[S]he is not as insulated as she once was on the left, which is far angrier than it used to be. Some liberals say they will not forgive her support for the Iraq invasion or, even worse, her refusal to recant that vote. When Hillary addressed the liberal group Campaign for America's Future in June, she was booed. And everyone there knew whom Kerry meant when he said, at the same conference, "It's not enough to argue with the logistics or to argue about the details. It is essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake." Hillary of late has made a point of stepping up her criticism of the Bush Administration, to the point of calling for the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And in a neat bit of Clintonian triangulation, she distanced herself from pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman even as her husband campaigned for him. But the hard truth is, she doesn't have much wiggle room. National security is the toughest test for a Democrat, particularly for a woman and especially for a woman so associated with feminine causes like child care and education. Her chief strategist has a grim assessment of what Hillary is up against on that front. The country may be ready for a woman President, Bill has privately told friends, but the first one to make it is more likely to be a Republican in the Margaret Thatcher mold.Or one that Hillary could have been if she hadn't tried to shake off the hawkish image she'd been working on most of the time she's been in the Senate.
And check out how much of the article is about Bill Clinton. His name is mentioned more than 25 times! When Hillary runs, we'll be endlessly talking about Bill, comparing her to Bill, wondering what Bill thinks of her, how much Bill would sort of be President again, etc.
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Leave it to the Democrats to once again come up with the only candidate who could possibly keep me from voting against the Republican.
When Hillary runs, we'll be endlessly talking about Bill...
he'll be in hog-heaven
Comedians will have a field day.
For me, that's moral hazard.
When Hillary runs, we'll be endlessly talking about Bill..
And I thought we had heard the last of him. Will he never go away???
National security is the toughest test for a Democrat, particularly for a woman and especially for a woman so associated with feminine causes like child care and education.
I'm trying to catalog exactly how many ways this sentence offended me. Yes, the national security issue is a problem for Democrats, because they really don't seem to get that we are at war. The idea that a woman can't understand how important national security is approaches misogyny. The idea that a person can't be strong on national security while at the same time caring about things like child care and education is also ridiculous.
Then again, maybe I'm just grumpy because I haven't had my breakfast yet.
Joan: A woman candidate for President had better be prepared to overcome misogyny and lesser prejudices against women. She has no chance of winning if she doesn't. No point in being offended about it. It's the real situation that must be faced. And, of course, Hillary Clinton has used the fact that she's a woman to gain advantage and has chosen to win favor by associating herself with causes that seem feminine. That's something that she did, calculatingly.
Joan,
It is a fact that there are numerous issues in politics and life that are easiest addressed by someone on one side of a position or who has a particular demographic characteristic. Some examples:
1. Nixon, the die hard anti-communist was able to open the door to Red China. No one could accuse him of being soft on communism
2. McCain can go to Hanoi and shake hands with NVA generals
3. Democratics can address fixing Social Security and Medicare easier than the GOP
4. Bill Cosby can talk about the collapse of the Black family and the need for personal responsibility
5. Eisenhower could attack the Military industrial interests
It will be easier for a GOP woman to break through stereo-types for the presidency because she will come to the issue with some party credibility on defense. A female DEM is facing a double credibility issue. You may not like it, but it's there. And I'll bet that stereotype is held by women nearly as strongly as by men.
ChrisO- One of the ways I gauge the "electablility" of any person is to judge the superstructure they can erect to run their campaigns for any office.
I think that Senators are almost always at a disadvantage to governors, for instance, because executives have erected a power base that people that participate in talking shops do not. Many persons will fork over $1000.00 to a governor because rubbing shoulders with them is useful whether they win or not. A losing senator really can't.
Hillary Clinton has erected a power base, backed with money uncountable, that absolutely no one can match in either party. I'd be hard pressed to come up with a similar example in recent history. The Senate job for her is not like other people. It's a convenient place to say things without repercussions, really. Kids still can't read in Arkansas schools. She won't get questions about such things, for instance. She can offer gossamer opinions and still get iron plated fealty. Very rare.
Ideas only get you so far. Ideas get you a cabinet post, maybe, or a glowing review in a magazine. And she and her husband have one thing that GWB has neve been able to elicit in any venue. They can make people afraid to oppose them.
Ideas are a kind of rowboat at that level. Hillary is a oceangoing supercarrier of influence, people, and money already. People from both parties just seem to acknowledge it.
In a way, I find the ability of candidates to assemble this machine to be very telling about their ability to do anything at that level. Do they fumble? Run out of money? That sort of thing. An offhand question about her is on the cover of Time. That's not happenstance. The offhand question about Kucinich or somebody would be on page 133, and would be more like: "Does Kucinich' mother still dress him? Vote."
The other day, I was amazed that people were bruiting Allen's name around presidentially. That sort of guy is in the ocean in a lifejacket at that level. Hillary's wake alone would drown such as he.
Sippican says: "Hillary is a oceangoing supercarrier of influence, people, and money already."
I agree. As much as I disagree with, distrust and dislike that woman, Ms. Clinton, she is clearly a force to reckon with. And, quite frankly, it's fascinating to watch.
Whereas Bill is the "sin-now-repent-later" type of guy, Hillary seems to me to be the embodiment of the midwestern protestant work ethic. She knows he outshines her, but she will outwork anyone to fulfill her mission. That devil is in the details.
"... that woman, Ms. Clinton..."
LOL.
"a Republican in the Margaret Thatcher mold": and, in particular, someone who hasn't dabbled in Cattle Futures?
question: did Time [staffer] ever author a non -drooling Hillary article
I share Joan's disapprobation of the latent misogyny underlying a lot of the article's claims, but in a practical sense, it is probably much more helpful to disprove the idea by electing a female President who disproves the stereotype than it is to shut down discussion of the stereotype entirely. I agree with the Drill Sgt.'s comments, too - as the Vulcan proverb goes, "only Nixon could go to China." Likewise, only a Republican can persuade red state America on climate change.
"Bill has privately told friends, but the first one to make it is more likely to be a Republican in the Margaret Thatcher mold"
Too bad that Sabine Hérold wasn't born here. ;)
I can't wait to watch all the Democrat politicians scramble to get behind Joe L. as the polls continue to show him leading the general in CT.
But I still think Hillary will be the nomination and is likely to win based upon my family poll b/c my wife, mother, mother-in-law, father-in-law will all probably vote for her. They all will be sending this country further into the gutter but that's 4-1 in that highly scientific poll, with me the only dissenter.
Hillary is strong on aviation security and the national safety.
She can alter the path of President Bush who only gives the appearance of being strong on national security but really has let this country down.Since Bush has been president thousands of innocent people died needlessly in 911. Yet, neither the Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT) nor the Chairman of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have lost their job. Hijacking and Terrorist attacks have traditionally accounted for about 10% of fatal accidents world-wide. This known threat existed and was well tabulated/tracked prior to 911 in world fatal accident statistics and still President Bush’s appointed a political head of the FAA that had little security or aviation experience. Neither the DOT nor FAA took the required steps necessary to keep the public and the nation safe even though the threats were known and it was their job to assure the security and safety of our sky. They operated out of fear of losing the aviation industries support for maintaining their positions and thereby allowed the nation and the traveling public to suffer needlessly. The deaths that occurred on 911 won’t even show up on the FAA’s fatal accident statistics. This is done intentionally to minimize aviation related fatalities and to give the public a false sense of security. Thus 911, like Katrina, was the result of President Bush’s Republican political appointees that had little knowledge of their appointed critical tasks.
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At first look it isn't obvious that the Payne Stewart(golfer)/ Helios(2005 - 100+fatality) decompression crashes and 911 are related but from a aviation safety and security system view they are:
When a plane substantially deviates from its approved flight plan it is presently possible to have a remote pilot located in a secure simulator fly the plane to a safe landing at a sparsely populated airfield. Over 70% of all fatal air crashes occurrences are readily preventable if handled correctly.
Unfortunately, the data needed to accomplish this is locked up in the flight recorder and is utilized predominately in an autopsy mode. If the data is so important that it is necessary to discover the cause of a fatal crash it is much more important to prevent a fatal crash. Yet because of the aviation industry's partnership with the FAA and NTSB none of the flight data coming out of the recorders is available in real-time to proactively prevent fatal crashes. The inability to use the flight data in real time has jeopardized the safety and security of the traveling public and the nation. The astronauts were guided back from the moon because the data was telemetered to the ground in real-time. Once it got to the ground it was analyzed, and then via a concerted effort by experts, using simulations the proper and safe way to handle life threatening situation was accomplished. Yet this proven technique isn't utilized by the industrial/government partnership to keep our nation and air-passengers safe and secure.
One year prior to 911, I was the guest speaker at the International Aviation Safety Association meeting in NY where I spoke on how terrorists and decompression fatal crashes are preventable via remote control of a deviating aircraft using ciphered technology developed for our ballistic missiles. This technology can prevent most aviation crashes (approximately 70%) even those from mechanical problems and errors of commission and omission. At present a pilot has displayed only a fraction of the information necessary to make the right decision to prevent a crash. The pilot in many instances is seeing a problem for the first time. The aircraft data and air traffic control data isn't shared extensively so experts on handling the aircraft's problem aren’t consulted nor can the problem be simulated to aid in crash prevention. This data vacuum is responsible for most fatal crashes. For example, the Swiss Air and Alaskan Air fatal crashes could have been prevented if handled correctly.
In addition it is not only terrorists that sabotage aircraft. Commercial and Military pilots have also done it. When a pilot deviates substantially from the approved flight plan the aircraft should be safely remote piloted to a landing at a sparsely populated airport. Several years ago a rogue military pilot substantially deviated from his approved Continental United States (CONUS) flight plan and flew an A-10 aircraft loaded with bombs clandestinely across multiple states. It took two weeks to find the plane which had crashed into a Colorado mountain. The plane was eventually found but the bombs are still missing. Exhaustive searches were made but no one has a clew as to what happened to the bombs. Must we wait for a bigger disaster than 911 before any action takes place?
Everyone knowledgeable about the holes in our aviation system, brought about by the industrial government partnership, knew that a 911 could occur and the government allowed it to occur. Even though we knew about Payne Stewart nothing was done and so we got Helios' 100 + deaths. Presently we are just as vulnerable to a 911 disaster, decompression disaster, ... etc. as we were in 2001. The public needs to know the system is fixable for the good of our nation. Even though 3000 people died needlessly on 911 the system doesn't fix the data vacuum mode of operation. It works around the system with attempted patches that are costly and ineffective fixes simply to protect the industry from liability suits. The necessary data is only available in the tombstone/autopsy mode. With all of the deaths that were preventable not a single FAA or NTSB person was even laid-off. Thus, the industry won out and the public and nation suffered. It is quite possible that we went into an unnecessary and horrible war just because we protected the special interest of the aviation industry. The cost of those disasters alone would have been a small fraction of the cost necessary to fix the system and we would now have a safer and securer nation. Instead, things are the same and we are vulnerable.
If you should need more info on this please don't hesitate to contact me (you can see some of my work by going to Google and doing a search on "aviation security, safety and sy levine" or go to my web site www.safelander.com. My work was also featured on the BBC show called "The Black Box". There is simply no reason, technical, cost or data privacy wise" for not using the Black Box Data in real-time, in addition to its autopsy mode, to make our nation safer and securer. The fear of liability, via law suits, should not stand in the way of the airline passenger safety, the safety of people on the ground, or our national security. It is imperative that the traveling public write to the President, their Congressional Representatives, the DOT, FAA and NTSB and demand that the Black Box data be available and utilized in real-time for the security of our nation and to substantially reduce fatal crashes.
Sincerely,
Sy Levine
sylevine1@sbcglobal.net
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