Has anyone else noticed that prominent neo-con or center-right syndicated pundits have gotten awfully sweet on Hillary Clinton the last few days?
First, there was Charles Krauthammer, holding her up as the measure of what’s right and true as he pounded Barack Obama in the column that could have been headlined, "Yeah! What Hillary said…."
… For Hillary Clinton, next in line at the debate, an unmissable
opportunity. She pounced: “I will not promise to meet with the leaders
of these countries during my first year.” And she then proceeded to
give the reasons any graduate student could tick off: You don’t want to
be used for their propaganda. You need to know their intentions. Such
meetings can make the situation worse.
Just to make sure no one
missed how the grizzled veteran showed up the clueless rookie, the next
day Clinton told the Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa, that Obama’s
comment “was irresponsible and frankly naive.”
Then there was David Brooks, whom — since he’s NYT — I can’t link to. But it was on the op-ed page of this morning’s paper. If you haven’t gotten to it yet, here’s an excerpt:
LACONIA, N.H. — The biggest story of this presidential campaign is the success of Hillary Clinton. Six months ago, many people thought she was too brittle and calculating and that voters would never really bond with her. But now she seems to offer the perfect combination of experience and change.
She’s demonstrating that it really helps to have lived in the White House. She can draw on a range of experiences unmatched by her rivals. She’s dominated most of the debates. She’s transformed her position on Iraq without a ripple. Her measured, statistic-filled speeches rarely inspire passion, but always confidence.
It’s an inexplicable phenomenon. Maybe you explic it — I mean, explain it.
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First a question: How can you know someone’s intentions if you aren’t speaking to them? Now an answer to your question. They’re plumping Clinton because they’re scared to death of Obama. Let her win the nomination and they’ll treat her like she has projectile leprosy.
It’s about Florida of course. The neo cons know the Republicans will probably lose the presidency and more congressional seats. Evidently Hillary has been making some deals with the anti Castro business community. They give her campaign cash, and she gives them access to Cuba when Castro dies. The problem for the Cuban business (in America) is that the US can’t control South American politics anymore (the days of Pinochet are gone) since they have their own viable democracies and have been nationalizing foreign owned industries. That’s why Hillary made a big deal of linking Chavez to Castro when she attacked Obama: she’s trying to turn Venezuela into an axis of evil country so as to appease the Cuban business community in Florida. Without US intervention, Cuba will most certainly turn to South American style Social Democracy after Castro’s death.
The Clintons have a long history of doing things like this. Nobody would have ever heard of Bill and Hillary if it hadn’t have been for Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods money that propelled them to national prominence. American workers paid severely for Clinton’s free trade and deregulatory policies in that he was just about as bad as any Republican concerning NAFTA, GATT, and the China trade deals. As always, big money buys off the political system, and American workers pay the price.
Well, one of my colleagues who believes the inside-the-Beltway assessment that McCain is done for (with which I strongly disagree) and that there’s not a lot to get excited about in the rest of the GOP field (with which I agree, although I still think Rudy’s relatively OK) says that they neo-cons are looking for consolation where they can get it. Essentially, that they’re saying there’s no hope for a Republican, so we’re going to have a Democrat, so who might it be? Well, Hillary might not be too bad… and so forth.
I don’t know about that, since I don’t follow the McCain-is-dead religion. But that doesn’t mean Brooks and Krauthammer don’t.
Anyway, to answer your rhetorical question: The best way to know someone’s intentions is by observing both what they do, and what they say over and over and over. Having back-channel discussions with lunatics is one thing; treating them as though they were the heads of Britain or even Russia is another.
The problem with what Obama is saying is that he doesn’t seem to understand how valuable such meetings would be to people who clearly don’t mean well to us or our friends in the world. It also seemed grounded in a naivete that holds that we just don’t understand them, and we could learn SO much by listening to a lunatic like Kim Jong Il and nodding respectfully.
I know that lots of very, very nice people think that’s how to deal with everybody. The problem with that theory is that not everybody is a very, very nice person. Or even a sane person.
If you haven’t seen “The Last King of Scotland,” give it a viewing. The doctor in that film tries to treat Idi Amin as just a guy who needs to be listened to. He was wrong. But I should warn you — what happens to the nice people in the film is pretty horrible to see.
It’s a good thing we haven’t been talking to Kim Jong II over the past 5 years. If we had, he probably would have developed some nuclear weapons by now. Oh, I forgot; he HAS developed nuclear weapons. All you folks that keep bashing Obama should actually provide some some evidence that what we’ve been doing, the Bush plan, has actually done something to make us safer. Damn tough to do isn’t it?
I discovred this blog thru your article. I am wonder why the use of neo-con appears when your rules specify a degree of partisan civilty. Are you a phoney also?