Said Care. It May Be A Ridiculous Theoretical Symbolic Gesture, But A Cheap Stunt It Sure Ain't.
It's too bad that the mother that little baby, Sunshine, who was taken off life support in Texas at the same time as Terri Schiavo because Bush helped change the Medicaid rules so that even someone who was conscious and begging to live could be taken off support due to financial considerations and the state not being wiling to pay for medical care, didn't pretend Sunshine was a fetus who had miraculously survived an aborion. They could pull the plug on a baby, but a fetus, one of the survivors, then Congress definitely would have stepped in and ponied up the funding.
And I owe the entire human race an apology for helping to perpetuate what may be the most idiotic discussion in the history of life as we know it. Outside of Congress. Why, why?
I have really mixed feelings.
Hillary doesn't really inspire me either, but I love the thought of her being President. For lots of reasons.
Like how many fellow citizens would never recover from it.
I love the idea of an Obama Presidency, too. But he's too close to Lieberman and he hasn't stepped up and been the leader we need in the Senate.
Two whackjob Supreme Court Justices, and what did he do about it.
OTOH, he's not the only Senator to drop the ball. They're all probably equally good or bad.
I don't see a lot of difference on substance.
Edwards, he has some great points to make in speeches, but what will he actually do. Is he really different from the other mushy centrists or just trying to sound like a populist.
The only one I'm actually enthusiastic about right now is Kusinich.
Eh. We'll see what happens.
Ah hell, I live in Massachusetts, my vote doesn't count anyway, I'm going Green.
Joe---
I know your beliefs are totally sincere, and I respect them.
But believe me, if I were in the Senate and they told me the bill to guarantee medical treatment to featuses who survive abortions was up next, I'd roll my eyes and go back to my office.
Maybe that's because I'm an evil baby hating sadist like BO...
But you gotta understand that lots of people would see the bill very differently from you.
They might see it as more of a wedge issue, like flag burning, that has very little practical applicaton and that's just being voted on as a kind of "gotcha!" to try and get some traction at election time.
And, also, I wouldn't be comfortable with voting for something that DAs and cops could use as an excuse to break down doors of clinics, scaring the hell out of the patents and intimidating the doctors.
I don't see why they couldn't bust in on every single procedure, demanding to paw through all the medical remains and see if there could be a surviving fetus who's entitled to federally mandated health care.
That probably wouldn't happen here, but it could in states with only one or two clinics and with a lot of politicians actively trying to shut them down.
I wouldn't want something like that to ever happen to my sister if she goes into a medical clinic.
That's not just cold, that's scary.
So, in short, too late, it's possible that even though BO, a guy who's desperately in need of better initials, has a different opinion from yours, it's possible it's not based on being either an insesitive jerk or an evil sociopath who laughs manically, rubs his hands together in fiendish glee, and gets off on the suffering of babies.
It seems this blog is degenerating into the name calling that taints so much of society today, clean it up guys.
Maybe as a country we need to think about making foreign policy decisions less "political" as a whole. If we could only get some bipartisan support for some basic long term strategies, our enemies(and friends) wouldn't feel like they can wait things out for 4 years until a new batch of people come in and they can influence them. I know voting is the way we reward/punish the powers that be, but long term interests could give us some common goals.
Shawn... I can understand seeing Obama as almost being like Joe Lieberman. However, I can't see how you don't have the exact same opinion about Senator Clinton. If anything, she's worse.
Like I said in my blog, I'm not excited about Obama at this point, but at least he's coming out strong on Iraq as of late. I really don't think a war-hawk democrat will ever have a chance beating an even bigger war-hawk like John McCain - I hate talking about electability, but if voter's only see two choices and one's republican and the other republican-lite - they'll go with the real deal.
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