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So far this year, I have refused to comment on Issues about the presidential campaign. I have refused to answer questions or to even speculate on who the respective Party nominees will be. But what I have been witnessing these last few weeks in the Clinton campaign now causes me to comment. Ugliness and personal attack are seemingly a part of politics. But what the Clintons have been doing to Barack Obama is unconscionable. Let me explain.
- First, former president Bill Clinton is playing the bad guy this season. His comments are biting, bitter and personal. For example, he mocked Barack Obama, who, in a recent interview, acknowledged Ronald Reagan’s long-term impact on politics and the reality that conservatives once constituted the movement generating new ideas and initiatives. Strangely, Bill Clinton in his 1992 presidential campaign did exactly the same thing. Clinton then praised Reagan for his “rhetoric in defense of freedom” and the strategic role he played in “advancing the idea that communism could be rolled back.” In 1992, Clinton was defying his party—the Democratic Party, which loathed Reagan. But in defying them, he set himself apart and was probably elected because of that. This was in fact the anchor of Clinton’s 1992 campaign. For that reason, columnist E.J. Dionne comments: “That’s why the Clintons’ assault on Obama is so depressing. In many ways, Obama is running the 2008 version of the 1992 Clinton campaign. You have the feeling that if Bill Clinton did not have another candidate in this contest, he’d be advising Obama and cheering him on. . .Doesn’t calling in Bill Clinton as the lead attacker merely underscore Obama’s central theme, that it’s time to ‘turn the page’ on our Bush-Clinton-Bush political past?. . .Why should either Clinton attack Obama for facing some of the truths that both of them taught their party so long ago?” Also consider this: In New Hampshire, Clinton talked about Obama’s position on the Iraq war and characterized it as “the biggest fairy tale” I have ever seen. Listen to the editorial comments in the Wall Street Journal: “But it was also a classic distortion intended to turn voter attention away from his wife’s own Iraq fairy tale. She’s the candidate who voted for the war and backed it for years before she decided she had to be sort of against it, only to later become really against it, and now to favor a withdrawal starting in 60 days.” Hillary Clinton claims of course to disapprove of such attacks, and even assert that she herself is being unfairly singled out by the media, simply because she is a woman. “She wants to make the primary contest about race and gender, rather than about Mr. Obama’s larger, more inspiring message of change. She can then diminish Mr. Obama and make the choice a trench fight for the votes of typical Democratic constituencies.”
- Second, consider the baggage Hillary Clinton brings to her campaign. In some ways, she could be the most divisive candidate of the campaign. (1) She powerfully symbolizes the culture wars of the 1990s. She cannot divorce herself from her husband and his presidential actions, proclivities and sins. Reflect on these words: Whitewater. Monica Lewinsky. Blue dress. “What the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Little will rally the conservative base like Bill and Hillary Clinton. (2) As Michael Gerson writes: “Clinton is the candidate who most muddles the Democratic message of change.” There is no Republican incumbent running. The country longs for change, as all polls now demonstrate. But Hillary Clinton carries the heaviest burden of the past. She will need to defend her years of service. Gerson writes, “She is the most backward-looking candidate of either party—the closest there is to an incumbent in the 2008 election.” (3) The Clintons practice a “politics without honor.” Clinton proxies have attacked Obama as a drug user and maybe a drug dealer, and bemoaned politicians who “shuck and jive.” Robo-calls in Nevada made reference to “Barack Hussein Obama.” They charge that Obama defended a slumlord and of course spoke kindly of Reagan. Gerson argues: “Given the Clintons’ cultivation of ruthlessness as a political art . . . , [their] hope is to bring him down to earth, then bury him in flying dirt. Clinton prefers a war of attrition—blow for bloody blow—because her team is better at the tactics of politics. Unable to inspire, Clinton chooses to destroy.” This is a very sad day for our country.
- Third, a final thought on the Democratic Party. There is no doubt that the nation needs fresh, new leaders, with inspiring, innovative approaches to our national challenges. But the Party has banked on Iraq as the pathway to the White House. In Iraq, coalition casualties are down significantly, along with Iraqi civilian casualties, roadside bombings and suicide attacks. Major parts of Baghdad have been pacified and al Qaeda is in a demonstrable retreat. Further, Sunni Arabs are rejecting the tactics and ideology of al Qaeda. Despite these astonishing reversals, Democratic leaders, most significantly Hillary Clinton, still insist on reckless timetables for withdrawal. They seem unwilling to acknowledge the success of the effort. Michael Gerson writes: “Instead of criticizing an increasingly successful Iraq strategy, it would be helpful to hear some realistic proposals to improve American prospects in Afghanistan, where violence has reached its highest level in four years. NATO’s military efforts in that country are uncoordinated, even incoherent—demonstrating the risks of multilateralism. The resolve of some European nations is wavering. An al Qaeda ministate is developing across the Pakistan border. How would a Democratic response differ from the current one?”
When one talks with the critics of President Bush, one hears of raw partisanship, unbending ideology and narrow-mindedness. But one does not think of major moral or ethical failures like those in the 1990s during the Clinton years. Politics is dirty business and democracy is a messy political system. But during the election of 2008, Americans will need to choose someone honorable to be president. Right now, there do not seem to be many honorable candidates out there. How sad!
See Michael Gerson’s editorials in the Washington Post (4 January 2008 and 25 January 2008); Wall Street Journal editorial, “Obama’s Clinton Education” (23 January 2008); and E.J. Dionne, Jr.’s editorial in the Washington Post (25 January 2008).
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