Oh Hill no! Clinton’s stale presidential plan wrong for nation
America's moved on, but Hillary hasn't. Photo: Zuma Wire
More than five years ago, a Clinton confidant matter-of-factly described for me Hillary’s Plan. She would resign as secretary of state after President Obama’s first term, write a book and then run for president again.
Check, check, and, with Sunday’s official launch, check again. Her to-do list is complete.
She stuck like glue to The Plan, which required years of misleading blabber from her and Bubba that she hadn’t decided about 2016. Fish gotta swim, and a Clinton’s gotta run, so there was never an iota of doubt.
But time has marched on and the world has changed, making The Plan, and her, look stuck in the past. What the great Murray Kempton wrote in 1965 of John Lindsay’s first mayoral run — “He is fresh and everyone else is tired” — is not something anybody says of Hillary these days.
She’s been on the national stage for a quarter-century, though because of all the drama, it feels like we’ve lived through several lifetimes with her. Along the way, she’s reinvented herself more often than Madonna. While the spectacle of an aging hoofer trying to keep up with the kids is riveting, the kicks aren’t what they used to be and the odor of desperation is unavoidable.
A presidential campaign headquarters in hipster Brooklyn — really? Announcing on Twitter — really? As Joan Rivers might have advised: Oh, grow up!
The sweaty effort to appear fresh reinforces the suspicion that Hillary senses danger in the argument that she’s awfully close to her expiration date. It’s not merely a matter of age, though she will be 69 come next Inauguration Day, which would put her close to Ronald Reagan’s record.
The real issue is Clinton fatigue, a national exhaustion from having been-there-done-that too many times. Her husband’s popularity counts for something, but she’s already milked that cow dry.
She’s got to make a case that goes beyond just wanting the Oval Office. She’s got to earn it and I’m not sure she can.
Here’s another blast from the past — Monica Lewinsky is 41 and wants to reclaim her identity, making her a potential bombshell that could explode without notice.
The arrows, then, all point the same way: Hillary is past her peak and missed her best chance in 2008. Her two elections and eight years in the Senate had made her something bigger and better than a scorned first lady.
Bill and Hillary in 1999. Photo: Getty Images
She was ready to make history and the country was ready to help her. Then along came that fresh-faced senator from Chicago with a better game plan and a more convincing claim on history, and the brass ring eluded her grasp.
Her pain was understandably acute, and her willingness to join his team couldn’t have been easy. Shuffling off to Timbuktu while the big decisions were made in Washington was another stab in the back. But she endured, and even played along with his cockamamie foreign policies, a mistake that continues to damage America and her reputation.
That bad run of experiences could have forged her character into something admirable, but her performance so far has been a disaster. Instead of re-emerging as a smarter and more focused force rejuvenated by defeat and exile, she seems to have learned nothing and changed not a whit.
She still makes baby talk about breaking glass ceilings and other coded references designed to get her Pantsuit Posse out of their chairs, but it feels like a re-enactment rather than the real thing. After each bad review and each new scandal, the prospect of another usurper emerging from the shadows must give her panic attacks. Déjà vu all over again.
Will the left’s new darling, Elizabeth Warren, jump into the race? Will Martin O’Malley steal Iowa and puncture her balloon of invincibility?
Martin O’Malley Photo: AP
What about Obama — will he help her or dump her?
What price will she pay if she breaks with him on Iran or Israel? What mischief is Valerie Jarrett making?
Hillary would be crazy not to consider all those scenarios and a dozen others, but her first steps are depressingly robotic. Raise more money, hire more advisers, parse and calculate, hide behind her Praetorian Guard, rinse and repeat.
She’s older but not wiser and only a groupie could think it’s working. She’s become a gaffe machine and showed a tin ear by continuing to give paid speeches until a month ago. Then came the email debacle, which evoked a universal “There she goes again” quality.
It brought back a souped-up carload of bad memories — her habitual secrecy, arrogance and, most damaging, dishonesty. If she had come out and simply said she set up a private server for government business because rules are for little people, she would have had the virtue of honesty.
But still constitutionally incapable of being straight, she concocted a silly lie about the “convenience” of carrying only one electronic device, which was promptly demolished when evidence emerged that she had both a BlackBerry and an iPad.
We still don’t know the full story of what she’s hiding in those emails, but already there are fresh wounds. Although no Democrat threatens her yet, recent polls in six swing states show that, in head-to-head matchups against a raft of Republicans, she is basically tied or trailing nearly all of them. She makes them all look good.
Most revealing, Quinnipiac University also asked voters in Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania and Iowa whether she is honest and trustworthy. Only in Ohio were the numbers split evenly; everywhere else, either a majority or a clear plurality answered with a resounding “No.”
Given her long history, changing voters’ minds on something so basic as trust won’t be easy. Her best hope is to fire a withering barrage of mud against an incompetent Republican. Again, we’d be reliving the ’90s, with her spying a vast right-wing conspiracy behind every tree and playing the victim when it doesn’t work. Oh, what fun.
There is, of course, a long way to go until November of next year, and events, especially the growing world disorder, will likely reshape the campaign and the public mood numerous times. Like all the candidates, she’ll have to reshape her message, too — after she comes up with one.
So far, something about Hillary does not seem right for the present, let alone the future. Aides have been discounting the early going as a false measure, and assuring backers that she’ll right the ship once she launches.
Perhaps but she is taking on much more water than they had expected, and her margin for error is shrinking fast. The polls suggest there is a tipping point with voters and inevitable stumbles and scandals could make 2016 look like 2008.
It could be that she’s star-crossed, and the gods will conspire against her again. After all, as Mark Twain observed, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
6 comments:
Hillary is Illuminati new world order through and through. This babe will hand America over to the new world order quicker than Grant took Richmond, count on it. Unfortunately she has an excellent chance of winning, what with 95% of the women in America who believe a woman's touch in the Whitehouse is greatly needed regardless of her participation in Benghazi, and God knows how many other crimes she has secretly committed. A vote for Hillary is a vote for Communist rule, believe that!
Jackie Blue
Good and accurate assessment of the Hillary history.
But what must be emphasized and not discounted, are the number of dead skeletons in the Clinton family closet.
Watch the video on this site, from this month,
'Hillary & Bill Clinton-Their Evil Corruption Exposed'
for an informative recap of the strange circumstances of the deaths of so many people associated with them.
You need to keep score on the number of names presented, there are so many, I lost track.
What makes Hillary so disturbing is her (and Bill's) casual way of blowing off the deaths of these 'associates'.
It's bothersome to think that they have gloated over the success of their greed, crimes and coverups.
Observant people are already aware that she is dangerous, unworthy and definitely not entitled to any more
opportunities to do damage.
I have wondered if there was any truth to the story of Hillary being GHW Bush's daughter.
The details were thought provoking, suggesting she was 'Pauline Robinson Bush' AKA 'Robin',
the 'deceased daughter' of the seniors.
Bush Jr's birthday-July 6, 1946,
Hillary's birthday October 26, 1947,
Could this coincidence be what is behind her incredible bravado?
Let's hope we see major reforms in governance before the next scam gets imposed on us.
That is a good video mentioned by the first poster. Another good one to check out is "the Clinton Chronicles" that could be found online.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that suspects that she is the Bush's alleged deceased daughter.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who suspects she is the Bush's alleged deceased daughter.
Hillary Clinton will be the straw that breaks the proverbial back of what is left of America. She will be the extension of the Obama Administration. Will she introduce Policies that will determine Americas recovery? absolutely not, in fact, she will twist the knife in the back of every citizen. She is a Liberal, Socialist, Democrat, she is from the same camp of every Democrat that had a hand in the destruction of America.
Her past is a proven taskmaster of what she will be as President, she is ruthless, sexually deviant, and has no apathy nor mercy for those that oppose her, and those of her own institution. She is devoid of anything spiritual, she walks in shadows.
Hillary Clinton is desperate to be the first woman President of America, and she will go beyond the boundaries to achieve it. Her main target will be the " Women " of America, and the " Youth " of this country.
The Women, freedom lovers of America do not need another Woman to teach them how to Live, nor do they need another Woman to teach them how to raise Children..
Remember the 60's and 70's? when they introduced their Socialist programs, Women's lib, the No smack policy? Womans Lib was the most devastating policy that ever befell our countries, because it undermined the role of the Male in our family institutions, it usurped the structure of the Family, and reduced man to nothing.
Socialism undermines the Solidarity of the Family unit, which was created in the beginning for the benefit of society. It does this by advocating easy divorce, unchecked freedom for children, and misdirected liberalism for women. In its pursuit of Humanistic equality, it feeds mans indulgence......Worse, Socialism forces its pernicious policies upon the developing minds of Children in schools, Youth groups, implanting concepts of equality between Male and Female against which Nature itself cries out in the developing physiological differences of boy and girl.
Such Humanistic policies of supposed equality are pushed in every level of society, until it is fragmented and diseased, And with what result? Frustrated teenagers are released into society ill-equiped to help;......Women are urged to assert themselves in ways that destroy all that really adorns a Woman, Men no longer act as leaders in Home and Society, to the betterment of all...........Socialism only fragments........It only destroys!
My appeal is to the Wonderful Women of America and Youth, You do NOT need Hillary Clinton, to teach you how to be a Woman, nor do you need her to show you how to raise Children........and to the Youth of America, Honor your parents bring honor to yourselves, you do not need a Woman like Hillary Clinton to control your mind........
.If we Honor God, He will honor you..........He promised He would, and that Promise is not through a Socialist like Hillary Clinton......
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