Reply to recent Op Ed piece on Bill Clinton

TO: Sonya Ross, AP

 

I read your op ed piece today with interest, and  while I think you believe you are being clever, you are actually being racist yourself, and unfairly judgmental.

The frustration we have all sensed and seen in Bill Clinton has nothing to do with race. As you point out, he did more for the African Americans of this country than any president before.

His frustration stems from his being a powerful personality, accustomed to power, and a husband taking a very very personal, perhaps too personal, interest in his wife’s campaign.

No one cares about Michele Obama’s unskillful remarks, or if they do, it is not getting one fraction of the media attention that his every move does.

His frustration stems from the fact that H Clinton was clearly the front-runner going in, with 30 years under her belt, and then a new candidate with barely two, basically appears to be running away with the whole election.

Except that if Obama were unstoppable, she would not have been able to stop him, as she has. He has not won a single large state, and is not so far in the delegate count than anyone can ever say this is a foregone conclusion.

Obama may have had some high profile endorsements early on, but he has not sewn this up yet, and according the rules he continues to flout, he would be short on delegates too.

On the other hand, if he were a true Democrat, he would want to see the Michigan and Florida delegates seated.  He has stopped that from happening at every turn.

Why not seat them? Because they broke the rules? Why not have another primary? Decide it once and for all, fairly?

This is the source of B. Clinton’s frustration-because the quicksand shifted, and now the rules are out the window and bogging down not only his wife’s campaign, but the whole effort to win the White House.

He wants to see he getting on with the business of helping this country, not running the gauntlet of her critics over and over again, let alone Obama, with his rude sexist digs at her at every turn.

(And ask yourself this:  you don’t want to betray your race, Ms. Ross, but you are prepared to set back the cause of equal rights for women how many decades as you try to yank the rug out from under Hillary Clinton?)

Obama has shown what he is made of since he first came to our attention. A meteoric rise is usually followed by an equally meteoric fall.

She has stayed the course with guts and resilience, putting herself through what NO presidential candidate has EVER had to put up with before, or ever will in the future.

And believe me, I am NO fan-she is as flawed as the rest of the political candidates this country seems to be so super at churning out. I was rooting for Edwards myself until he started to look so weak and other issues started to crop up which make him look less and less electable.

I am not voting for Obama because he is so inexperienced, and because, as YOUR most recent AP poll showed, those of  us who do actually know who he is now see him to be inexperienced, unethical, and dishonest.

B. Clinton’s admiration for H. Clinton’s determination, for the sacrifices she has made for years, her energy, her efforts. He does not want to just sit back and see it all count for nothing in the end. Yes, she can still be a Senator, but everything she has done for years has been leading up to her becoming the kind of commander in chief that he was.

So it  makes him impatient, true, but it does NOT make him racist.

And as we have seen, and your article indicates, racism works both ways, and when combined with sexism, is particularly ugly.

B Clinton is impatient, as we all are, for her to win fair and square, as she will, and deservedly so, and then beat the stuffing out of McCain and get to the White House.

Why deservedly so? Because all the other horses in the field were not able to keep up with her, or catch up with her, and her victory is going to be in the face of the most outright sexism any reasonably intelligent, prosperous country, should completely reject in the same way that it should reject racism, ageism, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and so forth.

And because the alternative is 4 more years of Republican misrule, and more of the suffering the Bush administration has not only inflicted on the world with this war, but has resulted in the American people all now being plunged into the worst recession this country has seen in over 20 years.

Any true Democrat will want ALL the delegates to be seated, and any true PATRIOT will vote for the Democrat who wins, regardless of personal feeling, opinion, or any other hidden agenda, because the alternative of McCain is just too horrific to even contemplate.

The more everyone keeps producing devisive columns like yours, the less likely that is to happen.

We ALL have our opinions–you  using your position to inflame the race issue even further than you already claim it is, is completely irresponsible

And only makes all Obama supporters seem even more polarized and naive than they already do, especially after last week’s debate (or was it a debacle for Obama?)

It makes many people ask: are all Obama supporters all just strikingly fanatical-or racist and/or sexist themselves?

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A Clinton win IS still possible

A Clinton win IS still possible

I am so tired of hearing this bull about how H. Clinton’s defeat is inevitable.

Excuse me, but up until recently, there was a field of 5 candidates, and she looked the strongest by far, and indeed, unstoppable.

If she is as awful as everyone is now all trying to make her out to be, why was she not stopped dead in her tracks YEARS ago, not at the 11th hour of the Democratic campaign?

And she still has not been stopped.

Seat the delegates of Michigan and Florida, and THEN tell us who is winning.

If Obama really is a Democrat, he should be 100% in favor of those voters NOT being dis-enfranchised.

There is nothing inevitable about any of this except that if the Democrats don’t stop bickering, we will have an even more doddering Republican in the White House carrying on a war that has caused more suffering globally, and in our own country, than we have EVER suffered before, with no end in sight.

Any true patriot should vote for whoever wins the Democratic party nomination. End of story. Anything else truly IS bias.]

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Obama Debate, or Obama Debacle?

He is now complaining about the format of the debate that he clearly lost with his lackluster performance last night:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080417/ap_on_el_pr/obama_debate

Well, sorry, but do you seriously think, Mr. Obama, that the Republicans are going to go easy on you? Plus, the American people have a right to know who has the nerve to be trying to win the Democratic Party nomination, yet can’t even hold up to a bit of media scrutiny for the last couple of months compared to the resilience of Hillary Clinton, who has been in the public eye for 2 decades.

Your inexperience and inability to make a single unrehearsed point at this stage is patently showing, which is why the Democratic Party needs to give serious pause before awarding you the nomination.

And there are still key states who have NOT had their say, and key questions to be answered about Florida and Michigan delegates being seated and getting their say as part of the democratic process.

You complaining about the format of the debate is ridiculous–you had the floor for the first 45 minutes–you could have talked about anything you wanted. how can you be commander in chief if you can’t even have a commanding presence at a political debate? Sorry, but you are an empty suit.

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Disappointed in Obama? We Sure Are!

I am amazed by the latest fund-raising gambit from the Obama campaign.

In it he asks people to PROVE he is not out of touch with mainstream America by donating even more money to his campaign.

If he knew anything about ordinary working people, he would know that money is tight at the moment for everyone, PLUS a lot of us have had to file a little old thing called our taxes, and some of us owe money and don’t have the spare cash laying around to ‘prove’ he knows what he is talking about.

Even more ridiculous, is how ‘disappointed’ he is in Hillary for trying to use his appalling insensitivity. Really, as if he would not have jumped on this himself if she had ever been been so naive and gauche? Oh, yes, the man is a saint and choir boy-in his own mind.

So let’s get at the real truth, however unpalatable:

A lot of Americans are disappointed in YOU, Mr. Obama. Even life-long Democrats who can’t even imagine how bad another 4 years of Republican rule would be. We are disappointed because while you are undoubtedly a powerful speaker, you have failed to listen to ordinary Americans, and really HEAR them. All you hear is your own rhetoric and ambition. You are an empty suit! Sorry, but there it is.

We need a leader who is willing to learn from his or her own mistakes. You keep making the same ones over and over. And you have not even got anywhere near the Presidency yet.

You are also so divisive, you have basically threatened that if you are not on the ticket in November, ‘your’ people will not go out to vote.

No wonder people accuse you of arrogance.

You have done everything you can to stop the voters of Michigan and Florida from seating their delegates, or reaching any sort of amicable solution about them, and then have the nerve to claim you are a Democrat?

The people of Pennsylvania are the next to vote. For the sake of this country, if you lose that primary by a substantial margin, do this whole country a favor, and step aside.

Because if you can’t even take the heat within your own party over your dismissive and crass remarks, you will be fried to a cinder by the Republicans long before Election Day.

And don’t you dare ask for even more money to place even more ads to try to dupe people into thinking anything is going to change under your presidency, when you can’t even address the issues of this country in a serious and meaningful way. Let alone use your own errors as an opportunity to attack your opponents, or to try to scare people into donating by claiming it is the only way to avoid getting ‘more of the same.’

Bill Clinton was an exceptionally popular and excellent president. 75% of people polled said they would have elected him to a third term if it had been possible. People do NOT want anything to do with the Bush administration, and rightly so. But you are not the only game in town. And yes, there is a lot wrong with this country at the minute. But don’t blame others for YOUR own errors and failings.

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