The Stakes

I have been arguing recently – for example, here -- that the effort to wrest the Democratic nomination away from Hillary Clinton is only an indispenable first step in an urgently needed struggle to rid the Democratic Party and the political scene generally of Clintonism. I have been arguing too that an Obama presidency, though obviously preferable to a McCain presidency, by no means assures Clintonism’s demise – because Obama is, like most Democrats, a Clintonite.

I have also argued that Clintonism pervades the Democratic Party, and that its virulence explains the betrayal of the aspirations of the voters who gave the Democrats control of the House and Senate in 2006. It was in this context that, in earlier entries, I identified what I called “Pelosiism,” an especially pernicious form of Clintonism – “progressive” in its self-representations, Clintonite in its content.

Lest anyone doubt how thoroughly Pelosiite the Democratic Party has become, with or without a Clinton at its helm, consider the charade now going on in Congress. The Democrats – eager, as always, to “support” the troops by keeping them in harm’s way -- are about to give Bush and Cheney more than $70 billion additional dollars to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars through January, when, if all goes well, Barack Obama will assume office. As they have so many times before, they are making a show of opposition – by launching yet another attempt to attach a meaningless stipulation for a withdrawal date to the bill, and by trying to sneak in funding for social programs. Because Bush has threatened to veto anything that constrains him at all, the Democrats have held up the vote for a short while. But count on them to cave, giving Bush everything he wants. Count on them also self-righteously to protest his machinations. This is more than hypocrisy; it’s plain, unmitigated bad faith. What could be more fundamentally dishonest than for Nancy Pelosi and some other Democratic “leaders” to say that they will not vote for the bill Bush will finally sign, even as they work diligently to assure its passage!

Shirley Golub is running a brave campaign against Nancy Pelosi in her Congressional district in San Francisco. She has encountered resistance, not just from party hacks but also from corporate malefactors – most recently Comcast, which has refused to run her political advertisements. Her campaign deserves support. BUT Golub is wrong to hold that Pelosi does what she does – and doesn’t do what she should (like put the impeachment of Dick Cheney and George Bush “on the table”) -- because she is a coward. What Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders do and don’t do follow as much from conviction as typical Democratic pusillanimity. They want Bush’s wars funded because they believe that, having lost these wars thanks to incompetence, the U.S. must not appear to go down in abject defeat -- the better to fight another day, for the benefit of their corporate paymasters.

This is the kind of thinking that has made a John McCain candidacy possible. Had the United States come to terms with its past in Vietnam to the degree that Germany and Japan came to terms with theirs after World War II, a McCain presidency would be as unthinkable as, say, a German government comprised of enthusiastic veterans of the SS. But we have never come to terms with Vietnam; as a superpower, fully intact after our defeat, we have never had to. We are paying the price. This is why a Hundred Years War in the Middle East is not beyond the realm of possibility, along with all the other depredations of an impending third Bush presidency.

Pelosiites don’t want the U.S. to lose face because it would be bad for America’s economic and political elites. However, for the rest of us, nothing would be more salutary. If we are to make a soft landing into the world order now emerging, we desperately need an Iraq Syndrome more profound and long lasting than the Vietnam Syndrome Bill Clinton, following Reagan and Bush I, struggled to overcome. Pelosiites in Congress, along with Clintonites in all precincts of the Democratic Party, including the Obama campaign, are hell bent on insuring that this moral and political necessity not come to pass. Like the soon to be vanquished Clintons, they must not get their way!

Defeating McCain and/versus Defeating Clintonism

Now that everyone except Hillary and Bill and their pimped out daughter (sorry, I couldn’t resist!) realize that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee, the Party’s wise men (and women) would have Obama make nice to that wretched family and their supporters -- for the sake of party unity. Paul Krugman’s column in today’s New York Times makes the case nicely. Obama seems to agree. This is wise. What the Democrats do best is lose elections that are theirs for the taking; and the Clintons have done everything in their power to assure that this will happen again. If we are to avoid Bush III, their handiwork must be undone. [Note, though, that if the party of Kerry and Gore does manage to lose again in November, the Democrats will likely blame Ralph Nader and the Greens again; not the First Lady of Clintonism and her better half.]

As Krugman points out, Obama does need to get white workers of all ages on board. Allowing that bold and urgent pro-worker policy initiatives that his corporate backers won’t like are out of the question, he could still get the job done by choosing a Vice President more progressive than himself – John Edwards, for example or even Bill Richardson, who might also help out with latino voters. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if, instead, Obama goes for a VP who is “strong on defense.” [Hard as it is to believe, there are silly souls out there who think that an Obama-Clinton ticket would be ideal. Fortunately, there is too much bad blood between them now for that to happen.] In any case, the foolishness that brought erstwhile Democrats into the Reagan camp is unlikely to carry over to John McCain. As for those second wave feminists who would support any woman this side of Elizabeth Dole, they will have, as a Clintonite triangulator might say, no where else to go. “Maverick” McCain has already said that he likes George Bush’s Supreme Court Justices, and that he’d appoint more of the same. Also, don’t forget, he’s for “the right to life.” Therefore, unless racist attitudes are much stronger than now appear, getting most Hillary supporters on board should not be difficult. But, to that end, he does have to do what Krugman and the others suggest; he does have to make nice.

But we don’t; not those of us who hope Obama wins faute de mieux (as elitist, secret Muslims might say). It is distressing how poorly this is understood in what passes for the Left nowadays. What ever happened to “critical support”? Yes, better Obama than Clinton, but Obama is hardly the one to lead a struggle against Clintonism. If progress is made on that front under an Obama Presidency, and if Obama ultimately plays a positive role, it will be because he’s dragged kicking and screaming.

Anyone who doubts how Clintonite Obama is should reflect on his appearance in Washington last night at an event honoring Israel’s sixtieth anniversary -- where, not incidentally, Dick Cheney was the keynote speaker. These days, it goes without saying that Democrats (and Republicans too) have to abase themselves before the Israel lobby. But was it really necessary wholeheartedly to praise a settler (and essentially tribal) state, founded on the principle of ethnic cleansing; a state which, with American backing, flaunts international law shamelessly, wages wars with abandon, and imposes an Apartheid regime upon the population it usurped in territories it has occupied illegally for some forty years. I suspect Obama knows better, just as I think Hillary Clinton does. I suspect too that Obama would be more amenable than any American President since Eisenhower to being a tad less unfair on matters pertaining to Israel and the Palestinians. But, again, he’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming. In any case, don’t expect inklings of fairness from Obama before November – and don’t expect them ever unless militant political and social movements force his hand. The point is perfectly general; as this sordid matter goes, so go all others.

For now, then, let Obama do what he has to do to repair the damage the Clintons have done. But for those of us who see an Obama victory as anything but an end in itself, let there be a division of labor. Defeating Hillary Clinton was a necessary first step in defeating Clintonism; defeating John McCain will be another. I am cautiously optimistic that Obama and his supporters are up to these tasks. It’s their job; let them do it -- therefore, let them make nice. But if the larger struggle against Clintonism is to advance beyond just defeating an outright Clinton Restoration, the more of us who will not pull our punches, the better. This will be true, of course, after November. But it is also true now – before the dreadful specter of a McCain presidency is vanquished.

Clintonism in Action: Worse and Worser

Today the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a resolution (H.Con.Res.322) “recognizing the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel and reaffirming the bonds of close friendship and cooperation between the United States and Israel.” And, in case that isn’t enough, Nancy Pelosi has reserved time each week through June for representatives to make statements congratulating Israel on its 60th anniversary. Not to be outdone, Hillary Clinton recently affirmed in several venues – the Gibson/Clintonopoulos fiasco in Philadelphia, on ABC News and on Keith Olbermann’s program on MSNBC – that, were she President, if Iran threatened Israel with nuclear weapons (which it doesn’t have), she’d nuke ‘em. Never before has the American nuclear umbrella sheltered the Promised Land. Evidently after November, should she win (which, unless there’s a God in Heaven, she won’t), it would. It is remarkable that something so momentous could be proposed without arousing discussion or controversy. But it isn’t surprising. Who, after all, would object? Nancy Pelosi?

Clinton = Lieberman

Scratch a Clintonite or, worse, a Clinton and what do you find beneath the surface – Joe Lieberman! Not necessarily Lieberman the sanctimonious twit; but Lieberman the soul mate of John McCain. How else to explain the contents of “the kitchen sink” that the Clinton campaign have hurled at Barack Obama in recent days? According to Hillary, she and John are ready to handle 3 a.m. phone calls that threaten the safety and security of tucked in bed three year olds. Obama is not ready yet; all he knows how to do is give speeches. According to Hillary, McCain is a Mensch; Obama still has a way to go.

It has dawned on many pundits that this is self-defeating behavior, should she somehow lean on enough superdelegates to become the nominee. She’s boosting, not knocking, her opponent. It has also dawned on them that, should Obama prevail, as he almost certainly will, she will have given John McCain ammunition to use against him. What the punditocracy has yet to note is how adept the Clintons have long been at helping Republicans defeat Democrats. Perhaps Bill Clinton’s gravest political offense as President was helping to turn Congress over to the Republicans only two years after he took office. For the remainder of Clinton’s tenure, he gave the Newt and his minions periodic boosts. Then, when he was no longer in a position to be helpful, the Cheney-Bush fear machine took up the cause for the Newt’s descendants. Six years later, the manifest incompetence of the Cheney/Bush crew brought the Democrats back. But the Democratic leadership was, by then, so thoroughly Clintonized that they’ve continued to aid and abet the criminals they earlier enabled.

For the time being, Obama has remained on the high road, while the Clintons not only go low and dirty but bafflingly incoherent. They’ve become so desperate that their double standards have been noted even in the corporate media. For the Clintons, it is OK to liken Barack Obama to Kenneth Starr, their former prosecutor-persecutor, but not OK to call Hillary a “monster” who’d do anything to win an election. Since when did truth stop being a defense?

It is ironic that Samantha Power was out of the Obama campaign within hours of her “monster” remark being reported. In academic legal and philosophical circles, Power has become notorious lately as the other woman’s other woman. But her claim to more than fifteen minutes of fame rests on her apologetics for “humanitarian interventions” and, especially, for Bill Clinton’s role in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the ethnic cleansing of its constituent parts. Hers is one of the more spirited defenses of this monstrous turn in American diplomacy. One would think that the Clintons would be grateful. Apparently that is a sentiment monsters cannot feel.

Meanwhile, Hillary continues to present herself as like McCain only better. In fact, if it comes down to who is more of a hawk, a“national security” war monger, she’s just McCain Lite. Her co-thinker Lieberman should explain this to her.

I would venture that, whoever wins the Democratic nomination, Lieberman will spend next fall continuing the McCain boosting that Clinton began. He’s a “natural” for the Republican VP slot. Foolish independents like him well enough; Connecticut proved that in 2006. And the part of the Republican base that hates McCain the most will be assuaged because they’ll love Lieberman’s piety and his from-the-heart support for Israel, as they await the apocalypse, the conversion of the Jews (Lieberman included) and the rapture of the Final Judgment, as everyone else is cast into eternal torment.

Them Republicans are pretty weird, but their sentiments are sounder than the liberals’ in at least one respect: they think that monsters should rot in hell.

Hillary's Experience and Good Intentions

In the lead article in yesterday’s Salon.com, Walter Shapiro praises Hillary Clinton’s preparedness and competence, and then in an accompanying interview, he emphasizes her experience. Well, maybe she does prep well for campaign appearances. But experience? True, she has been a Senator for seven years. That’s a bit longer than her main rivals, but not nearly as long as some of the others. What has she accomplished in that post? No one could claim a great deal; certainly nothing that would give her an edge in the experience department. No, for Shapiro and others, her experience comes from have been First Lady. But since when is that a qualification? Nobody ever thought it was until now: not even in Eleanor Roosevelt’s case, not to mention Bess and Mamie, Jackie O, Lady Bird, Pat (recall JFK’s “we can’t stand pat”), Betty or Roslyn (two perfectly fine ladies), the Lady Gipper (who is said to have kept her actor husband from doing even more harm than he did) or, horror of horrors, Barb. Isn’t it telling that, with the Republican field of candidates so comically weak, no one suggests Laura? Yet somehow Hillary is different. Well, not that different. Like all the rest, she wasn’t any kind of official, not even an unelected one; just an official wife (doubtless more official than most).

This raises the question of how well she did the one time when, at her spouse’s behest, she actually did act in a semi-official capacity. In interviews publicizing the imminent release of his movie “Sicko,” Michael Moore, conceding that Hillary is now as much or more in the pocket of the health industry as anyone in Congress, claims that her heart is (or was) in the right place -- and that the problem in 1993 was that she was too nice and therefore didn’t take on the big insurance companies. To these and similar emanations from those who are still grasping at straws in the hope of supporting a female candidate, all I can say is – “huh?” Hillary Care was all about serving mighty corporations. It was a pure expression of Clintonism (see “Combat Clintonism!”, April 27). The reason it failed was hardly that its proponents were too nice for their own good. It failed because the mighty corporations the Clintons favored turned out to be not mighty enough when lesser beneficiaries of the status quo ganged up on the Clintons – and not loyal enough to their faithful servants when it became clear that they didn’t have to settle for nearly a full loaf, since they could get the whole thing.