2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumRe- Hillary's Claim that She'll Be More Able to Get Things Done
Last edited Sat Feb 13, 2016, 06:53 PM - Edit history (1)
I've now replied or posted a couple of times on DU asking, what has Hillary gotten done? I'm for Bernie, but I respect Hillary, and wanted to know; and I figured there'd be Hillary supporters here who could quickly reel off a list of accomplishments, and then we could compare them to Bernie's.
I got nothing but a reference to the Clinton Foundation's accomplishments in Haiti. But that's not all Hillary's doing; plus see http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article6005817.html : "Rather than build houses, David said, the government has decided its better to create the environment to motivate people to construct their own homes"; etc. Other DU'er's have put it, it seems most of the money's gone/going to build resort hotels and for mortgages on tents.
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The things that have made me respect Hillary the most are that she did manage some kind of legal career starting back when women lawyers were still relatively rare, and the fact that she did fight for health care reform back when Bill was Pres. But it's not clear where her legal career would have taken her were she not a governor's wife; and she didn't accomplish healthcare reform.
To the extent she has actually gotten anything DONE, I wonder how often it was what T.P.T.B. wanted done anyway? I.e., if while she was NY Senator, she got things done that Wall St. wanted, well, that's not like she had to win against meaningful opposition from the powerful; she was basically just their "water boy."
In short, in order for her boast about getting things done to carry any water for me, I need examples of what she's actually accomplished that was AGAINST the wishes of the 1%.
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Her campaign website says she helped get Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) done: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/seven-hillary-clintons-biggest-accomplishments/
It says she helped get healthcare for 9/11 first responders.
It says she helped expand health care and family leave for military families.
That she negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which led to a year that was Israels quietest in a decade.
Even assuming she were the main driving force behind those accomplishments, which not even she claims, how much opposition from the 1% did she actually have to overcome in order to get them done? Nothing like the opposition either she or Bernie would face in trying to raise taxes on the 1%, or restore Glass-Steagall.
Theres no meaningful evidence that shed be more able to accomplish those things or that shed want to.
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The next source that popped up in my search: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/carly-fiorina-debate-hillary-clintons-greatest-accomplishment-213157 , in which the author asked various pro-Hillary pundits to list Hillarys greatest accomplishments.
But they dont come up with much more, other than the proposition that foreign policy under Obama has been an improvement over what it was during the Bush years. But its not clear to me how much of that she personally masterminded; and in any case, foreign affairs arent exactly going swimmingly (and much of the best has been more to John Kerry's credit).
Again, I dont see anything in any of her accomplishments that required her to instigate and win a battle against significant opposition from the 1%.
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What other distinctions does she claim that might make her more qualified?