For a lot of people, Hillary Clinton's recent choice to use low-road tactics to keep her campaign alive triggered an important shift in their feelings about Hillary as a leader. Just a couple of weeks ago, Hillary Clinton showed great warmth and graciousness at the end of one of her debates with Obama, expressing her appreciation of the "honor" of competing with him for the nomination and gesturing, as she acknowledged that she might not win, toward a future of unity regardless of who prevails. But the past two weeks have made it impossible to see Hillary in such benign terms.
There are a lot of ways of interpreting just what it was that she revealed, and why it's important.
Gary Hart, for example, wrote recently about Hillary's "Breaking the Final Rule" when she "severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power." That politics is a tough game, Hart said, "does not mean that it must also be rule-or-ruin, me-first-and-only-me, my way or the highway. That is not politics. That is raw, unrestrained ambition for power that cannot accept the will of the voters."
That's important. But I believe that what was revealed has deeper overtones still. What Hillary did reveals that ON THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE OF OUR TIMES, HILLARY CLINTON IS ON THE WRONG SIDE.
That most fundamental issue is that in recent years, America was taken over by evil forces. In a manner unprecedented in the history of this nation, a group that achieved the highest power in the land launched a systematic attack on America's most sacred political institutions and political values, severely damaging virtually every dimension of our political culture. And the central question for us as a nation in choosing our new leadership is whether we will find a way to lift ourselves out of the mire and muck into which our nation has descended, whether we will cleanse our nation of the immoral patterns that have degraded the soul of America.
Hillary has now revealed something absolutely central to understanding where she stands on that vital historical challenge America must now meet.
What is essential to recognize is the implication of her willingness to resort to the very tactics that the Bushite regime has used in degrading what's best about America.
HISTORY CHANGES THE MEANING OF THINGS
In the wake of World War II, there emerged in West Germany a new democratic state built essentially along liberal lines akin to those of American democracy. Except-- into the basic law of the new German state were enshrined prohibitions that would be blatant violations of our American Bill of Rights. In Germany, certain kinds of hatred, certain kinds of bigotry against specific groups, would not be allowed expression, would be treated as crimes.
The history of the Nazi regime had made those destructive patterns so repugnant that the Germans reconstructing that society felt impelled to repudiate them utterly, even at the cost of a small zone of liberty.
In America over the past seven years, certain political tactics have been central to evil's doing its work in degrading America. One of these is the attempt by political leaders to fan the flames of the people's fear and to exploit that fear for one's own purposes. With their fear-mongering, the Bushites manipulated the nation into a disastrous war whose real purposes were other than those told the public to gain their support. And it has been through the fostering of excessive fear that this regime has manipulated the public into supporting its unprecedented assault on the American Constitution and the rule of law.
History changes the meanings of things. When JFK campaigned for the presidency on the "missile gap" at the end of the Eisenhower era, the "fear card" did not have the meanings it has now. Fear is almost always a way of diminishing a people's ability to use its higher mental processes, and to be guided by its best values. But in America today, fear-mongering by leaders is something so central to the stink of evil that anyone truly outraged by this reign of evil would find it repugnant even to contemplate picking up such a stained and discredited tool.
Like the Germans who felt impelled to reject utterly the kind of inter-group hatred that had ben so central to the Nazi nightmare, Americans who are passionate about rejecting the degradations of this Bushite era would have a natural and powerful impulse to avoid any contact with that regimes major tools.
WHAT HILLARY SHOWED
In the Biblical story of Solomon and the two women claiming the one survivor of their two newborn infants, the one who is motivated by envy is entirely willing to accept Solomon's trick judgment that the infant should be cut into two pieces to be given to each of the two women. The real mother, who is motivated by her love for the infant, cries out that the baby should be given to the other woman. Solomon of course then knows which of the women is the true mother, and the baby is given to her.
Similarly in Hillary Clinton's kitchen-sink strategy, she has inadvertently told us the central truth about her in relation to our nation's central issue: by her willingness to pick up the tools of the evil regime she's wanting to replace, she's shown that she's not really outraged by its evil.
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
I don't really know what to make of Obama. He's obviously intelligent and articulate. I wish he gave more details of the "change" he wants to bring to American politics.
Perhaps he is avoiding specifics to concentrate on the first task of getting power.
But I'd rather take a chance with him than be guaranteed more of the same with Hilary or McCain.
If Florida votes again you can be sure that many McCain supporters vote in the Democratic primary for Hilary. She is clearly an easier opponent for McCain to beat.
by
John Haigh (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 107 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 11:38:02 PM
1 comments
How would you rate this?
You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.
It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
