I just saw Christopher Hitchens lashing out at Hillary Clinton on Hardball - the same tired, ruddy rhetoric - Hillary's interested only in herself and her husband, the Clintons bring with them all sorts of sordid baggage, you've heard it all before.
Salon's Joan Walsh on Hardball did a good job of isolating Hitchens and his attacks as quirky and ignorant. But I do still wonder what it is that so motivates commentators like Christopher Hitchens, especially seeing as he had the good sense to endorse Obama, and offered that endorsement with eloquence and passion.
I really have never understood the intense dislike of the Clintons. Some pretty good friends of mine have it. But why?
At worst, Bill Clinton's celebrated lapse was personal, compounded by a public lie. I also would never again vote for him, because he signed the Communications Decency Act into law (see The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution for details).
But those transgressions - and I hold the second as much more serious than the first - hold not a candle to what Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, in their own ways, did to our country. And, even more important, it was Bill not Hillary Clinton who was the transgressor.
So, what, again, is Hitchens' problem?
I'm beginning to the think that this severe dislike of the Clintons is a lot like a religion, in that it resembles a statement of faith, at root not comprehensible to the rational mind, and presented with a zeal that admits to no contradicting evidence. If so, it may be best practiced in private.
4 comments:
What's our problem with Hillary Clinton?
1) she is pathologically ambitious
2) on the Iraq war, she was as stupid as Dumbya Bush was: she supported the war whole-heartedly. That mistake should have ended Hillary's upward. She should have spent the rest of her political career atoning for that "mistake".
3) she rejects negotiations with Iran or other "unpleasant" groups of people
Thanks for your comment, Soapbox, but your "answers" are little more than name-calling:
1. What do you mean by "pathologically" ambitious? Are you a psychologist? Do you know of any scientific studies that support this?
2. Everyone accept Obama was wrong about the war - that's one of the reasons I voted for him and not Hillary or Biden in the primary. So, do you have the same animus towards Biden?
3. You're plain and simply wrong - Hillary did not ever say she "rejects" negotiations - only that she did not go as far as Obama as needing no preconditions. Again, he is right and she is wrong - but the difference between their views wasn't much at all.
given the three reasons listed above, you would have to hate every politician in washington.
especially the part about being ambitious. no one makes it to washington dc if they aren't ambitious.
Paul: Normally Hitchens is one of a small number of conservatives that I can stomach (eg, Andrew Sullivan, Joe Scarborough when he's not sleep deprived and hyped up on his show's name). But I saw the interview with Chris Matthews and it appears that Hitchens is suffering from COD, Clinton Obsessive Disorder. Yo C-Hitch, that was then and this is now. The bright star of that interview sequence was the always on point Joan Walsh. She is a true debater -- knows how to get her point across and actually listens to the other side and then disarms it gracefully.
/jimy_max
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