Mahatma Hillary

All in the family

2008-06-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

Senator Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign in gracious fashion earlier this afternoon, with a speech that was about as good an exegesis about the consequences of politics as I've heard this campaign season. I just watched it on the TiVo, since I was at a community forum in Liberty City with Hot 105 and the Metro Miami Action Plan Trust for most of the morning and afternoon. As to grades, I'd give the speech an "A." Like Al Gore, Hillary gave her best speech at the end.

Hillary declared that though the race had been tough, "the Democratic party is a family." She fully endorsed Obama, drawing a smattering of boos when she first mentioned his name about 6 minutes into the talk. But by the end, she had captured the crowd with the formulation "when we live in a country when (mentions something that must change, like healthcare for all or proper care for veterans,) we will live in a stronger country. And that's why we have to work hard to elect Barack Obama as president." Then, toward the end, came the part about consequences, with an elegant merger with Obama's major theme added for emphasis:

... You know, I've been involved in politics and public life in one way or another for four decades. And during those ... During those 40 years, our country has voted 10 times for president. Democrats won only three of those times, and the man who won two of those elections is with us today. [Ovation for Bill Clinton]

We made tremendous progress during the '90s under a Democratic president, with a flourishing economy and our leadership for peace and security respected around the world.

Just think how much more progress we could have made over the past 40 years if we'd had a Democratic president. Think about the lost opportunities of these past seven years on the environment and the economy, on health care and civil rights, on education, foreign policy and the Supreme Court.

Imagine how far ... we could have come, how much we could have achieved if we had just had a Democrat in the White House.

We cannot let this moment slip away. We have come too far and accomplished too much.

Now, the journey ahead will not be easy. Some will say we can't do it, that it's too hard, we're just not up to the task. But for as long as America has existed, it has been the American way to reject can't-do claims and to choose instead to stretch the boundaries of the possible through hard work, determination, and a pioneering spirit.

It is this belief, this optimism that Senator Obama and I share and that has inspired so many millions of our supporters to make their voices heard. So today I am standing with Senator Obama to say: Yes, we can!

Hopefully, her die-hard supporters will listen. Two words, sisters: Supreme Court.

I think it's clear that Hillary did everything the Obama team could have wanted her to do today. She offered a sense of triumph and inspiration to her women supporters, particularly those older women who believed this might be their last opportunity to see a woman running the country. To them, she announced that the way had been set for the next woman who runs to go all the way, and for that victory to be rendered unremarkable. She unambiguously declared Obama the winner of a close contest. And she very effectively laid out the consequences of failure. She talked about the challenges of sexism and discrimination, but thankfully, she didn't dwell on it. Instead, she declared that if the highest glass ceiling remains in place in America, "there are 18 million cracks in it" now. By doing so, she secured her place in history as the pace-setter for whoever becomes the first woman president, even if it ultimately is not her.)

In addition, the venue, the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. (which is dedicated to one of my favorite subjects: architecture,) was nothing short of spectacular. (The NBM website's homepage says the venue will be "closed for a special event" on Saturday. Ha!)

I have been a harsh critic of the Clinton campaign, having come into the primary last January as a die-hard Clinton Democrat, who became both incredibly inspired by Barack Obama and sorely disappointed with the negative trajectory of the race, which I feel was driven by the former president and the Senator from New York, as well as by some of her senior advisers. Today, I think Hillary took a step back toward the grace that people like me had long expected of her.

Cross-blogged at The Reidblog.

The Washington Hillbillies

2008-05-14T05:33:00.001-07:00

Having defeated "the whelp" in West Virginia, with the help of hard-working white Americans, Bill and Hillary look forward to rejiggering the cement pond back at the County Seat of Northern Aggression. Unfortunately, the relatively light turnout among the Mountaneers put her barely closer to her goal of putting down the dusky rebellion threatening America's peculiar way of life...

Hillary tames the Wild West

2008-04-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

You may not be able to tell by looking at her, but Hillary Clinton is a lifelong hunter and sportswoman who just LOVES the second amendment and wouldn't dream of coming out for communistic, chichy left coast elitist crap like "gun control." ... As if you can control the wondrous power of a smokin' hot firearm! Pishaw! ... I mean, DAMN, TOOTIN'!

From the time she was knee high to a grasshopper hopping on her grand-pappy's knee in the backwoods of Pennsyl... Illi... Arkan ... oh, wherever ... Hillary has been huntin' and fishin', just like all the little people ... I mean all the "folks" in Pennsylvania, Indiana and wherever else there's left to vote down that dad-gummed carpetbagger "Barack HUSSEIN Obama." I mean, who ever heard of a cowpoke named "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" anyhoo? And so what if Miss Hill-ruh (that's how we pronounce it out here in the "real world of rural America, Barack..." has a hundred mil in her and Bubba's bank account? That's 100 million dollars worth of red blooded American way! Yeeeeeehaw!!!! (Photo at left taken from an actual movie still, as Hillary Clinton stood in for a hung over Geraldine Page alongside the REAL John Wayne in "Hondo," circa 1953. And yes, the girl CAN act...)

Hillary taught Ali that jab

2008-04-02T05:27:00.001-07:00

Before he became Muhammad Ali, a young boxer named Cassius Clay was called a giant killer, after he defeated the then-champ, Sonny Liston in a controversial bout on February 25, 1964 in Miami Beach, in which Liston refused to come out of his corner for the seventh round. During the re-match in Lewiston, Maine on May 25, 1965, the 23-year-old Ali scored a knock-out on Liston with what came to be known as the "phantom punch." Some say it was a quick, right to the head that put the former heavyweight champ on the canvas. Others claim Liston took a dive, fearing the mafia, to whom he was in debt, or perhaps the Nation of Islam, which had attracted the fiery young Clay. Hillary Clinton knows the real answer. Because it was Hillary who taught the young man who shook up the world, a secret, lethal and unstoppable punch that no man can see, let alone survive. She had used it before, and has used it since. ... Just ask Bill.

Hillary breaks through the Great Wall

2008-03-31T09:43:00.000-07:00

On February 21, 1972, President Nixon and his wife stepped off a plane in China for a week-long visit. This was no mere presidential vacation, George W... It was the first visit to the People's Republic by an American president, and it marked the first step in normalizing relations between the two countries. (36 years later, China is busy muscling occupied Tibet and Dubya is lookin' forward to becoming America's sports fan in chief at the completely apolitical Summer Olympic Games. Yee haw!) But Nixon's visit didn't come without prodding ... from none other than future first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. You see, it was Hillary who distracted the media with her and Chelsea's clever Chinese hats, allowing Henry Kissinger to sneak off from Pakistan to Beijing for a secret visit a year earlier, laying the groundwork for Nixon's historic visit with the ailing Chairman Mao. Those hats were on display again during a rarely seen photo shoot in front of the Great Wall. Years later, China would reward Hillary with bountiful, cheap goods not at all tainted with lead, which would fill the shelves of Wal-Mart, on whose board she would proudly sit.

Hillary showed Nixon the door

2008-03-31T05:59:00.001-07:00

On August 9, 1974, President Richard Nixon made his final remarks to his White House staff, and bid good-bye to his presidency. Our long national nightmare was almost over -- we still had Jerry Ford's pardon, which would club any chance of justice or national closure to death like a baby seal -- to look forward to. And yet, that dark day was made easier by the presence of the future first lady, Hillary Clinton. As she walked Dick Nixon onto that plane for his flight into the political sunset, she reassured a grateful nation that in time -- just a few short decades -- she would be in charge, and all would love her, and despair...

One giant step for Hillary

2008-03-31T05:50:00.000-07:00

On July 20, 1969, humanity took its first bold steps into the great, black beyond, when America accomplished JFK's dream of landing a man on the moon. Well, maybe it's because he was too sexist, but JFK never imagined that when that man landed, a woman would go with him. Godspeed, Hillary.

Hillary opens the door to equal opportunity

2008-03-31T05:45:00.000-07:00

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing segregation in U.S. schools and public accommodations. The bill had originally been introduced by President John F. Kennedy, in June 1963, modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and calling for a law "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments," as well as "greater protection for the right to vote." The bill had become bottled up in the Rules Committee, where a Virginia Dixiecrat, Howard W. Smith, had said he intended to keep it mired for eternity. Kennedy was assassinated that same month. Undaunted, LBJ pushed the bill forward, and it ultimately passed the House by a vote of 290 to 130, and the Senate, 73-27. Upon signing it, LBJ told an aide, "we have lost the South for a generation." He was right, thereafter, the South became solidly Republican.

Hillary Clinton was in the White House on that fateful day, steadying the president's hand as he signed the bill that balanced Vietnam on the ledger of his presidency. Had she not been there, Johnson might have reconsidered the risks of throwing away the southern vote for generations. But Hillary stood firm, reminding LBJ that while marches and such are great television, it takes a president to get it done. Hilary stood firm, and a nation was changed for the better.

Ask not what Hillary can do for you...

2008-03-31T05:40:00.000-07:00

Robert Frost read a poem, but it was Hillary Clinton who made it all possible. On January 20, 1961, Hillary was in Washington for the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, president, and King of Camelot. And while the event is best known for a certain speech, the real drama took place on the dais, where Hillary raced to complete the final draft, pressing it into the president's freshly tanned hands just moments before he was to begin. As she scribbled the final precious words of what would become Kennedy's most important address, Hillary knew that she had made history. Hell, anyone can give a good speech, Barack Obama, but only the masters can compose an epic on a Rive Gauche finger napkin at 5:00 in the morning.

Fun Fact: JFK loved French cuisine, and hired a prominent Manhattan chef to run the White House kitchen. His high-end culinary tastes marked a sharp departure from his opponent in the 1960 race, Richard Nixon, whose favorite food was cottage cheese sprinkled with Lowery Seasoned Salt.

Hillary brings liberation to India

2008-03-31T05:03:00.000-07:00

On July 6, 1946, Hillary Clinton attended a meeting between two giants: Mohandas Ghandi and Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the Indian National Congress, in Bombay, India. The purpose of the momentous occasion: the formation of India's first government, which Nehru would lead as prime minister until his death in 1964. The meeting was crucial -- but dangerous. Opposition to the formation of the new government from the All India Muslim League led to tensions, violence, and in 1947, the creation of a separate Muslim state: Pakistan. But as usual, when things were too dicey, and too dangerous for the POTUS (in this case, that old softy, Harry Truman,) Hillary stepped up and simply said, "send me."

Fun fact: Nehru's daughter, Indira Ghandi, who succeeded him as prime minister, was not at all related to Nehru's mentor, Mohandus Ghandi. Instead, she took her last name from her husband, Feroze Ghandi, who adopted the surname for political reasons. Indira Ghandi was assassinated in 1984.

The Clinton Supremacy

2008-03-30T22:03:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton's critics have put forth a cynical, oversimplified vision of the "truth" about her role as international peacemaker, danger zone administrator, and First Lady of the United States during the First Clinton Presidency. But the facts are so much more complex than a runway with no gunfire, a foreign kid with a poem, and Chelsea sans flak jacket. No, to understand Hillary Clinton's 35 years of taking ack-ack in the gullet for her country, you've got to dig deeper.

Much ... much ... deeper...