So sad to watch Hillary's long, slow, spiralling plunge into the ground.

[Jackpine Radical]

Kind of like a stricken Sopwith Camel trailing a streamer of oil smoke.

The woman carries the seeds of greatness, as does Bill. But both of them have a fatal flaw in the form of a dedication to expediency. When their ship starts taking on water, they jettison the heaviest thing they can find in an effort to stay afloat. Unfortunately, they both find their ethics to be that heaviest thing.

I believe that Bill had decent liberal instincts at one time. But in the interest of retaining power through the Gingrich years, he violated his liberal precepts one after another, and ended up voting for NAFTA and pushing through Tommy Thompson-style welfare "reform," going to war in Bosnia under dubious circumstances, and continuing the low-grade war against Iraq throughout his years in power. The number of crimes subject to the death penalty increased during his reign, and he failed to end discrimination against gays in the military.

Even during her White House years, Hillary showed signs of her flaw. The most egregious example that comes to mind is the monstrosity she created and called a health plan. I think we're lucky it didn't pass. Remember Ross Perot's diagram? When laid out as a flow chart, Hillary's program looked like the circuit diagram for a Pentium chip. It looked like that because of all the compromises and sellouts to the health insurance industry that it contained. Yes the insurance industry finally sank it with their Harry & Louise campaign, but not before they had already negotiated it into a misshapen Frankenstein monster.

So, all-in-all, I do not look forward to the return of the Macbeths to the White House (even though I guess I would have to vote for them in preference to Voldemort).

[C_U_L8R]

1. so much for the faithful sopwith camel

[Medusa]

2. Seeds of greatness? Hardly.

Let's see, she's run up $30M in campaign debt and had a woefully mismanaged campaign. She refuses to listen to advisors who have her best interests at heart because it clashes with what she wants. It is the exact same behavior as George W Bush has exhibited time and time again. There is no greatness in that. The only way she could ever hope to even touch greatness is to bow out now. Today.

[pocoloco]

3. Agree, but it's enlightening and funny to see who crawl out

of her ass to defend her

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. should have been able to fight the campaign on the issues alone

but she hasn't been able to do that. The only way has been to chip away at her opponent's integrity and that has failed too....so far.

[MrModerate]

5. Well, McCain's not exactly the equal of Voldemort . . .

What's the name of the henchman, the one who was Ron's rat for the first few books . . .

I agree with you about the expediency issue although I'm not so quick to label it "ethical" expediency as "policy" expediency.

The health care mess came about, IMO, because of the Clintons' relative inexperience (they hadn't faced Really Big Guns before), and a misguided optimism that they could triangulate around their opposition when that opposition was utterly committed to smashing them to bits (and their little dog, too).

As it stands now, it's hard to imagine any single force in America more inimical to our survival as a free (and reasonably healthy) people than the health insurance industry. They're the Death-eaters!

[Barack_America]

9. Peter Pettigrew/Wormtail.

And that's exactly what I was thinking as well.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. I fight the bastards every day.

Or rather, my OP mental health clinic hires someone practically full-time to do that. As both a provider and consumer, I hate and despise the health insurance industry.

[MrModerate]

12. Absolutely maddening and inexplicable at the same time . . .

How did we create a system whereby an industry that delivers no value whatsoever sucks up so much of the health care dollar?

I say nationalize the lot of 'em, with investors getting about 3 cents on the totally obscene dollar valuation.

Then disestablish 'em wholesale. Retrain the workers (about a tenth of them, that being all you'd need) to process billing paperwork, keep 1 percent of the middle managers just because someone has to fill out performance evaluations, and tell the senior management to find a career doing something useful (if they can).

[Eric J in MN]

6. Bill Clinton said in 1992 that he was offering a better version of NAFTA....

...than George H. W. Bush.

NAFTA wasn't something Bill Clinton decided to support after Gingrich became Speaker of the House.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Point taken.

Thanks for the correction. I hadn't remembered those circumstances. I do remember that lots of the Dems in Congress opposed it.

[pingzing58]

8. Ok, Great title to the post. n/t

[Sulawesi]

11. I have never seen seeds of greatness in her.

[Stuart G]

13. Like Britney, guess who is responsible for this?...nt

[davidpdx]

15. Maybe we should start referring to Hillary Clinton

As the Britney Spears of politics



Meltdown city

[Perry Logan]

14. Meanwhile, in the real world, she's whupping Obama.

Gallup: Clinton leads McCain and Obama

Clinton leads McCain 49-45.
McCain leads Obama 47-45.

Rasmussen:

Clinton leads McCain by 3
McCain leads Obama by 2

Newsweek:

Clinton leads McCain 48-44
McCain and Obama tie 44-44
http://hillary1000.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/bill-clinton-has-never-seen-a-candidate-treated-so-disrespectfully-just-for-running/#more-572

[Blarch]

19. Clinton is still losing to Obama

Your post says she is whupping him ....but you offer NO EXAMPLE.

The fact is that Obama won Iowa and never looked back ...to say Hillary is 'whupping Obama' is absurd.

[KittyWampus]

16. The Clintons sold out way back in Arkansas when they took money from Jackson Stevens

haven't you been paying attention?

Jeez

[tabasco]

17. Good people corrupted by wealth and power.

A story as old as civilization.

[K Gardner]

18. Great post, salient points. They are both people who, standing at the fork in the road,

took the wrong path. Seems it led them both into a devlish Hell, although I believe as well they were both destined for greatness.