I used to be pretty happy with the Clintons. I remember laughing at Bill’s language-defying attempts to slide past prior indiscretions — “I didn’t inhale” and idiosyncratic word-definitions, among others — and I didn’t really care about his failure to testify honestly about Monica. After all, Presidents drink and do drugs and then deny or excuse it. A reckless youth is probably part and parcel of leadership. One almost expects adulterers to lie about it; it would feel a bit odd if the response was “Of COURSE I’ve been sleeping around”… and it’s not like somebody’s life is on the line.
But recently they’ve been trading a bit too heavily on that credit. Repeating Republican frames, attacking Obama’s patriotism, or attacking critics who do no more than point out lies, does nothing but damage to her own credibility. I’m ready for a President that is in touch with reality and sees the world for what it is, not one that believes his or her own spin over facts. And recently that candidate hasn’t been Clinton. Obama at least owns his flaws.
And Bill, if you did indeed intend to express a desire for a Presidential campaign that moved beyond questions about patriotism to questions about real policy… Well, you should have said that instead of fitting your actual words neatly into a 5-second attack ad. You expect us to believe that you weren’t aware of how that sentence would be played? Please. “Oh, I didn’t mean to say he was unpatriotic, I actually ment…” You have highly-paid people whose job it is to know exactly how those words would play, and attempting to step away from them now just smells.
And if being a liberal isn’t good enough for Clinton and her mouthpuppet Penn, then fuck them. She must be too conservative to be my candidate until there’s no actual liberals left.
