The exodus continues

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee, will endorse John McCain for president on Wednesday, her spokesman tells CNN.

The announcement will take place at a news conference on Capitol Hill, just blocks away from the DNC headquarters. Forester will “campaign and help him through the election,” the spokesman said of her plans to help the Republican presidential nominee.

Forester was a major donor for Clinton earning her the title as a Hillraiser for helping to raise at least $100,000 for the New York Democratic senator’s failed presidential bid.

In an interview with CNN this summer, Forester did not hide her distaste for eventual Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

“This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don't like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

Forester is the CEO of EL Rothschild, a holding company with businesses around the world. She is married to international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Forester is a member of the DNC’s Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York.

Normally when I hear of a liberal Democrat supporting a Republican in an election I tend to wonder what is wrong with the Republican. However in this case Obama is neither likable nor trustworthy so her actions are understandable.

I do understand, and sympathize with, the Democrat party's desire to be once and for all rid of the Clintons but in a party which is little more than a walking obsession with race and sex they should have given a little more thought to what the women would do if the one they had spent the last 16 years thinking of as the "first woman president" got booted off the ticket.

Governor Palin is right. Obama is going to regret not choosing Hillary for his running mate.

McCain pitches to the Hillary crowd

Here is the new McCain ad:



Some people may think that it is smart of McCain to make a play for disgruntled Hillary voters. It is, but not this way. Reminding the conservative base that anyone who thinks that Hillary Clinton would have made a good president will also probably think that John McCain will make a good president is not a good idea.

The way to play to angry Hillary supporters is to use surrogates to keep reminding everyone just how shabbily the Democrats treated Hillary. That way you motivate the feminists to vote against Obama while not drawing unnecessary attention to the fact that a McCain presidency would be like a third term for Bill Clinton, only without the sexual perversions.

The moral blindness of the left

Jonathan Alter demonstrates why he is widely held to be an idiot:

We know why politicians lie when they get in trouble: they think the consequences of telling the truth are too severe to bear. That's why Richard Nixon lied about Watergate, and Bill Clinton about Monica Lewinsky. The more complicated question is why they fib—why politicians insist on stretching unimportant stories in ways that are easy to check and refute. Hillary Clinton's oft-told yarn about ducking sniper fire on the tarmac in Tuzla, Bosnia, in 1996 has gotten a lot of publicity, maybe too much. Her misrepresentation of her role in the Northern Ireland peace talks was more serious but less visual on YouTube. Even so, the Tuzla Tale tells us something about her insecurities and frustrations, which in turn helps explain why she's losing.

Hillary's lie about facing sniper fire in Tuzla and her lie about having played any significant part in the Northern Ireland peace talks are not mere "fibs". These kind of things are what Hillary is basing her candidacy upon and the fact that the incidents which she uses as credentials to prove her worthiness for high office seem to always turn out to be falsehoods is a matter of great importance and cannot be given "too much" publicity.

Of course it takes the following to establish Alter as both a true meathead and a soulless abomination:

The media mob was slow to pick up the story—Sinbad jokes had been circulating for weeks on Hillary's press plane without anyone following up. But Clinton finally fell victim to what might be called "pattern coverage." For years, Hillary has had occasional problems with the truth when attacked. (The firing of the staffers who ran the White House Travel Office in 1993 was ridiculously overcovered, but an independent probe later proved she was lying when she claimed she hadn't ordered it.) All it takes is a few such incidents for the press to identify a dreaded pattern, into which it then fits subsequent stories. No pattern, no frenzy.

For those of you who are either very young or spent the Clinton administration in a cave the Travel Office incident he refers to went this way. Hillary wanted to get rid of the low level government employees who ran the White House Travel Office. The Travel Office's job was to make travel arrangements for the press members who follow the president around when he leaves Washington.

Hillary wanted to place her own cronies in the office so instead of simply firing the current employees, which she had every right to do because they were "at will" employees who had no civil service protections, she accused them of embezzlement and had the FBI file charges against the head of the office, one Billy Dale (a thirty year government employee who would have retired a the end of the Clinton's term). It took the jury less than two hours to return a not guilty verdict.

Hillary was not content to simply remove the current people and install her friends. She had to attempt to destroy those who were occupying a place where she wanted someone else. She tried to send innocent people to federal prison in order to cover her decision to remove some low level government workers. This goes beyond simple thoughtlessness or arrogance and crosses the line will into the territory of the purely evil.

Let me say this again for the slow witted. Hillary Clinton attempted to frame a man whom she knew to be innocent for a federal crime and send him to prison so that she could give his job to one of her Arkansas buddies who had funneled money into Bill's campaign. This is not just politics as usual it is genuine evil.

Then when the whole affair blew up in the White House's face (the Dales were popular with the White House press corps so they didn't give the Clintons a pass like they usually did on this sort of thing) Hillary did what Clintons do in those circumstances and lied through her teeth.

That Alter thinks that this was "ridiculously overcovered" must mean that he thinks that what Clinton wanted to do to Mr. Dale was really not that big a deal.

This is understandable because as a member of the liberal elite Mr. Alter really does think that people like himself and the Clintons are better than the "little people" who may be destroyed at the convenience of their betters.

This is why I say that Jonathan Alter is a soulless abomination. Just like Hillary Clinton and her husband and John McCain for that matter because he persists in calling Mrs. Clinton "honorable". Anyone whose definition of the word "honorable" can stretch to fit a creature like Hillary Clinton has no more business in a position of responsibility than she does.

It is clear that the United States has spawned a class of amoral monsters who occupy the positions of leadership in the media, politics and the academy. The first step in purging our society of these loathsome and detestable moral lepers is to call them out without regard to position or party. Do not even recognize a common humanity with Hillary Clinton and with those who refuse to recognize her for what she is and tell the truth about it.

Operation Chaos

The Poison Preacher Scandal (or Pastorgate if you prefer) has so badly damaged B. Hussein Obama's standing with the voters, both in and out of the Democrat party, that he now stands virtually no chance of winning the general election against John McCain. Of course the election is months away and anything can happen. All it will take is for McCain to be caught on camera losing his temper and punching and kicking a cub scout while screaming the "F" word at the top of his lungs (something which could happen given McCain's insanity) to turn things around for the Democrats.

But as things stand now Obama is the Democrat party's weakest candidate.

So we must ask ourselves why Rush Limbaugh, who avows that he wants the Democrats to lose in November, is pushing his "Operation Chaos" whose stated goal is to get Hillary Clinton the nomination. Why, in other words, is Rush attempting to get the Democrat party's strongest candidate the nomination?

The better Hillary does in each of the upcoming primaries the greater her appeal to the Superdelegates will be. As Obama continues to sink in the polls even those Democrats who voted for him are starting to hope that the Superdelegates will step up and correct their mistake.

Every Republican vote Limbaugh generates for Hillary puts her one step closer to the White House. If she wins the general election I submit that we should call the withdrawal from Iraq (if that really happens, which I doubt) the Limbaugh Retreat. The lapsing of the Bush tax cuts should be called the Limbaugh Tax Increase. The socialized health care plan which Hillary will attempt to enact should be called LimbaughCare.

And so on down the line.

I do know that around 22% of the people who are currently supporting Obama say that they will not vote for Hillary, but how many of those people will actually carry through with that threat? I don't think too many of them will. As they see Obama's numbers shrink and see him consistently lose to McCain in the head to head polls I think most of them will be glad to slime her way into the nomination.

Just think about how many conservatives are willing to sacrifice their honor and integrity by supporting McCain just because they want to win. Do we really think that Democrats will have greater strength of character than Republicans?

Hillary is losing again

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama jumped ahead in the Wisconsin primary Tuesday night, reaching out for his ninth straight victory over a fading Hillary Rodham Clinton in their epic struggle for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sen. John McCain was the Republican winner, with ease.

Obama cut deeply into Clinton's political bedrock, splitting the support of white women almost evenly with the former first lady and running well among working class voters in a blue collar battleground, according to polling place interviews.

[. . .]

Independents cast about one-quarter of the ballots in the race between Obama and Clinton, and roughly 15 percent of the electorate were first-time voters, the survey said. Obama has run strongly among independents in earlier primaries, and among younger voters, as well.

Wisconsin offered 74 national convention delegates. There were 20 delegates at stake in caucuses in Hawaii, where Obama spent part of his youth.

Obama began the night with 1,281 delegates in the AP count, and Clinton with 1,218. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination at the party's national convention in Denver.

Obama began the evening with eight straight primary and caucus victories, a remarkable run that has propelled him past Clinton in the overall delegate race and enabled him to chip away at her advantage among elected officials within the party who will have convention votes as superdelegates.

Hillary is losing. I never get tired of saying that.

Of course McCain is winning and that leaves a bitter taste, but overall nothing can take away the sweetness of Hillary losing.

Nuff said

(CNN) — If Hillary Clinton and John McCain become their party's presidential nominees, the general election race is likely to be a love-fest.

At least according to Bill Clinton.

Campaigning in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Friday, the former president brushed aside suggestions his wife would prove to be a divisive nominee for the Democratic Party, pointing out how she has successfully worked with Republicans in the Senate — including one of the current GOP presidential candidates.

"She and John McCain are very close," Clinton said. "They always laugh that if they wound up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history, and they're afraid they'd put the voters to sleep because they like and respect each other."

Our champion.

Hillary's Utopia

From The Washington Post:

Former president Bill Clinton has emerged as a clear asset in his wife's campaign for the White House, with Americans offering high ratings to his eight years in office and a solid majority saying they would be comfortable with him as first spouse, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But Americans said they would not regard the election of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as simply the resumption of her husband's presidency. Instead, two-thirds said she would take her presidency in a different direction, and half of all Americans said they believed that would be a good development. About half of those who said it would be a resumption described that as positive.

I don't imagine that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be little more than a third term for Blow Job Billy. Bill Clinton cared about being high in the polls more than anything else. While he did have a set of core beliefs involving his absolute faith in big government to make the world a better place he was more than willing to set those beliefs aside in order to keep his approval rating high.

Maybe "set aside" isn't the right term. He certainly never did anything to shrink government, after all. It would be more accurate to say that he was willing to sacrifice the advancement of his policy agenda in order to maintain his personal popularity.

Hillary is a horse of a different color. She will attempt to move her agenda forward no matter want the cost. While Bill is a generalized big government loving wonk Hillary is a hard-core socialist. Her goal is to create a network of cradle-to-grave entitlements for the middle class which will bind (enslave would be a better word) them to the central government and make it politically impossible to reduce the size or scope of the federal government in any way whatsoever.

If Hillary is elected president socialized health care will be the beginning, not the end, of her plans to transform the United States.

Let's try a thought experiment. Take 100 residents of New York City and ask them to describe what would happen if the entire NYPD were to simply leave the city and never come back. What you would get in response would be Mad Max type scenarios of chaos, bloodshed rape and arson which would leave the city a burned out shell inhabited by gangs of mutants all trying to get into Charlton Heston's apartment.

What would actually happen is that after a brief period of lawlessness the people would arm themselves and take responsibility for their own safety and even start looking out for each other. Just like the gold fields of California in the 1800's which had no police or military to keep order but had a crime rate approaching zero because everyone was armed and everyone looked out for his neighbor.

What is the difference between the people of California in the 19th century and the people of NYC in the 21st century? Do doctors in New York hospitals give new born babies lobotomies now days? No, nothing that drastic. It's just that the people of New York City have spent their entire lives having certain things done for them and so they can't wrap their minds around the idea of suddenly doing them for themselves.

The know intellectually that things were once different but the knowledge is abstract not concrete and so it doesn't touch their emotions. The idea of there being no police department to catch criminals and discourage crime scares them because there is nothing in their experience to suggest to them that they could protect themselves better than the city government protects them.

The idea that six or seven million armed people each ready to prevent a crime before it happens would keep the streets safer than 40000 armed people who can only respond to the scene after a crime has already occurred never enters their minds. And if you suggest it they react with disbelief and even scorn.

Now take the way that New Yorkers feel about crime and the police (we must have the police to protect us because we cannot protect ourselves and if the cops weren't there we would probably all die) and spread it over the entire nation and make it about health care (if my wife hadn't had a government doctor when she ran into complications during delivery she and my son would both be dead) and food (if the government didn't provide food for us we would all starve to death) and electricity and motor fuel and fresh water and everything else a person needs to live in the modern world.

Take that several generations into the future where the knowledge that people used to get the necessities of life through voluntary exchanges in the free market and that their lives were much more prosperous and free back then is abstract and not concrete (and so does not touch the emotions) so that the default position of the average American is to think that without the federal government to do almost everything for him he would surely die. Get a picture of that utterly dependant society firmly fixed in your mind and you will know what the kind of world that Hillary Clinton and those who think the way she does are trying to build will look like.

Hsu lives, somebody screwed up

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

Fugitive political fundraiser Norman Hsu was behaving erratically as he fled the Bay Area on Amtrak's California Zephyr, at one point stripping off his shirt and shoes, before paramedics were called to take him off the train in western Colorado, passengers said Friday.

Hsu, 56, on the run for the second time from a 1992 grand theft conviction in San Mateo County, was arrested Thursday after the paramedics took him to a hospital from the train station in Grand Junction, Colo. A spokesman at St. Mary's Hospital said Friday night that Hsu was in fair condition but would not say what was wrong with him.

Hsu boarded the train in Emeryville about 7 a.m. Wednesday, Amtrak said, two hours before he was to have appeared in a Redwood City courtroom in connection with his grand theft conviction. He had touched down earlier that morning on a charter jet flight to Oakland, his lawyer told prosecutors. Amtrak said he boarded the Zephyr with a ticket for Denver.

Passengers interviewed Friday when the Zephyr reached its final destination of Chicago said it appeared that something was wrong with Hsu.

Alberto Dee, 21, who boarded the train in Truckee, said Hsu "freaked out" when Amtrak personnel approached, and was roaming a train car "without shoes and no shirt. ... I thought he had a suitcase full of crack or meth."

Another passenger disembarking in Chicago, who declined to give his name, said Hsu appeared disoriented and was having trouble opening a door on the train. Several other passengers said they were told Hsu was behaving oddly but did not witness it themselves.

There are many possible explanations where the Clintons and the Red Chinese are involved. The most likely are a botched suicide attempt and a botched homicide attempt. If it was the Chinese he was told to "do the right thing" or his family back in Hong Kong would be "dealt with". If it was Hillary Hsu was told to make contact with someone on the train who would give him money and false documents so that he could safly flee the country and instead he got a dose of poison.

At least the Chinese will have to keep his family alive now for leverage.

Problems for the jackass

Byron York shows us why the Democrats are going to have trouble winning in '08:

Sen. Hillary Clinton was booed again this morning at the Take Back America conference, sponsored by the lefty activist group Campaign for America's Future here in Washington. At this same conference last year, Sen. Clinton was booed for her position on the war in Iraq. This morning, she was enthusiastically received as she bashed the Bush administration — "a stunning record of secrecy and corruption" — but the crowd became less friendly when, at the end of her speech, she turned to Iraq.

"We're going to end the war in Iraq and finally bring home the troops," she said as a number of Code Pink protesters stood up in the audience. When she declared, "The American military has done its job," boos began to be heard around the room. As the boos increased, Sen. Clinton raised her voice. "The American military has succeeded," she said, to more boos. "It is the Iraqi government that has failed to make the tough decisions." Still more boos.

At that point, there was a round of cheers. "I love coming here every year," Clinton said. "I see the signs, 'Get Us Out of Iraq Now.' That's what we're trying to do."

The Democrat Party cannot hope to win unless it can secure the votes of its wackjob base, yet that base is increasingly out of touch with the rest of America.

Notice that the booing came after praise for the military - given in the context of a promise to end the war and criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war.

It is not just hatred of George W Bush or hatred of war in general or even of this war specifically which motivates the left, at least not entirely, it is hatred of the military in any context.

That is a view which repulses the average American. The great majority of us hold the military in a great deal of respect, admiration and affection. The American public will have zero tolerance for the kind of shameful treatment of our military men and women which a small minority of America-hating lunatics were able to get away with during the Vietnam War.

The more Hillary Clinton, or any other Democrat not running in a local blue state congressional district, attempts to mollify the "Code Pink" wing of the Party the more they will alienate the majority of the American public.

Run Mike, Run!

From The Washington Post:

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg abruptly left the Republican Party yesterday, declaring himself free of a "rigid adherence" to ideology and stoking speculation that he will use his multibillion-dollar fortune to mount an independent bid for the White House.

I heard some lamenting on talk radio yesterday about how a Bloomberg run as an independent could hurt Republican chances in 2008.

NO!

The harm will be to Hillary. One, Bloomberg is a moonbat liberal. His temporary flirtation with the Republican Party was only to avoid the crowded Democrat primary field in the Mayor's election and to get popular outgoing Mayor Rudy's endorsement.

Look at what Bloomberg is making his signature issue. Gun Control! Who is that going to appeal to? Bill Clinton and his wife hate guns (or to be more precise gun owners) as much as any other left-liberals. However Bill is smart enough to realize that gun control is a losing issue outside of some blue states that are already going to vote against the Republicans. So there is no upside to taking a firm pro-gun control stand for his surrogate (Hillary) in this race.

Bloomberg's entry messes up that calculation. He threatens to siphon off some of the campaign contributions, endorsements of gun control groups and ultimately votes of the fanatical gun-haters. This will force Hillary to be more openly anti-gun and endanger her standing with a good many rural Democrats.

Two, Hillary also has a problem with the fringe of her party. Her vote in favor of the Iraq war back when it was massively popular is coming back to haunt her and her personality will not allow her to simply say that she was mistaken, apologize and move on. This infuriates the nutroots anti-war community (this is what drove Cindy Sheehan out of the Democrat Party) to no end and they are looking for a way to punish her. Support for Bloomberg could very well be that opportunity.

Add to this the fact that Bloomberg is a billionaire who will be able to outspend the Republican and Democrat competition combined without needing to resort to matching funds. Who do you think Bloomberg will appeal to in his advertisements? Conservatives who he already knows are beyond his reach or liberals who already agree with him - and Hillary - on most important issues?

And who will he attack in his campaign ads? The Republican whose core constituents are already lost to him or Hillary whose core constituents are also his core constituents? Having Bloomberg in the race as an independent accomplishes exactly the same thing as having Rudy as the Republican nominee. It puts blue states into play that would otherwise be safe for Hillary; forcing her to spend time and money keeping them in her pocket.

This also reduces some of the support that Giuliani is receiving from the "win at any cost" Republicans. With someone running to Hillary's left to draw away some of the moonbat votes the timid wing of the Republican Party may be a bit more willing to trust a real conservative as the nominee.

I don't know if Bloomberg can draw away enough votes from Hillary to cancel out the surge of whitetrash women who want government to be both husband to them and daddy to their bastard children (women who have never voted before and will never vote again) but it just might.

More on Hillary's unelectability

Dave Nalle sees parallels between Katie Couric and Hillary Clinton:

The impending demise of Katie Couric as a news anchor may be a significant augury of things to come for Hillary Clinton. Just like Katie, lots of people say they like her, but when push comes to shove will thy actually vote for her, or will they opt for someone who looks more like the last 42 presidents have? Admittedly, Hillary isn't as cute and perky as Katie, but is being a scary battleaxe a plus or a minus? Take note that the respected and supremely qualified Barbara Walters hasn't been able to get off of morning TV and into an anchor slot despite trying her hardest for years and being the mother of all battleaxes.

Newsbabes do seem to have some viability in cable news, but perhaps the audience there expects more entertainment than hard news, and even those networks have traditional male anchors about whom the newsbabes orbit like decorative lesser planets. This argues for a certain sexism in the management of the news media, or at least in the attitudes of the audience, but it's a passive preference and not something which can be easily overcome. If the same principle applies in the presidential election, two years isn't enough time to educate the electorate out of attitudes which have developed through generations of tradition.

It's certainly not something to be proud of, but it may well be the case that the people of the US are no more ready for a female president than they are for a female news anchor. No amount of accusations of sexism and condemnations of their backwards attitudes will influence the results once the votes are counted. Election results are almost as indisputable as Nielsen ratings.

I wonder if he is right?

Hillary is the new McGovern

From John McCaslin's Inside the Beltway column in The Washington Times:

Wow, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, tell us how you really feel.

"Good evening. I'm Chris Matthews. Hillary [Clinton] is out front on the Democratic side, but with half the country not liking her and her getting only a quarter of the independent voters, her winning the nomination could simply set up the Democrats for a loss in '08 that should be a win."

John McCaslin knows it, Chris Matthews knows it and now you all know it too. Hillary Clinton is not electable.

Let's hope the Democrats don't figure it out till its too late.

H/T: Knowledge is Power

The smartest woman in the world?

Over on American Thinker Thomas Lifson looks at the commonly held belief that Hillary Clinton is a highly intelligent woman:

Based on some of the bone-headed political moves she has made, as well as on the lengths she has gone to cover her academic tracks, I have long suspected that she is much better at getting into elite schools than at actually excelling as a student. IBD [Investor's Business Daily] puts together several pieces of the puzzle indicating these suspicions may be well-grounded.

IBD starts with a fascinating nugget of information drawn from one or other of the new books:

"...if she's so smart, how did she flunk the D.C. bar exam, one of the easiest in the nation?"

That's a great question. The first answer is that Yale Law School, the ultra-elite institution she attended (because of its small size and big name, Yale is reportedly the hardest law school in the country at which to be accepted), doesn't really place much emphasis on teaching the actual hum-drum business of lawyering. Instead, Yale asks its students to grapple with large question, especially those on the "cutting edge" of legal theory (translation: leftist ideology).

The theory at Yale Law, as I understand it, is that their students are so darn smart they can pick up the mundane stuff in a snap, at bar review courses and as junior lawyers. My guess is that Hillary, after having been told how smart she is and after hearing that the DC bar exam is a snap, figured she had it made in the shade. Arrogance, in other words.

[. . .]

Everything I have learned by reading and by talking with people who knew Hillary during her student days and early career suggests that her greatest skill was in cultivating powerful patrons who could help her along. Although her charms completely elude me, I am told that her full schmooze mode is highly engaging in a face-to-face encounter, and long ago mastered the art of creating the impression that she is something special and that your encounter with her is somehow meaningful.

[. . .]

Hillary, in other words, is a consummate networker and climber.

But climbers need something higher up to scale. At the top, there is nowhere to climb. What would Hillary do as president, without an obvious higher office toward which to strive? The possible answers are frightening. One would be to aim at being the Secretary-General of the UN, on the theory that it is the closest job to head-of-the-world that currently exists. An alternative would be to seek to be the most popular government head among the G-8 leaders of major countries, going for the approval of other governments at the expense of American national interests.

But the worst possible substitute is that Hillary would aim at making history: doing things unprecedented in their ambition (remember health care?) and promising a large impact on future generations (the legacy factor). I prefer that our presidents seek to protect and defend the Constitution, as their oath of office requires. But then, of course, Hillary has never been about following the rules applying to others. Ambition plus certain social skills plus ruthlessness plus lack of discernment equals danger.

Not a bad summary of Mrs. Bill Clinton's professional life. A mediocre intellect chained to bottomless ambition and untempered by any sort of morality outside of the kind of leftist boilerplate found at an early 70's era SDS meeting.

A little of the truth comes out

From The Washington Post:

Two new books on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York offer fresh and often critical portraits of the Democratic presidential candidate that depict a tortured relationship with her husband and her past and challenge the image she has presented on the campaign trail.

The Hillary Clinton who emerges from the pages of the books comes across as a complicated, sometimes compromised figure who tolerated Bill Clinton's brazen infidelity, pursued her policy and political goals with methodical drive, and occasionally skirted along the edge of the truth along the way. The books portray her as alternately brilliant and controlling, ambitious and victimized.

The Clinton campaign has nervously awaited publication of the books for fear they would include a bombshell revelation or, at the very least, revive memories of less-savory moments in the couple's rise to power. The books, both by longtime journalists and both obtained by The Washington Post yesterday, include a number of assertions and anecdotes that could confront her campaign with unwelcome questions.

"A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Carl Bernstein, reports that Clinton as first lady was terrified she would be prosecuted, took over her own legal and political defense, and decided not to be forthcoming with investigators because she was convinced she was unfairly targeted. While in Arkansas, according to Bernstein, she personally interviewed one woman alleged to have had an affair with her husband, contemplated divorce and thought about running for governor out of anger at her husband's indiscretions.

"Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., reports that during her husband's 1992 campaign, a team she oversaw hired a private investigator to undermine Gennifer Flowers "until she is destroyed." Flowers had said publicly that she had an affair with Bill Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas.

The book also suggests that Hillary Clinton did not read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in 2002 before voting to authorize war. And it includes a thirdhand report that the Clintons had a secret plan after the 1992 election in which he would have eight years as president and then she would have eight years, although last night a key source disavowed the story.

[. . .]

Unlike many harsh books about Clinton written by ideological enemies, the two new volumes come from long-established writers backed by major publishing houses and could be harder to dismiss. Bernstein won national fame with partner Bob Woodward at The Post for breaking open the Watergate scandal, while Gerth and Van Natta have spent years as investigative reporters for the New York Times.

Their publishers have engaged in a race to the bookstores, moving up publication dates as the presidential campaign heats up. Alfred A. Knopf has printed 275,000 copies of Bernstein's "Woman in Charge," which will be available June 5; Little, Brown and Co. plans to put 175,000 copies of "Her Way" on sale June 8, after June 3 excerpts in the New York Times Magazine. The size of the print runs mean both publishers expect their books to be major bestsellers.

In the works for eight years, Bernstein's 640-page book is the more extensive biography and, while not unsympathetic, includes some damning observations from people once close to the senator.

Bob Boorstin, who worked for Clinton when she was pushing her plan to restructure the nation's health-care system in the early days of her husband's presidency, blamed her for its collapse. "I find her to be among the most self-righteous people I've ever known in my life," he told Bernstein. "And it's her great flaw, it's what killed health care," along with other factors.

Mark Fabiani, who as White House special counsel played a key role in defending the Clintons, said she was "so tortured by the way she's been treated that she would do anything to get out of the situation. . . . And if that involved not being fully forthcoming, she herself would say, 'I have a reason for not being forthcoming.' " Her logic, he said, was: "If we do this, they're going to do this to me. If we say this, then they're going to say this. You know, [expletive] 'em, let's just not do that."

Fabiani said Clinton personally directed the White House defense, telling Bernstein that private attorney David E. Kendall dealt mainly with the first lady and met only rarely with the president until the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal. "He was easy to deal with compared to her," Fabiani said of the first couple. The only time he saw Bill Clinton lose his temper, Fabiani said, was when the president saw his Whitewater partner, Susan McDougal, taken to jail in an orange jumpsuit and shackles for refusing to testify.

At one point, Hillary Clinton was convinced she would be next, worried that Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr would indict her for perjury or obstruction of justice arising from statements she made under oath about her work for Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, the Whitewater investment or long-missing billing records. "When I say there was a serious fear she would be indicted, I can't overstate that," Fabiani told Bernstein.

Bernstein reexamines the most sensational aspects of Clinton's life -- and to his subject the most painful -- namely her decisions to marry and remain married to Bill Clinton. She waited two years before deciding to become his wife and move to Arkansas, and Bernstein points to a little-known factor that may have contributed. Hillary Clinton failed the D.C. bar exam after law school, something she hid from her best friends for 30 years until disclosing it in passing in her autobiography, "Living History." Bernstein suggests that blow to her ego may have played a role in her decision to move to Arkansas, where she had passed the bar.

The women who also figured in Bill Clinton's life in Arkansas make a return appearance in the book, most notably Marilyn Jo Jenkins, a power company executive he fell in love with and almost left his wife over, according to Bernstein. Jenkins has been linked to Clinton before -- she was spirited into the governor's mansion at 5:15 a.m. for a final, furtive meeting with him the day he left for Washington to assume the presidency -- but Bernstein's account makes clear her pivotal role.

Bill Clinton wanted to divorce his wife to be with Jenkins in 1989, Bernstein reports, but Hillary Clinton refused. "There are worse things than infidelity," she told Betsey Wright, the governor's chief of staff. The crisis frayed Wright's relationship with Bill Clinton too, and she told Bernstein that she arranged for the two of them, Wright and Clinton, to see a therapist together.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, turned to her best friend, Diane Blair, obliquely raising the prospect of divorce during a long walk. "She was thinking that they had not made much money," Blair told Bernstein before her death in 2000, and she was concerned about her daughter. "Chelsea was there now. What if she were on her own? She didn't own a house. She was concerned that if she were to become a single parent, how would she make it work in a way that would be good for Chelsea."

The Clintons stayed together, but out of "anger and hurt" she considered running for governor in 1990, when he presumably would step down to prepare his 1992 presidential campaign. The idea ended after consultant Dick Morris conducted two polls showing she had no independent identity with Arkansas voters and compared her to George Wallace's wife, who ran to succeed him in Alabama -- an analogy that offended her.

By the time Bill Clinton was running for president, Hillary Clinton suggested to Blair that victory would be good for the marriage because her husband's sexual compulsions would be tempered by the White House and the ever-present press corps, Bernstein reports -- a flawed assumption, as it would turn out.

[. . .]

Gerth and Van Natta's 416-page book covers much of the same ground, but it explores Clinton's time in the Senate in greater depth and portrays her legislative career and her presidential campaign as parts of a broad, long-term plan for power that has its roots in the early 1970s.

According to Gerth and Van Natta, even before the Clintons were married they formulated a "secret pact of ambition" aimed at reinventing the Democratic Party and getting to the White House. The authors cite a former Bill Clinton girlfriend, Marla Crider, who said she saw a letter on his desk written by Hillary Clinton, outlining the couple's long-term ambitions, which they called their "twenty-year project."

Crider was first quoted about the letter in a book by a former National Enquirer reporter in 2000, at the time describing it as more about Bill Clinton's infidelities and the "little girls" he had. Gerth and Van Natta, however, report that they re-interviewed Crider and that she said the earlier book's account was "not totally accurate." In this telling, Crider described the note as being more about the couple's political plans, with little discussion of their personal relationship.

[. . .]

The book looks in detail at Hillary Clinton's Senate vote in support of the Iraq war, suggesting she may have been motivated by a desire to not abandon her husband's tough-on-Iraq policy and a need "to prove that she was tough enough" as a woman. But Gerth and Van Natta suggest that she did not read the National Intelligence Estimate, which included caveats and dissents about reports of Iraq's weapons program.

Reines, Clinton's Senate spokesman, seemed to confirm last night that she did not read the NIE, saying by e-mail that she was "briefed multiple times by several members of the administration on their intelligence regarding Iraq, including being briefed on the NIE."

Gerth and Van Natta portray Clinton as fixated on secrecy and loyalty. She has used her Washington house as a staging ground for her presidential campaign, holding strategy meetings and fundraisers under strict confidentiality. "Visitors are asked to check their bags, cameras and cell phones at the door, pictures are taken by an authorized photographer," they write.

[. . .]

The book portrays Clinton as constantly seeking the spotlight, pushing her way into Senate discussions without invitation. As Senate Democrats were wrestling with their approach to the Iraq war in mid-2006, for example, Clinton is described as inserting her name into a piece of legislation calling for a phased redeployment of U.S. troops. Although she was not originally a co-sponsor of the bill, she said she was, and after storming the floor of the Senate before her turn, she shifted her rationale for her original war vote, the authors write. Her behavior amazed Senate colleagues, they write.

That both Hillary and Bill Clinton are scumbags is nothing new. What is interesting is that mainstream publishers and left-wing reporters like Carl Bernstein are willing to shine the light of truth on even a part of their deep flaws. That and the fact that the Washington Post, which is little more than a house organ for the Democrat Party, is willing to devote so much ink to a positive review of these books is telling evidence of the fact that Hillary has lost the confidence of the left-wing establishment.

It appears that there is less and less faith in Hillary's ability to win the White House in 2008 and that there is a massive amount of hedging going on.

Rudy makes his case

From The New York Times:

HOUSTON, May 11 — Rudolph W. Giuliani directly challenged Republican orthodoxy on Friday, asserting that his support for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights should not disqualify him from winning the party’s presidential nomination.


He said that Republicans needed to be tolerant of dissenting views on those issues if they wanted to retain the White House.


In a forceful summation of the substantive and political case for his candidacy, delivered to a conservative audience at Houston Baptist College, Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, acknowledged that his views on social issues were out of line with those of many Republican primary voters.


But he argued that there were even greater matters at stake in the election, starting with which party would better protect the nation from terrorism. Mr. Giuliani suggested that his record in New York, which included leading the city after the attacks of Sept. 11 and overseeing a decline in violent crime during his eight years in office, made him the most electable of the Republican candidates, no matter his stand on social issues like abortion.


Mayor Giuliani did an excellent job of leading New York City in the aftermath of 9/11 but that in no way automatically makes him the best person to lead the nation in the global war against Islamofascism.


Look at it like this. If Ray Nagin had done a masterful job of leading New Orleans through hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, so good that every last person on the surface of the earth looked at his performance and said that no one could have possibly done any better, would that make him the best person to head NOAA's National Weather Service?


If we are going to judge a president's ability to lead the nation in the global war against Islamism based on his past experiences then would not decorated war hero John McCain be the logical choice? Julie Annie isn't a vet, he has never led men in combat. In fact he has probably never held a weapon except when handling an exhibit in a courtroom.


As for his bringing down the crime rate in New York City what did he do other than apply the same kind of attitude toward law enforcement held by nearly every sheriff or chief of police in "red state" America. In other words Julie Annie did nothing more than have the good sense to let his cops be cops rather than social workers, just like any small town Republican mayor does.

You know the old saying about how in the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king? Well in a city where the average politician is as far left as Noam Chomsky the politician who is one millimeter to the right of center will look like Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan.


As for the abortion question the fact is that the momentum on that issue has been shifting in the pro-life direction for the past 20 years. Outside of deep blue areas like Manhattan and Massachusetts and California (places which will vote Democrat anyway) being pro-life will not damage a candidate nearly as much as being pro-choice will. In other words, outside of certain hard-left enclaves pro-choice voters do not make that their primary litmus test issue while pro-life voters do. This is why Democrats ran a slate of pro-life candidates this past election (men like Heath Schuler here in North Carolina).


It is the same for gun control. Outside of a few of the most left-wing areas of the nation supporters of increased gun control do not make that the one issue which decides who they will support while pro-gun voters do.


On the immigration question Giuliani is badly out of step not just with Republicans but with the entire nation. As I discussed here a recent exhaustive survey demonstrated conclusively that even the majority of Hispanic or Latino citizens support closing the border to illegal immigration and oppose amnesty for those illegals already here. Outside of a handful of activists who will vote Democrat anyway the people who will base their vote on a candidate's immigration position, even crossing party lines to do it, are on the anti-amnesty/guest worker side. Giuliani will do nothing to bring these people out to vote Republican.


In fact if a third party candidate running a campaign based on immigration enters the race (a definite possibility if both major party candidates are open border advocates) Julie Annie's presence on the ballot might drive away enough people who would otherwise vote Republican to throw the election to Hillary.


Finally, the only real advantage Giuliani brings to the table is the perception by many that he is the only person who can beat Hillary. I doubt that strongly and I think that it will become more apparent as time goes by. Around 40% of the nation has already reached a settled conclusion that they will not vote for Hillary under any circumstances. Her recent upsurge in the polls of Democrat primary voters reflect nothing more than the growing realization on the part of Democrats that while Obama speaks well and looks good while he does it that he is essentially hollow. There's no there there; he sounds great, but has nothing to say.


This is the same thing as when Democrats finally awakened to the fact that Dean was a wackjob and could not win the general election. His support went to Kerry and Kerry got the nomination, but he still lost in the general election.


Hillary Clinton is not the immovable object and Rudolph Giuliani is not the irresistible force. In a head to head matchup between them the voters whose passion burns the brightest - the "I'd crawl over broken glass to get to the voting booth" crowd - pro-life, anti-illegal immigration and pro-gun forces will be either voting third party or sleeping late on election day.

In the end Rudy's "vote for me or else" approach falls flat.

The more you get to know her

The less you want to do with her.

An increasing number of Democratic fundraisers -- alienated by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's strong-arm tactics against prospective donors -- are raising money for presidential rivals of the former first lady, Democratic campaign strategists say.

The strategists said the exodus is growing as Mrs. Clinton's campaign applies pressure to uncommitted party donors to join her fundraising team or pledge to sit out the party's nominating process.

"The Clinton camp has been very tough on contributors. I've heard that 'if you don't contribute to us, don't contribute to another campaign.' I've heard that," said Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, who just joined the campaign of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and managed Howard Dean's ill-fated 2004 presidential bid.

Several members of the Democratic fundraising community, which is largely party veterans and business professionals, told The Washington Times of Mrs. Clinton's fundraising fallout provided they were given anonymity to prevent retribution.

One of the most frequent complaints among longtime party contributors is that no matter how hard they work or how much they raise for Mrs. Clinton's candidacy, they will never be given special access to her campaign's high command.

"If you are not part of that original Clinton family, you are never going to be part of her inner circle. What this translates into is: Why invest in her campaign when whatever you do, you will never be part of it?" said a former senior Democratic Party campaign official who is uncommitted in the race.

"I'm hearing this echoed all over the place by Democrats, especially outside of Washington."

She can't help it. A dog is a dog, a cat is a cat, a bird is a bird and Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton.

The woman whose health care reform package included jail time for anyone who saw a doctor who wasn't assigned to them by government bureaucrats can only deal with people one of three ways. She can dispense favors to trusted sycophants. She can receive the obedience of supporters who are outside of her inner circle and she can attempt to utterly destroy anyone she perceives as an enemy.

Since the inner circle is small and can't grow any larger you are stuck either being her unpaid servant or her punching bag.

As more Democrats in prominent positions realize this they will combine to keep her away from power. After all the only source of her power is the fear (it used to be the hope, now it is the fear) that she will one day be president. This is her only realistic shot. If she doen't grab it now she will never have it.

A powerful Mafia godfather was reported to have said "now Bobby Kennedy is just another g-d damned lawyer" upon hearing of JFK's death. If Hillary fails to gain the Democrat nomination or if she loses the general election a lot of Democrats are going to be saying "now she's just another g-d damned junior Senator".

Why not Rudy?

Patrick of The Pagan Temple left a comment here in support of Rudolph Giuliani's candidacy. When I saw my reply getting long I decided to share it with everyone.

The nations of Europe did not simply wake up one morning and decide to dismantle their militarise to the point where they could not defend themselves. The decision to build massive unsustainable welfare states which would weaken their economies and create a dependant population who would spend their entire lives mired in a state of perpetual adolescence was not made overnight.

European nations did not suddenly decide lower their birthrates to about half of what it would take to sustain their populations making massive immigration from Muslim nations necessary to keep their economies from collapsing. They also did not reach a quick decision to devalue marriage to the point where most couples now dispense with it all together.

And they did not decide to surrender to Islamic fascism just because it was a slow Tuesday and they needed something to do.

Europe did not get where it is today, too far over the brink of ruin to ever pull itself back, as a result of any calculated choice to arrive at that place.

What brought Europe to the place it is was a loss of the inner strength which comes from having a faith in a transcendent morality. It does not matter that Rudy stood up to Arafat and lowered crime while slashing the welfare rolls. The men who laid the foundation for the weakness of modern Europe were not themselves weak.

What the Republicans who embrace tax cuts and a strong defense but disdain the social conservative issues offer the nation is a brief period of strength and prosperity followed by a long term decline into weakness and ultimately poverty and enslavement.

A nation cannot survive without both inner and outer strength. The values of the fiscal and foreign policy conservatives offer the outer strength and the values of the social conservatives offer the inner strength which comprises the framework which holds up the outer shell.

A nation can no more survive which surrenders that inner framework than a building can continue to stand with its foundation and its load bearing members removed.

The genius of the Republican Party is that it combines both the inner and outer strength. That fusion is under attack by people within the Party who do not simply fail to “get” the social conservatism stuff but are actually hostile to it. Notice that there is nobody on the social conservative side who says that what the Party needs to do is forget about cutting taxes and fighting terrorists and focus exclusively on protecting the unborn. The people who want to throw the other side's issues overboard are always the economic conservatives.

The only hope for the United States to survive as a free and prosperous nation is the Republican Party. But the Republican Party can only fulfill that hope if it remains the conservative party in every way. It is therefore more important for Republicans to defeat the leftists within their own ranks than for them to defeat Democrat Party leftists in a general election.

The United States can survive a Hillary Clinton presidency just as we survived a Jimmy Carter presidency. What we cannot survive is a two party system in which neither parry is willing to stand up for the values which keep the United States off the road to Brussels.

Jimmy Carter put Ronald Reagan in the White House and Hillary Clinton's socialzied health care scheme gave the Republican Party control of both houses of congress. We will live through and possibly even benifit from a Hillary presidency, but we will not long survive the Giuliani wing's victory in the battle for the soul of the Republican Party.

So yes, he will continue to be Julie Annie even if it is a choice between him and Mrs. Bill Clinton.

Socialism, coming to a doctor's office near you

From The American Thinker:

James Lewis brings something interesting to our attention:

Conservative British commentator Ian Dale writes on his blog:

"A poll out this morning shows that if there were a general election today only 7 per cent of doctors would vote Labour (the British socialist party). Let me repeat that. Seven per cent. ... Just 2% of doctors described their level of morale at work as excellent, with 54% saying it was poor or terrible."

Remember that almost all British doctors work for the government health care system.

And yet... "80% of spending on new hospitals had gone to Labour constituencies."

Are you ready for "nonpolitical" HillaryCare USA?

There is a boom in building doctor's offices, clinics and hospitals along the US side of the US/Canada border because every Canadian who possibly can flees from their socialized health care system to come to the free market US for medical care.

It doesn't matter how many examples of failure of socialized medicine they see the left cannot get the message that it does not work.

This strange blindness, which must be willful, is inexplicable until you understand two facts. Fact one is that to the rank and file leftist left liberalism is a religion and therefore not subject to refutation by fact, logic or the scientific method. The second fact is that to the leftist political leadership the issue is not the provision of good health care.

What is at stake for the leftist politicians is dependency and control. By making the public dependant upon government for their health care they seek to institutionalize their Party and its philosophy in American political culture. Look at the success they had with Social Security.

In fact Social Security is nothing but a giant Ponzi scheme which is, if unreformed, doomed to collapse and take the American economy with it. Yet every politician of either party must pledge himself to the protection and preservation of Social Security. Even those who know full well that it is a national suicide pact must still promise to keep it alive for all eternity. Any effort to save the system by reinventing it as a private investment plan must be carefully described as an effort to "save Social Security".

The example of how a truly brain-dead bit of socialist stupidity became the "third rail" of American politics hovers before the eyes of American socialists (otherwise known as the Democrat Party) like the holy grail. Recreating this miracle on an even larger scale by making every American dependant on government for not only an old age pension but for a doctor for himself and for his children is the holy mission of the modern American left.

That the quality of medical care for the average American would deteriorate in a substantial way is a matter of no concern whatsoever to the leftist elites. After all they all have money. In the event of HillaryCare becoming the law in America the best doctors in the US would relocate to Mexico and open pay-as-you-go clinics and hospitals with state of the art equipment and highly trained staff.

Wealthy liberal elites from Washington, Hollywood, the news media and the business world (you don't think Warren Buffet or George Soros would stand in line at a government hospital do you) would jet down to Acapulco or Puerto Vallarta where they could have their blood pressure taken pool side or receive their chemotherapy in a luxury suite overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.

Just as wealthy liberal hypocrites like Al Gore and John Edwards wish to retain their SUVs, giant energy hogging mansions and private jets while everyone else would be required to drive around in three cylinder economy cars and use leaves instead of toilet paper the elites will not tolerate one degree of lessening in the standards of their own health care.

Vote for Hillary and this is what you get. You've been warned.

Is our doom sealed?

Slimy Dick tells us why Hillary is likely to be the next president:

Now, recently there was a poll that said that 50% of the American people said they would never vote for Hillary Clinton -- a Harris Interactive Poll. And the problem with those polls is the first question they ask is, “Are you registered to vote?” And if you say no, they politely hang up. And if then they say, “How likely are you to vote,” and if you say, “I won’t vote; I never do,” they politely hang up. But that’s Hillary’s base that they just hung up on. Those are the people she’s going to use to win.

The fundamental dynamic of American politics since 1996 has been an increase in turnout. In ‘96, we had 95 million voters. In 2001, we had 101 million voters. In 2004, we had 121 million voters. And if Hillary runs, you’re going to get 135 million, 140 million Americans voting out of a voting-age population of 200 million. And overwhelmingly, those new voters are going to be single women. Half of all women in the United States are single -- there’s hope, guys. And women are 54% of the vote. They’re 52 of the population, but they register more, and they vote in higher numbers.

So 27% of the vote should be single women. But it was 19% in 2000, it was 23% in 2004. And if Hillary runs, it’s going to go up to 27 or 28% of the vote. There were 19 million single women who voted in 2000. There were 27 million that voted in ‘04. She’s going to move it up to 35 million or 40 million. And all of those voters are going to be Hillary Clinton voters.

There was a poll just done by Gallup. And it showed that men and women over 50 are 35 for Hillary if you’re a woman, and 34 if you’re a man. Gender made no difference. But under 50, like all of you are, it made a huge difference. Women under 50 were 43% for Hillary; men under 50 were 27% for Hillary.

So young, single women, who are juggling two kids, who work minimum-wage jobs, who pay no attention to politics, who never watch Fox News or CNN -- they watch the Oprah show and they watch the soap operas, and they watch the downscale programming, and they never vote; they don’t participate -- but they’ll learn three weeks before the election that there’s a woman running with a serious chance of winning. And they’ll learn that that is somebody that really could provide them with daycare and with healthcare, and with a higher minimum wage and with guaranteed fringe benefits and pension benefits. And that’s going to be -- and child support enforcement. And that’s crucial to them.

Basically, when you get down to it, people under the age of 65 and over the age of about 30, who are married, usually don’t need government, unless there’s some extraordinary thing, like they’re handicapped, or they’re brought up in a heritage of poverty, or they’re the objects of discrimination. But younger people and older people need government. And if they’re single especially, they need government. Because they got shafted in the divorce, or they’re single parents trying to make ends meet, or they’re retired, living on after their husband died, on a single income. And that creates a tremendous impetus for voting Democratic.

So all of the polling examines only the current numerator and the current denominator. And yeah, it’s true -- of the 120 million people that voted in ‘04, there are probably 60 million that’ll never vote for Hillary. But there are 20 million new ones coming in that won’t come in if anybody but Hillary runs, and they’re going to vote overwhelmingly, three to one and four to one, for Hillary Clinton.

Remember that while Rove squeezed out every last Republican, and got them to the polls in ‘04, and increased turnout among white, married men and women from 60% to 70%, to bring in the Bush election of ‘04 -- so Bush got 12 million more votes in ‘04 than he got in ‘00 -- that while that was happening, nine million more people voted for Kerry than voted for Gore -- overwhelmingly single women. And that’s the army that’s going to elect Hillary Clinton, if she wins the Democratic nomination.

Now, I believe that she still can be defeated. But we have to understand the danger, and we have to rally and move against it.

I lay awake at night dreading those numbers. I hope that he is wrong, but I can't see where he's in error.

Of course Mrs. Bill Clinton is a very unlikeable individual and that will have an impact. If the Republicans run a candidate who can make those single women feel safe and cared about they will vote for him. The question is can Rudy or Fred project that image?

No substitute for victory

From The Washington Post:

CRAWFORDSVILLE, Iowa, April 3 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) stepped up her criticism of President Bush's threat to veto legislation that sets a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, saying that doing so would thwart the will of the American people.

Clinton hedged, however, when asked whether she would support legislation sponsored by other Democratic senators, including Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), aimed at cutting off funding for the war on March 31, 2008.

The reason that she is hedging is because she knows that supporting legislation which would actually cut the legs out from under the troops in the field would doom her presidential bid.

Clinton took a sharp line against the administration in the current standoff over Iraq policy, accusing the president and Vice President Cheney of questioning the patriotism of Americans who call for an end to the U.S. involvement there.

Their patriotism is questioned for good reason. The fact is that when your nation's military forces are engaged in battle setting an arbitrary date for withdrawal amounts to nothing more than surrender. Imagine if the allied nations had set a hard date for withdrawal from Europe during the Second World War? Germany could have simply given ground slowly until the date arrived then gone on the offensive again. The swastika would now be flying everywhere from Palermo to Warsaw and from Paris to Constantinople.

Of course the Democrat leadership knows this. They are counting on it because a victory for the US in Iraq is a loss for them at the polls in 2008. This is why they are traitors, because they have placed electoral victory for their political party above the cause of victory for their nation's soldiers on the battlefield.

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with the President. There is nothing wrong with opposing his political agenda. There is nothing wrong with building support in the legislature for blocking his legislative proposals. There is nothing wrong with going to the media to make the case that the President is wrong about something and urging the people to call their congressmen and the White House to express their disapproval.

However EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD is wrong with undercutting your nation's WAR EFFORT!

All I ask is that the legislators and the media figures and the activists who are actively pursuing a policy toward the war in Iraq which is deliberately calculated to give the Islamofascist enemy victory be treated by American society in EXACTLY THE SAME MANNER as a similar group of legislators, media figures and activists would have been treated during WWII if they had pursued a program deliberately intended to give Adolph Hitler victory in Europe and the Emperor of Japan victory in the Pacific.

Because the two things are morally equal. It would not have mattered if the Axis' US allies had been doing because they loved Hitler and thought Europe would be better off with him in charge of if they only wanted to bring down the Roosevelt administration and regarded the loss of Europe as acceptable collateral damage. The effect would have been the same - defeat for US forces in a war. It would not have mattered one tiny bit if their motives had been a genuinely patriotic desire to save the nation from the future economic ruin that the New Deal would cause or nothing but a naked desire to wield power for power's sake. The end result would have been exactly the same - defeat for US forces on the battlefield.

When the war is over and the American troops have returned home to their well deserved victory parade then the actions which led up to the war can be analysed and if there was wrongdoing it can be exposed and dealt with. But only after victory. Only after every pissant dictator and/or theocrat on the globe has been taught that, right or wrong, if the US says "JUMP" the only acceptable answer is "Yes Sir. How high sir".