Has Hillary now changed? Well, I remember Hillary's moist eyes back in Manchester, New Hampshire. I remember the media discovering the "new Hillary!" I remember Hillary "finding her voice." I remember Super Tuesday in New York where Hillary swung a bloodied ax and in California where she was a fuzzy little rabbit pulled out of the campaign hat. And I remember her zipping to-and-from and flipping from macho commander to misty-eyed woman again, to working class hero to small town girl. Once dismissive of "staying at home and cooking cookies," now in Indiana Hillary is "really comfortable in the kitchen." What does it mean that Hillary has changed?
She opposed the Iraq War, and voted to give George Bush authority to go to war in Iraq. She supported working Americans, and behind the scenes, worked for NAFTA. She barely dodged the "vast right-wing conspiracy," but she has steadily embraced right-wing political positions. She has a Southern accent in Appalachia, a New Yorker accent in New York, a Midwestern accent in Michigan. Now she downs shots of whiskey with blue-collar America. She agreed that the Michigan and Florida primaries would not count, and now she wants to count their delegates.
Has Hillary changed? She supports a free press -- "a foundation of America democracy" -- but her campaign is alone in putting me on a Black List and barring me from its election night event. Manipulate, restrict, bar the press in the name of respect for the press.
Hillary Clinton changes personalities and positions and voice more often than Imelda Marcos changed shoes. She's pure fluidity on steroids, except for my name on her Black List, which will never change. My crime? I write what I think, which is, I don't trust the Clintons, and slowly I have grown to believe I can trust Barack Obama. Certainly more than Clinton and McCain.
With Obama in North Carolina tonight, like my election night in Philadelphia, I will watch tonight's returns in some seedy bar. But that's a small price to pay for political honesty. I like seedy bars better than people with Black Lists.
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