Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Vote For Hillary Because…

*Note: The following commentary is the opinion of John R, and John R only, not the On Your Feet Project.

According to
a New York Times/CBS News poll, 79% of Democratic primary voters believe that Hillary has "prepared herself well enough for the job of President," compared with only 40% for Obama.

Here are the facts: Obama served 8 years in the Illinois state Senate and is halfway through his first term in the U.S. Senate. Hillary is about to begin her 8th year in the U.S. Senate. Obama's 11 years is greater than Hillary’s 7.

Does being first lady count as experience? That depends what your definition of ‘counts’ is. A New York Times story
revealed that during Bill's two terms, Hillary “did not hold a security clearance, did not attend meetings of the National Security Council, was not given a copy of the president's daily intelligence briefing and she did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.”

If Hillary expects the first lady experience to count then the Clintons should release the White House papers that would let us see what kind of authority she really enjoyed. Eugene Robinson was quoted as saying: “Who donated how much to the Clinton presidential library, and might those donors expect anything from a Hillary Clinton administration? What business tycoons have snuggled up to the former president, and what -- other than the chance to bask in the radiance of his wit -- did they hope to get out of the exercise?”

Google the term
"unconstitutional third term.” Do we really want Bubba back? As Richard Cohen put it: “He was a good president with bad associations -- beginning with Jim McDougal of Whitewater fame and ending with Marc Rich of pardon infamy. Bill Clinton has a tropism for the faintly corrupt, and his wife has more than a tropism for him. He would stalk her presidency as he has her campaign, and when she vows that she alone would rule the White House, she is talking personnel, not marriage। It ain't the same.”

Timothy Noah, a senior writer at
Slate, wrote about Hillary: “Clinton's claim to experience isn't merely dishonest. It's also potentially dangerous should she become the nominee. If Clinton continues to build her campaign on the dubious foundation of government experience, it shouldn't be very difficult for McCain, now serving his 25th year in Congress, to make Hillary look like an absolute fraud.”

Ok, so experience won’t work and the baggage of Bubba isn’t looking too great.

What should her new theme be? Maybe:
Bush & Clinton Forever. Since the inauguration of George Herbert Walker Bush on January 20, 1989, every President of The United States of America has been a member of one of America's two political royal families: Bush or Clinton. If we vote Hillary into office in 2009 and if she serves 2 terms, we will have had either a Bush or Clinton in office for 29 years (1989-2017).

Now, is that the type of experience we want?

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