Why Hillary Clinton Might Have Made a Better President
Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe Hillary Clinton might have made a better President than Barack Obama?
It’s sure crossed my mind a lot lately, as we’ve seen Obama flounder so badly on health care, on the bank bailout, on foreclosures, and on the jobs front.
Now I’ve got no brief for Hillary Clinton. She’s a centrist Democrat on domestic policy, and a very hawkish one on foreign policy. I wasn’t a big fan of hers during the primaries. I never cared for her politics. I was sick of the Clinton dramarama. And Obama at least held out the remote possibility of something better.
But I always admired her toughness, something that Obama has in such short supply.
And she would have had none of the foolishness about bipartisanship that Obama has had, foolishness that looks more and more like crippling naivete.
Remember back in the campaign, when she mocked Obama’s invocation of bipartisanship by saying: "The sky will open. The lights will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect!"
She was criticized for being harsh, or as the sexists put it, “shrill.”
But she was right, especially when she added: “Maybe I’ve just lived a little long, but I have no illusions at how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear.”
She also made the case that she could take a punch and keep on fighting, and she called into question Obama’s willingness to play hardball.
Today, her critique rings clearer than ever.
She knew the Republicans wouldn’t let any Democratic President “turn the page” on partisanship, and she was prepared to slug it out.
But not Obama. He still isn’t.
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine. To subscribe for just $14.97 a year, just click here.
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Comments
Hillary Rodham is a warrior and knows all about tactical and strategic planning and manuvers in the trickiest and most difficult of circumstances.
Most recently, Barack Obama sounds more like a talk show host than a President on his 'town hall' circuit around America selling his $8 bi to the nuclear industry. Obama was not my choice for President, but once he was elected, I held off all judgement and maintained an open but skeptical mind. But at the end of his first year as President, it is a terrible recognition we have the same sickening policies and then some as we had under Dubya/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Gonzalez/Paulson; same policies, politics, and outcomes.
In fact, it is much worse as we find we elected elected a wolf in sheep's clothing, quite frankly. From the standpoint of policy, law, justice...the same Financial Services Roundtable; same Defense contractors, same Dept of Justice lawyers are calling the shots.
There will be conflict and high tension in America as the financial elite attempt to complete their job of stripping away from the American people the very last remaining piece of dignity afforded us since President Franklin Delanore Roosevelt.
Here's a hint: there will be blood in the street if these shrill chicken little's attempt to punish the American people by diluting or eliminated social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, while continuing to spend four times beyond what is needed for these programs, spending hundreds of billions and trillion on foreign aid of all kinds, and funding two wars; economic development, and national building while turning their backs on us!!!!!!
Remember, the next time gasoline goes up to $4 a gallon, Congress knows why and refuses to act to regulate commodity future traders who are directly responsible for huge energy volatility. Congress knows why; the President knows why; but...they care more about the goodies they get from the Financial Services Sector than they do the hardships of the American people.
Obama+Biden= Bush - Cheney III