Dick Morris points out that Hillary’s government managerial experience is much less than she’s been advertising. I enjoyed the pop culture analogy in his opening paragraph:
Polls suggest that the leading attribute attracting voters to Hillary’s presidential candidacy is her “experience,” a virtue which contrasts, presumably, with the lack of it in Senator Barack Obama, her chief rival. But a close examination of her record as first lady and as New York Senator suggests that her experience is largely in the avoidance of death by scandal. Were it to be captured in a television series, it would certainly not rise to the level of “Commander In Chief” and probably not even to that of “West Wing.” It would find its televised metaphor in the reality series “Survivor.”
Morris then goes on the describe what Hillary did, how she failed, and what she hasn’t done since those early “managerial” experiences.
For management, my money goes to Rudy Giuliani, who took one of the largest cities in the world and stopped its nosedive into Calcutta-like disaster. Sure, he had help, most notably from his police chief, but it was Rudy who made the calls, who hired, who fired, and who set policy. I care very little about his failures as a husband (I’m certain he’s a pain in the butt on the home front), and a whole lot about his public successes, where he showed himself to be an astute, highly competent manager. (I know several ultra-liberal gay New York men who happily voted for Rudy the second time he ran, since they were so impressed by the way in which he’d saved their beloved City.)
(I’ll add my usual aside here to pro-Life voters who don’t like Rudy’s point of view on that subject. A President cannot change abortion policy. All he can do is appoint quality Supreme Court judges, men and women such as Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas, and then let the Constitutional chips fall where they may. If Rudy is the Republican candidate, and you allow your dislike for his personal preferences to lead you either to abstain or to fragment the Republican vote by turning to a third party, you may be pushing a Hillary or Obama or Edwards into the White House — and then you can kiss good-bye for another generation any changes in American abortion policies.)
Filed under: Abortion, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani
I always find it curious that a lot of people believer Bush to be dirty and seeking to character assassinate his opponents, i.e. Swiftboating Kerry.
But the reality is pretty much the opposite.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Bush+called+unamerican&hl=en&start=0&sa=N
Even without the link, you would expect someone who wants to use dirt on people, to hire Dick Morris, an insider guy that worked for the leaders of your opposite party.
But… well.
The Hillary thing has always left me somewhat baffled. I do not get, and have never gotten, any part of this woman.
The feminists hold her up as an icon – but what’s she done on her own? Not a damn thing, she is the most traditional riser-to-power there could possibly be: she has ridden her husband’s coattails every inch of the way.
Other than damned nearly sinking her husband’s administration in the first term with her health care idiocy, her contribution was zero. Everything she touched (health care, the attorneys general, her legal partners brought into the administration) was maximum fuss, feathers, BS, and chaos. She evidently never learned that friction is waste energy.
We all keep hearing how this is the smartest woman in the country, or ever born, whatever; I have to say I disagree. Everything she touches turns south so fast I have to believe that at heart the woman’s an idiot. And SHE KNOWS IT! She hasn’t had the sand to take an honest question at an honest press conference in ten years.
And as a senator, she’s accomplished not a thing. She’s fairly competent at riding the wave, but not smart enough to stay out of trouble on that one, either – witness the war vote. Voting for it was a pander for her (and pretty much all the dems) because they thought the people wanted it, and now she’s stuck with that, and doesn’t have a shred of the native wit necessary to ease her way through it.
“Experience.” At what?
I am reluctant to vote for anyone from the Senate for President. I much prefer someone who has had experience on the executive level and thus Giuliani and Romney are my first choices, though I don’t rule out Bill Richardson and would not have ruled out former VA governor Mark Warner, if he hadn’t given it up before it even began. I think the Democratic frontrunners are weak candidates; Clinton for reasons stated above, Obama for lack of experience and Edwards for lack of substance. I don’t see that Obama does anything but recite comfy platitudes and liberal boilerplate and make it sound fresh; he’s attractive, surely doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but the “Obasms” he inspires among his supporters seems to me based more on aspirations and wishful thinking than on real ability or experience. Edwards is a latter day Snopes in my book, a very smooth Southern trial lawyer who oozes faux populism and trades on his looks and ability at suasion, as if the electorate of the United States was merely a jury from Durham or Greensboro writ large. If he had left the Senate, after one term, and sought an executive position, as did Corzine running for NJ governor, I’d have more respect for Edwards, but as it is I can’t look at the guy and see more than slickness, pretention and massive ego.
If my sources are correct, it seems Hillary is losing massive ground in this election. It seems as though every time she opens her mouth to make her speech, her numbers drop a bit further. Even more astonishing is that her numbers are dropping in the demographic group where she is supposedly strongest, single mothers 25-35 years old.
I think Hillary’s time has past. The last election was the one where she had a very real chance of winning, but I don’t see that happening now.
The Democrat that I think has a real chance of winning the Democratic nomination is oddly Al Gore. He has assembled a shadow campaign that’s waiting in the wings. I’ve heard insiders say that Gore sincerely believes he’ll be drafted into the race. And I don’t think they’re wrong.
A media watcher, Bernard Goldberg, said that the Left has gone clean over the cliff in lunatic la la land, and the Liberals are fast on their heels. The Left loves Al Gore and everyone knows the Democratic Party needs the Left to win. In a very real way, the Left runs the Democratic Party now (the lunatics running the asylum?).
So, it is not inconceivable that Al Gore would be the Democratic nominee.
I find all this politicking just appalling…
Back to my anti-Rudy tack. If a Democrat controlled Congress passed legislation and sent it to a President Rudy, he would sign it. Want gay marriage? Rudy would sign it into law. Want amnesty for illegals? Rudy would sign it. I could go on but y’all get the picture. Rudy is just too liberal on social policies to be trusted to name strict Constitutionalists to the courts. His track record is one of appointing more Liberal judges when he was mayor. And I don’t care if it was only family court or whatever. The point is he has prior history and I will not trust his word.
Run Fred, run.
I would cut Rudy this much slack: judge appointments by the mayor are few and far between, but the process is exactly as it is for the federal bench: they come reccommended. Names get placed in nomination for a variety of reasons (including the reason I wrote about a few weeks back, an absolutely true story) – and whether those reasons are any good or not pretty much doesn’t get investigated. Who has time?
The White House gets lists of nominations, and the investigation they are able to do goes about deep enough to make sure the nominee isn’t an active ax murderer, and that’s about it. Same in New York. The Mayor’s office gets nominations, and if the nominee isn’t down at the Post Office on a “wanted” poster, he’s pretty much in. Nobody has time for this.
Naturally, in New York, Rudy was surrounded by liberal legislators, and they nominated liberal judges. So, there being not much choice as regards the names in nomination, he appointed more or less liberal judges. Duh.
I’m not sure I would hold that positively against him.
Which is, however, not to say that some of his other responses don’t strike me as a problem. He does seem to me very liberal socially, but a lot of that just doesn’t move me as being especially a problem. Everybody’s big hot buttons seem to be gay marriage and abortion, two issues about which, frankly, I could not care less. Gays want to get married and subject themselves to the same levels of governmental oversight that straight couples have been subjected to since forever, fine: be my guest. You’ll find out…
Abortion is not an issue in my life in any shape or form: anyone (or everyone) is free to go to hell or wherever in their own fashion.
But, what I do very much like about his take on these issues – and others – is that he doesn’t seem to in fact think that these are areas in which judges, or politicians, should be meddling at all. If I read him right, (granted, a hefty “if” at this stage) he seems to be oriented toward the idea that the people should speak on these issues, and the politicians and judges, all of whom work for the people, should await marching orders.
I like that approach.