Lady, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld
Hillary Clinton is not my favorite female politician. That “honor” (in sarcastic quotes because, really, is this something people fight over?) belongs to Bella Abzug, with close runners-up Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards. I didn’t support Hillary’s presidential run in 2008 because I disagreed with her support for the Iraq war. Still, I’ve always thought she was smart, thorough, a person committed to public service and respectful enough to the role of government in our lives to do her homework.
You could see that person in front of Congress this week. If you missed it, here’s a video. If you don’t like this one because you think the mainstream media is biased (especially that Diane Sawyer, whose liberal pedigree includes working for *gasp* Richard Nixon), try this.
In both, you’ll see a woman who is poised, who gives as good as she gets, and who doesn’t play the victim card.
She’s had years – nay, decades – of experience.
There were the rumors that she was an adulteress who had her lover murdered because he knew too much about her criminal activities.
Or that she is a lesbian who poses a security threat to the United States because she can’t control her appetites even in the presence of terrorists.
She has endured endless speculation about her marriage, about whether or not she really loves her husband or if, forty years ago, she decided that the road to world domination required her to hitch up with a bright kid from Arkansas. Because ambition is the only reason smart women ever get married.
On the merits of the Benghazi case, Clinton is being singled out by a partisan section of the Congress, which is, I know, a huge surprise. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be an investigation, because people died, and any sane person wants to prevent that from happening again. What I fail to understand is why four people shot by terrorists in Libya is more of important and requires more outrage by the GOP than 20 children and six adults shot by a terrorist in Connecticut.
I don’t know if Clinton plans to run for president in 2016. She’s being touted as the front-runner, but she was also touted as the front-runner in 2005, and we know how that turned out. I don’t know if she’ll be my candidate if she does choose to run.
I do know, as an adult woman who has had her own personal life attacked by people who don’t like my politics, that I know what her decision might cost her.
Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, would not run for President ever, much to your relief.
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January 26th, 2013 at 10:51 am
Favorite female politician?
Tough one. So many women…Sappho, Joan of Arc, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mother Teresa, Martha Thomases, Odetta,..
During her testimony last week, Hilary demonstrated brass ovaries. She hung tough.
Not easy to be in the limelight as often as she has been–accused of all sorts of shite. Hard to be a smart, articulate woman who is accepted.
Wouldn’t that be something…to follow a two term African-American president with a woman!
Elephants might flee to , where?
Canada? Socialist health system.
England? Socialist health system.
Mexico? Yeah, right.
Nigeria? Yeah, right.
When Bobby Jindahl stated this week that elephants have to be more realistic and open to the new political realities in American life, it was lol time. Can you see a new platform built on diversity for this crowd?
I hope Hillary runs. I hope she wins.
First Lady Bill!
January 26th, 2013 at 10:59 am
Hillary “was an adulteress who had her lover murdered because he knew too much about her criminal activities.Or that she is a lesbian who poses a security threat to the United States because she can’t control her appetites even in the presence of terrorists.”
Why is that either/or? She could be both. Anybody dig Vince Foster up for a DNA test? Why not? What are they hiding?
Hillary jumped into the Republicans’ trick-bag and kicked ass and took no prisoners. The best the sickening liars of the Right could do was quote her maliciously out of context by cutting her off at ““What difference, at this point, does it make?” Her VERY NEXT sentence, which you never see on Fox Lies, was “It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.”
The bastards were trying to cut off a 2016 presidential run. Instead, these fools did much to promote such a run. If she runs, and 2016 is a long way off, she will kick ass and leave the Republican cocksuckers bloodied, bruised, and effectively out of business.
January 26th, 2013 at 1:59 pm
You would make a fine President! Run for Borough something and get started. It is the next step for mature activists!
January 27th, 2013 at 6:57 am
Tom, you’re adorable, but I’ve taken too many drugs and slept with too many people to get nominated for anything.
January 27th, 2013 at 11:06 am
Even here in Brazil, the Clintons are seem almost unanymously as great, and Clinton’s presidency as one of the best. Almost as unanymously as Bush is seen as lousy.
The irony is that the people who hate the Clintons around here with the sort of gusto that the American Right displays, are the communists, the radical anti-Americans, the Hugo Chavez fanboys.
These guys always prefer it when the American President is a right-wing caricature, like Bush or Palin, that fit very well into the stereotype of the Ugly American. Communists are like Muslim Radicals: they throw big parties when Republicans attain power in the US.
A real statesman like Bill Clinton gets them really angry, because they lose their ability to incite the people against the American Satan.
January 27th, 2013 at 12:56 pm
Martha, how is that different from other pols?
January 27th, 2013 at 4:25 pm
What I’d like to know is why the Democrats are so up in arms about the terrorist involved in the Connecticut shooting but made little noise about the tens of thousands of people — mostly minority, mostly Democrats (or sons and daughters of Democrats), and many children — who have been gunned down in Chicago over the past 30-40 years. One would think that would have been a priority during the past four years — especially since the president is a minority and he, and many of those in his administration, are from Chicago.
It all appears to boil down to politics, doesn’t it?
January 27th, 2013 at 6:41 pm
@ Russ..excellent question. And one that’s absolutely right to ask of both the Donks and Phants. And we also know the answer.
@ Martha…interesting that Rand has given Hillary (“should she decide to accept the mission”)a pretty golden sound bite for her campaign…”If Hill was the Prez, she wudda fixed this fiscal mess!”
@ Rene…tragic news coming out of Brasil…
January 28th, 2013 at 7:44 am
Reg — More politics and PR playing out today. It was announced the president will be meeting with the police chiefs of three places where there were mass murders.
Minorities in cities like Chicago are getting ignored again — just like they’ve been ignored for the past four decades. The body counts in these places are literally thousands of times greater, yet, there’s never been a sense of urgency to tackle the root causes of those deaths.
The way it works in Chicago is lip service is paid to concerned minority civic leaders as long as the murdering is confined to the minority neighborhoods.
Oh, yeah… And the vast majority of killings in those neighborhoods don’t even involve assault rifles.
It’s a disgrace, that’s what it is.
January 28th, 2013 at 8:15 am
If anything I’ve said causes you to think that I am in favor of the slaughter of children in Chicago, please show it to me.
The problems in Chicago include the number of guns in the hands of criminals, usually obtained through criminal (i.e. illegal) means.
If we are going to say that gun laws shouldn’t be tightened (or exist at all) because people will get guns anyway, then I’d like to know why you’re in favor of laws against abortion.
January 28th, 2013 at 1:11 pm
Reg –
Yes. It’s revolting to know that it will happen again. I avoid any place in Brazil with lots of crowds in closed areas. Government corruption that means places with no security can get permits. Staff with no training in how to handle emergencies. Laws that are too lax in dealing with anyone that has money and/or commits a big crime (while minor crimes sometimes get disproportionate large sentences). Recipe for tragedy.
January 29th, 2013 at 11:07 pm
Martha — You brought up the children in Connecticut — apparently in an effort to temper criticism of Clinton regarding the loss of four adults in Benazi.
And all I did is point out that defending Clinton by comparing body counts and the ages of the victims is a political response that is not based on any serious historic attempts by Democrats to solve a much greater problem that has ravaged their own community for more than threedecades.
I rightly ask, where was the indignation and sense of urgency among Democrats BEFOE the Connecticut tragedy?
I also rightly ask, what major steps in the past four years has this administration taken to tackle the urban violence issue that has plagued minorities in cities like Chicago for many, mny decades?
Why did it take them this long to feel a sense of urgency? It smacks of political appeasement more than anything else — especially since assault weapons are rarely the weapon of choice in most urban murders. In fact, I’ll wager big dough that far more people are killed with no use of firearms than are killed with assault weapons.
Everything I’ve seen so far has been knee-jerk politics that will do little, if anything, to end killings in Chicago and elsewhere.
January 29th, 2013 at 11:08 pm
Benazi = Bengazi
January 30th, 2013 at 7:27 am
I don’t think urban violence in areas with poverty has anything to do with what happened in Connecticut. Different problems, different root causes, different solutions. Urban violence is mostly a product of poverty, population density, ethnic unrest. Lonely middle class white males going on spree killings in suburban settings are probably a cross of failure in psychological assistance and loose gun laws.
Yes, I know you have a pathological need to castigate liberals in all occasions using the plight of minorities in Chicago, but you can’t end all killings in all places with the same set of solutions.
And more, it’s a sad fact of life that people have gotten used to urban violence. They shouldn’t have, but they did. It happens all over the world. But white kids going crazy in quite little suburbs and commiting mass killing still gets a greater public reaction, even though number of killings pales next to everybody killed in urban hells in little, discrete murders. Sad, but true.
January 30th, 2013 at 9:10 am
Rene — let me be blunt: democrats historically pay lip service to minority deaths, so their sudden indignation regarding the deaths in connecticut smacks is hypocritical and smacks of politics. In fact, the historical lack of meaningful interest and action regarding the “accepted” deaths of thousands of minority deaths can’t be explained any other way than closet racism.
January 30th, 2013 at 9:12 am
Geez,l wish there was an edit function for these iphone posts
January 30th, 2013 at 5:45 pm
Martha, as always, you are right on target:
“What I fail to understand is why four people shot by terrorists in Libya is more of important and requires more outrage by the GOP than 20 children and six adults shot by a terrorist in Connecticut.”
Well-said. Thank you!
January 31st, 2013 at 10:01 am
“What I fail to understand is why four people shot by terrorists in Libya is more of important and requires more outrage by the GOP than 20 children and six adults shot by a terrorist in Connecticut.”
Because 20 children and 6 adults shot by a terrorist in Connecticut was not purported to be anything other than that. And the Democratic Party had not just spent a few days in Charlotte NC the week before proclaiming that mentally-disturbed individuals shooting innocents was no longer a problem.
No one in the administration maintained for two weeks that the Connecticut shooting was the result of something that they knew to be false.
The question, I suspect, was rhetorical. Benghazi was important because emphasizing it would be bad for the Democrats and good for the Republicans two months before an election.
January 31st, 2013 at 11:02 am
Russ’ point has been made even more poignantly relevant in that one of Chicagoan teens that participated in the inaugural parade was shot to death Tuesday. Unfortunately, I predict that the tragedy of this beautiful young girl’s murder will fall off the media’s screen after today…because the only noteworthy (from the mainstream’s POV) aspect of her life was her being in the parade.
Of course maybe if she had…
January 31st, 2013 at 11:18 am
Most of the guns on the streets of those two Chicago neighborhoods (greater Lawndale and Englewood, where most of these murders are concentrated) come from Central America, particularly from Guatemala. This is and long has been an old-fashioned gang war, and as I’ve pointed out before historically Chicago hasn’t been very good at putting down gang wars. These neighborhoods have long looked like Beirut — there aren’t very many “civilians” still there, and those that are are either too old and/or too poor to move. So like their predecessors in the grand old beer days, people get caught up in the crossfire. Particularly kids, many of whom are directly involved in gang activities because if they’re busted the sanctions aren’t as ugly. And therefore kids who don’t flash back the right hang sign run a risk.
But, really, who gives a fuck about gang members and poor people who are largely Hispanic and/or black? They don’t have any clout.
There are two ways to minimize gun violence in Chicago. The first it to export the drug trade to the ‘burbs. Other megalopolises have been quite successful at this, particularly out here in the New York area. It’s more convenient for the customer, it’s safer for the gang workers, and it saves gasoline. The second is to simply legalize all this drug shit anyway, reduce the costs while raising much needed tax revenue, and let people die with needles in their arms instead of bullets in children’s brains.
Really, it’s just a matter of priorities.
January 31st, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Russ, it probably involves closet racism, but I wouldn’t put it in the Democrat’s tab.
The only reason Republicans want to downplay what happened in Connecticut is because it involved guns and the second amendment, their objects of worship, second only to God.
Let’s say that instead of guns and a white guy, it had been a bomb and a muslim guy in Connecticut. THEN the Republicans would have been screaming bloody murder to all Muslims and probably you wouldn’t be complaining of them making political use of it.
And the Republicans themselves are the guys that have been devaluing the lives of poor urbanites since the 1960s. A poor black kid is killed in Chicago and no one gives a damn, is that at all surprising? The GOP has been hammering for decades that your value as a human being depends on how much money you make and/or how much you adhere to some stereotype of saintly, rural America.
The plight of poor people don’t get a lot of airtime in America, because CLASS WAR is bad and a forbidden concept, you know. We’re only supposed to feel sympathy for real humans, i.e. non-moochers.
January 31st, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Reg — You can say the rest of it: “…been white.”
I excorcerated the Chicago Tribune during the height of the Iraq War for their constant emphasis on war dead coverage — most of whom were not even from the Chicago area — while practically ignoring the alarming and shameful almost daily death toll of their own readership. One of the editors, obviously stung by the validity of my assertion lamely tried to defend his paper’s record, but it rang hollow — probably to both of us.
A few weeks later, the Tribune started a screaming headline, multi-part series about Chicago’s murder problem. I don’t know if it was in the works or if I guilted them into it, but I do know it was something they should have done long before, and it’s something they should keep doing until Chicago’s murder rate drops to a more nationally ambient level.
And shame on any Democrat who doesn’t make this ongoing tragedy in cities across America a top priority — not some relatively rare wacko anomaly in Connecticut.
January 31st, 2013 at 3:31 pm
Rene — Your contention that Republicans are mostly rich guys doesn’t jive with reality. Most Republicans I’ve known are are middle class or lower class — you know, those “rubes” Obama once famously chided for clinging to their guns and religion.
January 31st, 2013 at 3:39 pm
I meant “excoriated”
January 31st, 2013 at 3:46 pm
My father was a Republican and as a farmer, subject to the whims of the weather and commodities prices, rarely made enough money in a year to brag about. His favorite president was Eisenhower. The Kennedy’s, who were emblematic of the Democrat Party, were of course millionaires.