“Season 2″
After two decades of Clinton wars, Bush wars, and Obama wars, will we really elect Hillary Clinton and extend this baneful syndrome of half the country hysterically hating the president? We may get it in any case, but wouldn’t this be just asking for it?
She herself once spoke of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” against the Clintons. Sure, there was opposition; but that was exactly the kind of hyperbolic language feeding the syndrome.
Emailgate does too, going to the heart of why so many people distrust Hillary. She says the e-mails not made public were personal, but we have only her word for that, with no independent review.
“I did not have inappropriate email with that server.”
What could she be hiding? Plenty — like conflicts of interest between her public duties and contributions to her foundation, some from influence peddlers and sleazy foreign governments. This spits in her detractors’ faces. Gad, what would her presidency be like?
Better than Obama’s at least. There’s hope of ameliorating the calamitous global unraveling for which he can partly be blamed. I’d rather have Hillary in the White House when Putin makes his move on the Baltics. One might also dream that a pragmatic Clinton, loath to leave a legacy of economic disaster, might force her own party to face fiscal reality.
Which brings me to Chris Christie’s recent call to raise eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare (and cut off Social Security for high earners like me). “Through its unwillingness to address our biggest challenges in an honest way,” Christie said, “the Obama administration has put us on a perilous course for both our short-term and our long-term futures.” He added that politicians “don’t believe that the American people have the appetite for hard truths. Once again, they underestimate the people that they serve. Americans not only deserve fairness, they deserve the honesty of their leaders.”
There’s also much to like in Marco Rubio’s candidacy.
Rubio
Republicans too often needlessly invite the granny-over-the-cliff trope, appearing as though uncaring toward less affluent citizens. Rubio does not, and is a poster boy for how sensible conservative policies can benefit the whole country, including the disadvantaged. One line in his 2012 convention speech really impressed me: calling out the fallacy that every dollar in a rich person’s wallet is taken from a poor one’s, a notion which underlies much economic quackery. Rubio’s insightfulness is refreshing.
