The Enemy Within

There's been a campaign going on around the blogosphere for awhile, advocating that MSNBC ban Pat Buchanan from appearing on the network. Buchanan is a political analyst, who, in the wake of the tragedy in Norway, wrote an editorial, which appeared to rationalise, if not favour, the motives of the assassin in question, Anders Behring Breivik.


If that were not enough, Buchanan dug himself into a deeper hole, when he appeared as a guest on Rev Al Sharpton's new MSNBC progam, and made reference to the President, using a term with echoes the collective periods of time encompassing the Antebellum South right up through the era of Civil Rights struggles. You can watch the incident, which occurs at about the five-minute mark here.


That's right. Pat Buchanan, political speechwriter, strategist, commentator and one-time Presidential candidate, referred to the President of the United States as a "boy."


Now, I know Pat's past seventy, and he's a man of his era and time. I grew up in the South, and Pat always, for some reason, makes me think of the Virginia history textbook I was made to study in the Seventh Grade. I don't think it had been re-written in sixty years, and that was in the mid-1960s. Every five years or so, the publishers would tack another couple of chapters onto the end of the thing, as time passed and more events occurred; but in Virginia, in 1966, in the wake of historic Civil Rights legislation passing, we were still being taught how happy and gay (as in contented) African Americans were when they were enslaved, chattel, someone else's property and not their own person.


The quaint little drawings showed plump, well-fed people, dressed simply, but smartly, dancing happily around a campfire and receiving gifts of a ham at Christmas. We were taught that masters and mistresses were kind, and that their slaves didn't really want to be free. I think Pat bought into this too. In fact, I think he genuinely believed and still believes malarkey like this.


But, rightly, politely and forcefully, Rev Sharpton upbraided him on this slip-of-the-tongue. When Pat referred to the President as "your boy, Barack Obama," the reverend was ready:-

He’s nobody’s boy– he’s your president, he’s our president, and that’s what ya’ll don’t get through your head.

Rev Sharpton, that's what a lot of people don't get through their heads.


The next night, Lawrence O'Donnell, had as his guest, Arianna Huffington. I've followed Huffington's career for about thirty years. She's the privleged daughter of a corrupt Greek politician, whose family fled Greece in the socialist coup of the early 1960s. Huffington, nee Stanisopoulos, is a prime example of someone who has used money and sex to climb both the social and professional ladders.


Following her academic career at Cambridge, she expected to be welcomed with opened arms into the British political media, most of whom are traditionally centre-Leftish; but Huffington was so far to the Right in those days, she made Phyllis Schlafly look like a weeping Nellie atheist. She wrote a couple of books, and got sued for extensive plagiarism in one of them. In fact, plagiarism follows Huffington like a lost puppy, as does unethical journalistic methods.


She decamped to the US in the early 1980s and suddenly became BFF with Baba Wawa, no mean social climber, herself. Then she managed to marry Michael Huffington, a closeted gay politician, who needed a wife for his image as much as Arianna needed a (rich) American husband in order to stay in the country. Huffington was a neocon and to the Left of Madam, who was still rabidly Rightwing.


He served as a Congressman from California for two years in the 1990s, hoping to win a Senate seat in 1996 from Diane Feinstein. (He lost). I've no doubt, had he won, he may even have attempted a run for the White House in 2000 or 2004. Imagine Zsa Zsa Mach II as our First Lady!


Also, during the 90s, Arianna developed a penchant for Newt Gingrich and a pathological hatred for all things Clinton. She contributed to George W Bush's Presidential campaigns, not once, but twice, and suddenly woke up on the morning of November 3, 2004, the day Dubya officially became Lame Duck plus three, and experienced a full-on Damascene conversion, declaring herself no longer a neocon, but a 100% dyed-in-the-wool Progressive.


No questions asked, no details given, the shallow and insipid 24/7 news media accepted her as the new and fully-fledged voice of the Left.


In another space and time, she would have been called a ratfucker, because since Barack Obama's inauguration, she's worked steadily and consistently to ructure irreparably the Left. It was she, as well as Jane Hamsher, who made sure that the Firebaggers (who inhabit the opposite side of the political coin from the Teabaggers, but who share with them a single brain cell) were sufficiently conflicted to believe that the President was weak, spineless, a tool of Wall Street, a closet Republican, a war mongerer, an enemy of the people, especially the Middle Class.


In the weeks leading up to the 2010 Midterms, she trolled the United States, being given almost unlimited airtime on MSNBC, to tell all and sundry of the middle class that "the President just isn't that into you."


Almost as much as Ed Schultz, another ex-neocon rapidly converted to progressivism, she was instrumental in ensuring that people on the Left, who should have voted, sulked out the vote and gave us the Tea Party Congress we loathe and detest today - and all the while, referring to the President as "nowhere man."


Last night, she set up her shingle on O'Donnell's show, to talk about the debt ceiling agreement, and immediately offered this choice titbit about the President:-

I think he needs intense therapy, to explain to himself first of all why he did what he did, because there is no rational explanation.

All said with that maliciously sweet butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth smile plastered to her greasy, botoxed face.


That was a pernicious remark, which exhibited the utmost contempt and disrespect for this man. She's a nasty piece of work, totally without tact or class. A person whom, in the words of Oscar Wilde, knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.


She is, above all, the embodiment of white privileged elitism, from the debutante daughters to the flaunting of her own brand for her own purposes.


Oh, and she still cahoots with Newt.


But what dismayed me the most about the entire segment of the O'Donnell show is the way the host let her spew her disrespectful venom without once taking her to task.


Kudos to Rev Sharpton, who didn't stint in reminding a long-time political operative from the other side, that a modicum of respect was due the President of the United States. Neither is it mete to imply, snarkily or otherwise, that this President is mentally or emotionally unfit enough to require therapy, but it seems that the President and anyone who supports him now not only are told regularly by the Professional Left that they need professional help or that they really are Republican trolls (like the President is a secret Republican) paid by Andrew Breitbart or that they're "the dumbest motherfuckers," we're now deemed "starry-eyed followers", like the adherents to some sick cult.


I guess the question we are left to ponder is why Rev Sharpton was quick and right to call out blatant disrespect, and Lawrence O'Donnell wasn't?

The President Who Isn't

People are living longer. Just look at the number of ex-Presidents we have living yet. There are four, and I can’t remember when so many ex-leaders of the country have been alive and compos mentis.


There have always been ex-Presidents who lived beyond their term of office. Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman and Ike all lived to be reasonably, if not very old men; but it’s always been sort of an unwritten tradition that ex-Presidents were allowed to retire gracefully to work on their library legacy (unless you were an established criminal, like Richard Nixon, and then you were allowed to retire in ignominy) and were expected to refrain from comment or criticism of the incumbent, whether he was a member of their party or not.


Of course, many engaged in charitable or philanthropic endeavours and were wheeled out to wave or address the faithful at various party conventions or caucuses, but most knew enough to demur tactfully from any commentary on the state of the government of the day or the current inhabitant of the Oval Office.


Until now.


The last two Democratic Presidents are alive and well and within the public domain: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton - the former a symbol of Democratic failure and the latter basking in a state of post-Presidential beatitude. I voted for both.


During the first year of Barack Obama’s tenure, at the height of a long, hot summer of Tea Party madness centering on the healthcare debate, when everyone was screaming “death panels” and “pulling the plug on Grandma,” NBC sought Jimmy Carter’s opinion about the strident scenes of ugly criticism directed at the 44th President of the United States, by his opposition, both elected and within the public domain.


Carter was quick to tell the obvious truth, which no one in the media wanted to confront: the real reason behind all this Tea Party insurrection, the demonstrations, the name-calling, the accusations and armed people showing up at rallies, was racism, pure and simple. Carter was a Southern man, who’d come of age during the era of Jim Crow, a liberal Democrat from the geographic area which used to harbour the Democratic base. He knew and could readily identify racism, no matterr how subtle the perpetrator intended it to be, and the Rightwing of the day was hardly subtle. Straight up: The hatred borne by the Right against Obama was racial, pure and simple.


I, personally, think Carter hit the nail on the head. A lot of other people with whom I’ve spoken pretty much think so too; but obviously, this was an answer that unsettled the news media, and they took their cue from the White House, who played down the remarks entirely. They reported what Carter said, and moved on precipitously.


Well, of course, the White House would play down any insinuation of racism. This is a seminal Presidency. An African American in the White House isn’t going to play the race card, even when he’s cognizant enough to know exactly why he’s being meted the treatment he’s receiving from some sectors.


And so, President Carter was dusted off, thanked politely, and returned to his Presidential box.


It would appear in this instance, that absence did not make the heart grow fonder; or maybe Carter hit a bit too close to the truth, and maybe that truth isn’t just popping up on the Rightwing side of the political coin. Because now, several voices are being raised in identifying a brand of racism, peculiar to the radical chic of the extreme Left, emerging in Progressive quarters.


In the case of the Big Dog, Bill Clinton, absence has made some Democratic hearts pine longingly, and a Presidency which began twenty years ago is now viewed through rose-coloured glasses as a bastion of liberalism.


In political terms, Bill Clinton’s still a reasonably young man. As head of the Clinton Global Initiative, he’s frequently seen at high-powered and high-profiled events around the world and in the United States. I can’t remember another President who’s been interviewed as much and as often, post-Administration, by everyone from David Gregory on Meet the Press to David Letterman, right down to Jon Stewart. In fact, Bill Maher is messing his knickers at the prospect of getting Clinton on his program for an interview.


Even the President has called upon Clinton for help in getting his message across, especially when turning a press conference over to him after effecting the infamous (for blinkered, disgruntled EmoProgs) Bush tax cuts compromise.


Don’t think for one minute, Barack Obama didn’t know exactly what he was doing and why when he had Clinton answer questions asked by a press which have been nothing less than openly disrespectful to the current President. Any viewer with nous could cast his mind back to the sort of questioning the President had received only weeks before in the wake of the 2010 Midterm shellacking, when fluffy sprites like Savannah Guthrie insouciantly asked the President point blank if he “just didn’t get it,” and compare that with the measured, respectful questioning Clinton received when he addressed the press corps.


Since then, it seems as if almost every move or utterance the President has made has been followed a few days later by someone ferreting out Clinton for a comment. The 42nd President has been tact incarnate in refusing to comment or criticize a Democratic successor, but in the wake of the increasingly infuriating Republican intransigence regarding the debt ceiling, some perspicacious hack tracked Clinton down recently simply to ask him what he would have done in this instance.


Clinton replied that he would have used the 14th Amendment option and dared the courts to challenge him.


The press and the EmoProgs went wild.


More and more, in various areas of the Left’s photosphere, amidst all the speculation and media-enhanced spin about the President’s latest betrayal of “caving,” I’m seeing EmoProgs whine and wail about the good old days under Clinton, and wondering now amidst all this sturm und drang “WWBCD” (“What would Bill Clinton do?”)


It’s all very well and good for Mr Forty-Two to say he’d invoke the 14th Amendment in this current crisis. He’s the equivalent of an armchair quarterback now, lobbing suggestions from the sidelines, along with everyone else, after the fact, when, actually, if he were faced with such a similar situation, he’d do what he did for six years between 1994 and 2000: try to effect some sort of compromise with the Opposition.


It’s simultaneously funny and sinister how the most strident voices on the Left now channel Clinton, reincarnated as a Progressive’s dream, whilst at the same time their increasingly hateful rhetoric brings to mind those people, all over the country, to whom the 39th President referred.


You have to wonder why the longing for Bill Clinton has established itself so firmly that these people, as ignorant of history as their Rightwing brethren (it would appear) think life would be a Progressive’s wet dream if Slick Willie were staring down the recalcitrant ignorati inhabiting the House on Capitol Hill.


This is Bill Clinton, who, in 1993, effected the largest cuts to Medicare in the history of the program, backed by a Democratic Congress. That’s right. Bill Clinton cut Medicare significantly, and there was nary a peep from the high-profiled Liberals about in the day - not from Ted Kennedy in the Senate, not from Bernie Sanders, who was in the House at the time.


This is Bill Clinton, who abandoned any pretext to discussing healthcare reform after the same Democratic Congress slapped down his attempt. It was 17 years before this subject was addressed again, and this time it passed, successfully, despite the attempts of such so-called powerful Progressive voices like Jane Hamsher, to railroad the legislation.


This is Bill Clinton , who when the same Democratic Congress demurred allowing gays to serve openly in the military, instituted the Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell legislation, which the current President managed to get repealed.


This is Bill Clinton, whose was forced to compromise for six of the eight years he served as President, because in the 1994 Midterms, he not only lost the House, but also the Senate, and he had to deal with one Speaker Newt Gingrich, who - in and of his day - was just as uncompromising as the current crop of fools on the Hill. He compromised, and - sorry - but I didn’t hear any sort of objective rumblings from the likes of Joan Walsh, who was certainly palling around in the incipient cyber blogworld of the day. If there were grumblings, they were always directed at the Republicans pulling the strings.


This is Bill Clinton who signed off on NAFTA and repealed Glass Steagall and signed DOMA into law, and this is Bill Clinton, whose Cabinet officials and advisors included some of the current President’s most strident and vocal critics of the day, Robert Reich and James Carville.


This is Bill Clinton, or a mythologically progressive facsimile thereof, that scores of EmoProgs are channelling each day as the clock ticks down to Debt Ceiling Armageddon.


It’s so easy to make people from our past into historical giants to the point that the somehow begin to resemble the gods from Olympus. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, Johnson - all become some sort of purist role models of strength to be emulated, figures of such gigantic moral proportion that the current incumbent of the White House becomes almost prosaic in comparison. It says quite another thing about our historical perspective when certain of us project such onto contemporary high-profiled figures still with us, like President Clinton. And it becomes more than wishful thinking when someone with a bully pulpit like Chris Matthews forgets himself (again) and refers to President Clinton as the President, not once or twice, but regularly in a segment on his show.


Think again about President Carter’s words, and all the ugly rhetoric and language being directed at the President (that’s President Obama, thank you) by various and sundry voices from the Left, high-profiled media voices whose thoughts and opinions trickle down to the lesser mortals who are their sheeple.





Is this longing for a Clinton prototype just a longing for a President with a white face - you know, a President who’s more like the us most Progressives hanging about on blogsites are?


I supported Barack Obama’s candidacy from its beginning, and I’m a white, Southern woman. If you supported the centre-Left pragmatic realist that he was, good for you. If you supported a Progressive who was willing to die for single payer healthcare and ending all wars, you didn’t listen. Go to the back of the class and study more. If you supported Candidate Obama because you assumed a black man would be as radical as your Leftist Progressive values are, get real and get the designer sheets out of the closet. And if you supported Candidate Obama because you thought it would be cool to see a black man in the White House, grow up.


People like you are an embarrassment in that you give credence to literacy testing.