Hillary can’t stand up to toast. And we all know the policies of this administration can, and should be, toast.
Molly points out, for those concerned with poll results, polls are showing a need for real reform in Washington D.C.
But Hillary and others seem more concerned with status quo: pleasing certain special interests and their lobbyists.
It seems Hillary is counting on her popularity in New York, her general popularity with women registered as democrats, and perceived general ignorance of issues. As polls are showing though, voters seem pretty wise to the issues.
When do we send a message to Hillary and others that we won’t stand for this bullshit any longer?
by Molly Ivins
I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.
Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.
The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It’s about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can
provide relief.
If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, “Look, the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.” Bobby Kennedy — rough, tough Bobby Kennedy — didn’t do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy’s sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do “whatever it takes” to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
We can win on an agenda of reform of many issues. The polls are showing this. It is up to us to attract and cultivate the candidate, and we can do this if we remain true to our ideals.
Don’t sell out principles in a mistaken attempt to win elections. We need not take this route. Molly is right.
Yes!
Molly Ivins has outdone herself. This is one of the most cogent and concise anti-triangulation diatribes I’ve ever read.
I voted for Mrs. Clinton for the Senate, but will not vote for her again for anything.
What Molly says is absolutely on the money – what the media portrays as left-wing opinion is actually mainstream opinion.
Democratic cowardice is even more dangerous than Republican authoritarianism.
Democratic cowardice is even more dangerous than Republican authoritarianism
Wow, wow,. Spot on. That needed to be said. Multiple 4s and 5 stars for you.
And Molly reads Hillary well. The early campaign to vote her president in 08 tells me there are those who yearn for Bill and the banishment of the party to minority status for 40 years.
If the dems would quit acting as if the repubs were their best friends it would be a start! I don’t mind developing friendships among colleagues but come on, develop a few outside the damn beltway too!
It seems we don’t hear enough from Molly these days.
She writes a column for the Fort Worth Star Telegram twice a week. You can bookmark this page and read it online. Better yet, go to this page and subscribe to her RSS feed.
The excellent Molly column excerpted in this diary isn’t there – there may be a lag before they’re put online. From last Thursday’s on the corrupting influence of money on politics:
Common Dreams has the full diatribe, and many others besides. I think they post all of Molly’s columns.
Thanks Janet and Janet for those links. Maybe I’ve missed her by not looking in my old familiar haunts as regularly as I used to.
Here’s a good one where she had to keep correcting Matthews on his show. It was a segment about DeLay
I love that woman…heven’t seen her on there since, though.
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Seriously, the girl has breast cancer. She’s lost both of them, which is why she hasn’t been out there much.
Sadly, tragedy seems to find the best people first.
Ms. Ivans is one of those folks who makes me proud to be able to claim Texan heritage.
at a bookstore-sponsored appearance; didn’t understand a word she said, but I knew I fucking loved her. That hasn’t changed a bit.
I’ve already decided that if Hillary is the nominee, I’m going Green — now that BushCo. and his rigged courts have taken away my rights and my privacy, my principles are all I’ve got left…
We both felt silly when we voted for Nader, back when he pulled the rug out from under us by betraying the liberal cause, and we definitely both feel the same way about moderation for its own sake.
I went to the 2000 election TX primaries as a daughter of a delegate and I remember quite well that a few people were standing up in meetings and baging that drum for centrism. “the center is th only way to win!.”
I’ve always felt that centrism was a very poor subsitute for being right. It’s even worse than being out and out liberal or conservative because at least when your one of those you can come up with one or two things that are your own instead of having to take a middle position.. just because
in response to something said on Countdown, I said, “I’ll never vote for Hillary.” And my husband, looking dumbfounded and disbelieving, sputtered, “But, I like Hillary.”
Yesterday, I sent him the link to Molly Irvin’s column and this morning I asked him if he’d read it and now understands my position. He’s got it now. While he still likes Hillary personally, he understands that compromise is not the answer to our current crisis.
I like Hilary, too. And I cringe a bit when people trash her. For that matter, I like Kerry too. But . . . I agree with Molly this time. We need someone who truly gets what the stakes are, and will be out there talking about it frankly. Gore showed the other day that he is there. I am not convinced yet about a lot of other Dems.
Gotta add my favorite line from this column:
Her point – as many of us have been screaming for a year or more – is that it’s not a matter of choosing between ideological purity and losing elections vs. promoting a mushy middle message to win them (and then we can enact our wonderful progressive programs after we’ve gained power by fooling the stupid voters with our “centrist” message.”
It’s that the mushy middle fucking LOSES ELECTIONS, you fools!
I am a PCO in a hugely active Dem area, and my precinct gets hammered by every Dem org on the planet –
“Get Involved!” “The Thugs are Meanies /Fascists …!”
blah blah blah.
but, what really happens is that the people calling and doorbelling are cleaning up database lists,
AND getting more people to call and doorbell,
to clean up the database lists,
to pimp all my neighbors for money to fight the meanies.
(oopps, and keep the losers employed as “leaders”, btw.)
it has been the same bullshit for decades.
I hope someone has the time this spring summer to have … the master list on the net of things to give money to and things to not ?
even the DNC perplexes me
Howard is the best thing to happen to this party forever – but what % of the donation goes to the fucking parasite losers in that org, or funded by the insiders of that org?
rmm.
I’d fall on my sword for Molly (if I had one, which I don’t).
I am so pleased that some prominent progressive has come out and given Hillary the message that she needs to hear. I’m sick of reading the regular DLC junk and its utterly off-the-point “idea of the week” proposing some way to take on a more Republican viewpoint. If Hillary is the next Democratic presidential candidate, the Republicans will win again.
This is really terrific to have MI come out with this statement so unequivocally about Hilary(or any other dem who can’t get a spine). The repugs have gone so far to the right that any dem who is or thinks they are a centrist are nothing more than republican lights.
I don’t or didn’t ever consider myself a ‘far out lefty’ but someone who was simply a democrat with our supposed standard platform of ideals…but the dems platform itself has moved to the right-as witnessed by so many dems being pro-life(is that an oxymoron by the way).
I always like reading MI and have several of her books…I think she also has her articles printed at ‘workingforchange.
politicians to run this country. We need honest human beings who care more for their country and her people, and the fate of our precious earth, than they do for creating and keeping personal kingdoms of wealth and power.
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Meek pussyfooting triangulation is so Clintoneque, and I mean that in the unflattering retrospective review of the unserious, booming ’90s, where we all enjoyed and/or squandered the peace dlvidend parrying sex scandals with school uniforms and midnight basketball incrementalism.
But with the house on fire, who has need for incrementalism. If Hillary sails through the ’08 primary season as frontrunner, I hope the DNC types aren’t thinking by offering a republican-lite soccer mom friendly high-Q factor celebrity to run against the next Rovian Manchurian Candidate, then she may join the history books like whoever the last Whig or Federalist candidate is, because the Democratic party will be toast.
I share Ivin’s incredulity here. What are these candidates so afraid of? Are they afraid of taking on any corporations or “special interests” frontally? Is that because they can’t win without massive corporate support? Or is it the ghost of JFK and Lincoln?
Maybe it’s just the normal politician instinct to say as little controversial as possible and be all things to all people. It worked so far in her campaign as U.S. Senator. I voted for her and think she did a good job with a year of hard work dispelling the carpetbagger and shrew meme, and did the Clintonesque “feel your pain” thing for the Upstate economy which was welcome (because those responsible were mostly Republicans and they were busy painting a happy face on it to avoid blame, but Upstaters had never heard a typically New York City-centric Democratic candidate even appear to care about those former NYC Mayor and Congressman Ed Koch once famously called hicks who shop at sears and wear gingham dresses that he felt sorry for!).
It ain’t gonna cut it for President in ’08 tho…we need more courage and integrity…someone like Pat Leahy, say, if you’re thinking a senator type (although none have won since JFK).
is people who can go to rallies where Hillary, and anyone else who needs it, is speaking and taking questions from the audience, and stand up and ask them point blank in front of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and everybody:
YOU CAN WIN IF YOU TAKE ON THE REPUBLICANS. YOU WILL LOSE IF YOU START TO LOOK LIKE A REPUBLICAN. SO WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF??
OK, it needs to be worded better than that, but we need to be asking everyone up for re-election: Why are you afraid to take a stand that will not only win you an election, but a country?
The liberals in the US have a long history of producing principled, out spoken politicians who win the hearts of the (mostly young) activists. When they run for office they always lose. If they run as a third party candidate they cause the Republicans to win, if they run as a Democrat they still cause the Republicans to win.
A random selection:
Eugene V. Debs
Upton Sinclair
Henry Wallace
Eugene McCarthy
George McGovern
Ralph Nader
As the attempt by Howard Dean showed the party elders have little interest in having the status quo challenged. Hillary Clinton is trying to avoid his fate by keeping in the center while trying to signal to the left. Personally, I don’t think she will make the final cut, the risks of running a woman, especially one with such high negatives among the independents and the conservatives, will cause the party to coalesce around somebody more “electable”.
Right on point,
Ms. Clinton is playing to win.
Molly Ivins is playing to “truth”.
And to her good-hearted audience.
The fact is, no matter HOW right Gene McCarthy might have been, the forces that opposed him did not have to resort to killing him…OR Howard Dean OR any of the other openly, non-diguised, non-deceptive left wing candidates for President…in order to stop him from achieving his goals.
Realpolitik is REAL, and Ms. Clinton obviously understands this. Really great athletes…the truly great pitchers, boxers, football coaches, etc…resort to deception as WELL as straight ahead power. So do great generals.
And so do great politicians.
It’s part of the game.
I sometimes wish that it were otherwise, myself, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Which they do not.
Will she win?
We shall see…
Buit she is fighting using her own understanding of the game, and she has aleady proven to be a master.
If she wins, will she be effective?
Again…we shall see.
She might end up too far in debt to those she courted in order to get there in the first place.
Like I said…we shall see.
Later…
AG
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Joe Lieberman—
WASHINGTON — Joe Lieberman stood virtually alone among Democrats Wednesday, his unyielding support for the administration’s conduct of the Iraq war drawing warm praise from President Bush but no support from his own party.
Then President Bush cited Lieberman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.: “As Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman said recently, setting an artificial timetable would discourage our troops because it seems to be heading for the door. It will encourage the terrorists. It will confuse the Iraqi people. Sen. Lieberman is right.”
Hillary Clinton —
Before I voted in 2002, the Administration publicly and privately assured me that they intended to use their authority to build international support in order to get the U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq, as articulated by the President in his Cincinnati speech on October 7th, 2002. As I said in my October 2002 floor statement, I took “the President at his word that he will try hard to pass a U.N. resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible.”
Instead, the Bush Administration short-circuited the U.N. inspectors – the last line of defense against the possibility that our intelligence was false. The Administration also abandoned securing a larger international coalition, alienating many of those who had joined us in Afghanistan.
I believe the Americans do want a clean-up of the political oldies in Washington D.C. for the midterm elections and definitely in Election 2008. Democrats need to look for an outsider to overhaul the White House and most corporate interests, but certainly the religious transgression into our politics. If you don’t want political beliefs preached from the pulpit, don’t take the White House into the churches.
.
An overflow crowd of 600 attendees and live broadcast by C-span —
Anti-Iraq War Horse Rep. Murtha Ignites New Fires of Ferment in Northern Virginia
ARLINGTON (Wva) Jan. 5 — Pennsylvania Rep. John T. Murtha commanded the stage and a live national television audience with unbowed resolve to defend his call for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq, spellbinding an overflow crowd of 600 at a town meeting hosted by Rep. Jim Moran in the Ballston area of Arlington.
Murtha’s credentials as a respected, veteran member of Congress with a strong record of supporting national defense has given enormous credibility to his call, and he told the audience that he’s been frustrated by the Bush administration’s reaction.
“All they can respond with is rhetoric,” he charged. “We’re 6,600 short in our military recruitment goals this year, and now have the smallest military since 1941. Families are having to go out to buy their sons and daughters in Iraq their battle armor, because they’re not getting it from the Pentagon, and all this was going on before I started speaking out.”
“I am getting criticized personally, yet this is not about me,” he stated. “It’s about people thirsting for a policy that makes sense, instead of an open-ended policy with no exit strategy.” Article continues …
● Democrats Lack Unified Position on Iraq
● Dems’ Template for Success:
Follow Jack Murtha… and George Washington
● North Carolina 8th Congressional District – Tim Dunn
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Bravo for Molly!!!!! She is saying what everyone knows. Hillary lost her backbone when she became a Senator. She nauseates me as much as Di FI from Ca. She is willing to kiss any butt to get or stay in office but unwilling to stand up for what she supposedlu believes in. Time for Hillary to retire and let a real democrat in office.