Although I support Bernie, I admire much about Hillary and will enthusiastically
Last edited Fri Feb 5, 2016, 04:55 PM - Edit history (4)
support her if she becomes our candidate.
But I have to say something about her--something that was also true of Al Gore, whom I also admire, when he ran for president.
Both of them, unlike Bernie, are far too easily stampeded.
During his campaign, Gore often took impolitic actions in reaction to negative press or attacks by rivals. I think that hurt him a lot, because it caused many voters to view him (unfairly) as inauthentic and thus essentially untrustworthy. It also opened him up (again, unfairly) to ridicule.
In Hillary's case, the situation is even worse, because she has allowed herself to be stampeded pretty much all through her political career.
I believe she has good intentions, and she has accomplished good things in her career. But she has always been driven by her ambition, which seems no less than an obsession, to be president--and especially to make history by being the first woman president.
That is what led her to do things like voting for the IWR or pretty much always taking the hawkish side of any decision about war or regime change. The Dems who voted for the IWR were mostly afraid of being painted by the GOP as weak on defense, and in fact the GOP deliberately set the IWR vote up to put Dems into that position just prior to an election season.
Those (like Bernie) who stood on principle refused to be stampeded that way, but they probably also knew they could be risking their political future. They chose--as I honestly believe I would have chosen were I in a similar situation--to accept that risk rather than take an action that they truly believed would be a disaster for the country, for the Mideast, and for the world as a whole, especially since they undoubtedly realized that so many innocent lives would be lost, and so much suffering would be caused for so many people for such a very long time.
As a woman, Hillary was probably especially afraid of seeming like someone who could not make "hard choices." I suspect that fear has prompted most of her hawkish stances.
Similarly, during her 2008 campaign and during this one, she has always seemed to be easily stampeded by any evidence that the voters are turning against her, and she responds to such signs by making sudden changes in her self-presentation (which, by the way, Gore did, too--remember earth tones?), in her manner of speaking, in the kinds of things she says, etc.
Thus she ends up seeming inauthentic and awkward--especially when her idiot aides spout off about the tricks they plan to use to make her seem more authentic and personable.
I remember reading somewhere that after George Stephanopoulos left the Clintons' employ and went on to write his book and to become a talking head, he was asked about his feelings toward Hillary. He responded, "I would walk over hot coals for her."
In his book he rather forcefully criticized Bill over the Lewinsky affair, saying it made him feel like a dupe for having defended him. But his fierce admiration and affection for Hillary seems never to have wavered.
Admittedly, that attachment bothers me when he is tapped as a moderator for the primary debates, because I suspect he can't be unbiased, but I have always noticed that people who work closely with Hillary feel intense love and loyalty for her--not the cultlike loyalty of the Bushbots toward Bush, whom they apparently saw back then as some sort of rightwing messiah, but a genuine affection and admiration based on who she really is and what she has accomplished.
Anyone who can inspire that sort of admiration and love in smart, talented, and decent people is probably someone I would like and respect, too, if I knew her personally. I truly believe that Hillary is a much better person than she sometimes appears to be in her public persona. I also believe one of her weaknesses is that she is too suspicious of honest, well-meaning people who have not earned her trust over years of complete and even uncritical loyalty.
She certainly has good reason to be suspicious to the point of paranoia, but that leaves her vulnerable to very bad advice from loyalists who never criticize her choices or try to talk her out of unwise decisions and behaviors. It also prevents her from listening to people who have not proven themselves through years of slavish devotion or service, even when they offer excellent advice. The bubble thus created around her blocks information she needs in order to correct behaviors and choices that damage her as a candidate.
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