Clinton cynicism vs. Obama conceit

Since the phony Wright flap has once again given the reprehensible likes of Bill Kristol (whose bad advice about Iraq, and smug indifference to its ever-growing body count, continues uninterrupted) the moral footing from which to laughably declare that the bloom is off the Obama rose, all there is left to do now, apparently, is play along in the Great Game of Pretend.

No thanks. Try as they might to close the circle of the latest smear, Obama will continue to command attention and peel back layers of partisan division as the campaign goes forward - Bill Kristol's wish fulfillment fantasy notwithstanding. As Twain famously said, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

"What's the conservative case for a Clinton presidency as less harmful to the country's interests than an Obama one?"

This kind of reminds me of going with the devil you know rather than the one you don't know. Personally I'd rather go with Obama because I don't know much about him. That is a plus. I know way too much about Senator Clinton, including things she did without being able to blame her husband on.

It surprizes me that Bill Kristol would imply that Hillary wasn't concieted. Since about 8 years ago I thought I heard him say that on foxnews when she was running for senate. I wish I'd taped it so I could quote him. So my statement is heresay. Oh well I swore I heard him say that.

Hillary is a better option because she will give up her principles to get what she wants. However you'll have to make a deal with her in order to get that to work. And she wont make a deal if she doesn't have to. Obama we don't know much about how he'll act, but we do know he is a politician and not as principled as he is made out to be.

So my take is to go with Hillary if you want to have a chance at conservative legistation(if and only if the house and senate are a conservative majority) at the expense of national health care or to go with Obama if you don't want to compromise.

The conservative case for Clinton is a no-brainer.

They'll have a beaten and bruised minority in Congress next year. They'll be exposed to Congressional investigations one after another.

But they'll have the Clintons to blame.

If Obama is elected President the conservatives will have a mandate to justify why they're conservatives.

That will be interesting spectator sport to say the least.

What's the conservative case for the Clintons?

Well, obviously Hillary isn't Bill and her administration won't be an exact repeat of 1993-2000, but let's assume the general policy approach is similar and that a lot of the same old faces would return.

The Clintons rubbed many movement conservatives the wrong way, but that had little to do with the Clinton agenda, and much to do with what Bill Clinton represented in the minds of many conservatives. Many on the right looked at Bill Clinton and saw not a man with a set of beliefs, virtues and flaws, but rather an embodiment of The Sixties. To them, he was the embodiment of all the Baby Boomers' faults- a draft-dodging, pot smoking, promiscuous hippie. So, even when Bill Clinton acted prudently and (dare I say it?) conservatively, the Right continued to loathe him irrationally for what he represented.

Strangely, the Left loved him irrationally for the same reason! Even though he betrayed them regularly (on welfare reform, for instance), they adored him because he was "one of us." By any standard, Clinton was far more conservative than Al Gore, but who did Ralph Nader run against? Nader knew the Left would never abandon Clinton, even if he regularly let them down.

I've always argued that, when people like or dislike a politician, they usually have excellent reasons. But when they worship or loathe a politician, it's usually who utterly irrational reasons.

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton are two Presidents who are widley loved AND loathed. And yet, if you look at the record, neither man ever DID any of the things his supporters wanted most (or that his enemies feared most).

We endured 8 years of the Clintons, and if conservatives are honest, they'll concede that things generally didn't go too badly during those years. No, we on the Right have no reason to be enthusiastic about a new Clinton White House, but we've seen first hand that the Clintons didn't push the country to the far Left, they were fiscally prudent (much more so thatn George W. Bush ever was), and generally put decent, capable people in the most important positions.

The Nineties were frustrating for conservatives, but they weren't Hell on Earth. We endured one Clinton administration just fine. There's no reason to think we couldn't survive the return of Robert Rubin and Leon Panetta.

It's wonderful to have Mr. Kritol's keen insights that he exhibited in the area of foreign affairs (see Iraq) now applied to politics. Wasn't his first NY Times column about how Obama had defeated Clinton, Inc?

I'll take either Hillary or Barrack over McCain any day.

Since all three viable candidates* are Modern Liberals, I'm forced to root for the one who:

1) Who will be least able to push a liberal agenda forward, due to divisiveness or lack of political clout. Obama is well behind Clinton and McCain in this regard, but he's catching up fast. If he'd been elected a month ago on the Racial Savior ticket, he'd have had the bi-partisan clout to do anything he wanted, but that's over. If he were elected today, he could get bogged down in Rezko and Wright the same way Bill Clinton got bogged down in Whitewater and Jones, to the point where he ended up working with a GOP Congress on things like welfare reform. Still, Clinton and McCain hold the lead here for now, both being seriously unpleasant people.

2) Is least ideologically driven, and most willing to compromise with reason on important issues like immigration. As the most liberal member of the Senate recently, Obama loses big here. McCain seems to hate conservatives, at least on some big issues, so while he might be good on some things, he'll dig in his heels on others. He's made a career of working with the left to gain praise from the media, but will he work with conservatives when he doesn't have to? (If anyone believes he's gotten tougher on illegal immigration because he's saying so on the campaign trail, I've got a bridge to sell you.) Clinton, though a liberal, seems the most pragmatic of the three, so she wins here.

3) Will cause the least amount of blame for his or her liberal policies to be misplaced on conservatives. McCain loses big here, of course. Bush's liberal policies like trying to turn Iraq into Vermont are blamed on Republicans (rightly) and by extension, all conservatives (wrongly). Bush Republicans gave us No Child Left Behind, wider-open borders, increased wiretaps and surveillance, higher government spending, coddling of the UN and countries like Saudi Arabia that undermine us, and more "free" trade. We will continue to get these things no matter which of these three schmucks we elect, so let's at least spread the blame to the other party that deserves it for a while.

Putting those three together, Hillary Clinton looks like the best choice for conservatives (God save us). She'll either compromise with us to get things done or be so abrasive that we get four years of gridlock (better than liberal progress) and a chance to elect some conservatives to Congress. If she does enact something like socialized health care or illegal alien amnesty, it won't get blamed on the GOP this time, and a conservative Republican might have a better chance next time around.

[*] I'll be voting for Ron Paul, but he doesn't have a chance this time.

Which candidate can better deal the MESS they'll have to clean up? The financial melt-down and the war and the terrorist threats are not going to just go away in a feel-good world-wide Obama moment. One incompetent president should be enough for any bunch of fools. Vote Obama speech-maker in chief if it makes you feel good, but elect a president with some serious experience. Of the Democrats have the audacity to hope for Hillary. If you can't get a Clinton become a McCainiac.

I'm an independent and I voted for Obama in California. However, he has now lost my vote. I can't vote for a man who hangs out in such a toxic environment that blames whitey for everything. Ask yourselves this: would you even consider voting for a white man whose church of TWENTY years was a KKK member whose sermons blamed black people for everything? Not only would you not vote for him, you'd decry his continued participation in the process as preposterous.

I'll be staying home in November if Obama is the nominee. I'll vote Clinton if she's the nominee just because I want to punish the Republican party for their horrible rule. I'd rather have McCain be president than Obama.

How disappointing. I had such high hopes for Obama. I drank the kool-aid. Bah. That's what I get for believing in something.

If we're talking about competence, I don't see that Hillary is any better than Obama. Before the J-Wright issue blew up, she was getting her butt kicked in a primary race she should have walked away with after Feb 5. Her campaign has been compared to Rudy Guliani's for its breathtaking incompetence and arrogance. Funny how that parallels her work with health care.

Obama's abysmal reaction to J-Wright's exposure is really the first time we've seen him slip in the national campaign in a big way. I don't know if it's more disappointing because he really believes the bilge J-Wright spews or because he doesn't believe in it, but doesn't want to risk losing a portion of the black vote (including, possibly, his wife) by telling them a few truths they don't want to hear.

We focus on Wright's rants, which Obama did not hear at the time, but how many folks have bothered to read the text of the sermon that he said had the greatest influence on him, "Audacity to Hope?"

Find it here if you're interested in the whole picture: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/for-the-record.html

And I have yet to have anyone answer the question I have asked on other blogs...Where is there any example of Obama himself ever engaging in such rhetoric? What policies has he...not someone else...advocated that reflect what Wright said? What behavior has he engaged in that would give a person just cause to believe he shares Wright's level of rage?

People often stay in churches, even when they have deep disagreements with the pastor on some issues. They stay because they appreciate the ministries of the church and the friendships they have found there. They stay because they agree with some things the church or pastor does, even as they disagree with others.

That is called commitment.

Conservative case for Clinton: Devil you know, plus, as Astorian says, things were not so bad during the Clinton years. Welfare reform? Brilliant, much needed, the sky didn't fall the way the libs said it would, and -- no Republican could have pulled it off. Bob Rubin? One of the best Treasury secretaries ever. Breyer and Ginsburg? Not quite as liberal as Souter, and a whole lot smarter and more able. (Of course, there were the obvious low points. Plus: Robert Reich? hate-filled and way to the left. Madeleine Albright? mediocre to the bone.)

Obama has made me nervous for some time because I woke up one day and realized I had no idea what he really thinks -- there's just that inspiring rhetoric. If what he really thinks is what his wife and his preacher think, then the centrist rhetoric is a pack of lies. I realize this is an "if," but the fact that it's plausible (though clearly not yet proven) makes me nervous.

Said another way, from the truly conservative perspective of comparing worse-case scenarios, which leaves the republic in worse shape after 4 years: Clinton as bad as she might be, or Obama as bad as he might be? On that criterion, I'd take Clinton any day.

ScurvyOaks, my feeling is either Obama has been conning his congregation, and he doesn't really believe what they believe, he's not a "fellow-traveler" with them, or he is conning his supporters right now. I don't want to believe this, actually.

I hope to hear him come out and say, "the U.S. government didn't create the AIDS virus in order to commit genocide against African-Americans -- it's paranoid nonsense." That would go along way towards distancing himself from the people in his parish, starting with Jeremiah Wright, who revel in this nonsense.