Wednesday, June 04, 2008

That Zombie Named Hillary


The primaries are over and Obama has taken the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. He came from behind and bested not only the shoo-in favourite but also her popular ex-president husband.

So, where were we? Of course, Obama has won the delegates he needs to take the Democratic nomination so where is Hillary? Has she done what is demanded of any losing candidate and fallen behind Obama to support his fight against the Republicans? Of course not. This is a Clinton who believes that America's imperial age continues and that, no matter the result of the primaries, the nomination is still hers because - well, because she's a Clinton. How arrogant of that skinny little upstart to even run against her in the first place? Really.

The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is unquestionably an Obama supporter and has been throughout. Notwithstanding that, her take on Billary in today's paper is spot on:

"Whoever said that after denial comes acceptance hadn’t met the Clintons.
If Hillary could not have an acceptance speech, she wasn’t going to have acceptance.


It’s never going to end,” sighed one Democrat who has been advising Hillary. “We’re just moving to a new phase.”

Barry has been trying to shake off Hillary and pivot for quite a long time now, but she has managed to keep her teeth in his ankle and raise serious doubts about his potency. Getting dragged across the finish line Tuesday night by Democrats who had had enough of the rapacious Clintons, who had decided, if it came to it, that they would rather lose with Obama than win with Hillary, the Illinois senator tried to celebrate at the St. Paul arena where Republicans will anoint John McCain in September.

...“What does Hillary want?” she mused, in her most self-aware moment in some time. “I will be making no decisions tonight,” she concluded, asking fans to go to her Web site to share their thoughts.

And, even though Democrats were no longer listening, Hillary’s camp radiated the message that Obama was a sucker who had played by the rules on Florida and Michigan, and then reached an appeasing compromise, and that such a weak sister could never handle Putin or I’m-A-Dinner-Jacket.

...Clintonologists know that Hillary is up to something, but they aren’t sure what. Theory No. 1 is that it’s the Cassandra “I told you so” gambit: She believes intensely that he’s too black, too weak and too elitist — with all his salmon and organic tea and steamed broccoli — to beat her pal John McCain. But she has to pretend she’ll do “whatever it takes,” even accept the vice presidency, a job she’s already had and doesn’t want again, so that nobody will blame her when he loses on Nov. 4. Then she can power on to 2012.

Theory No. 2 is that it’s a “Bad stuff happens” maneuver, exemplified in her gaffe about the R.F.K. assassination, that she figures that at least if she moves a few blocks from Embassy Row to the Naval Observatory, she’ll be a heartbeat away from the job she’s always wanted.

...For months, Hillary has been trying to emasculate Obama with the sort of words and themes she has chosen, stirring up feminist anger by promoting the idea that the men were unfairly taking it away from the women, and covering up her own campaign mistakes with cries of sexism. Even his ability to finally clinch the historic nomination did not stop her in that pursuit. She did not bat her eyelashes at him and proclaim him Rhett Butler instead of Ashley Wilkes."

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