San Diego Union Tribune: Sen. Clinton is new villain of the angry left

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
Political cannibals

Sen. Clinton is new villain of the angry left

December 9, 2005

A peculiar thing is happening on the left of the American political spectrum. The intensity of many liberals' opposition to the Bush administration and the U.S. war in Iraq – so strong that by 2003 comparisons of George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler had become passé– in faculty lounges and on leftist Web sites – has now taken a new form: a continuous attempt to purge the Democratic Party of anyone who doesn't believe we're living under the Fourth Reich.

If you think that's extreme, you haven't been paying attention to the recent treatment of Sen. Hillary Clinton by the 21st-century version of the New Left. It doesn't matter that the New York Democrat once led the strongest push yet seen for a government takeover of health care; is the most avid supporter of abortion rights; is a passionate defender of every last environmental cause; is a reliable denouncer of tax cuts and entitlement reform. The list establishing her liberal bona fides could go on and on.

But according to Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, the Huffington Post and Daily Kos Web sites, and many other pundits and celebrities on the left, none of this matters. Because Clinton voted for the Iraq war in October 2002 and now objects to calls for an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops, she is a "DINO" (Democrat In Name Only), a traitor, a stooge of the military-industrial complex, a phony and quite a few other epithets unsuitable for a family newspaper.

(snip)

That's because the many bright people in this 15 percent or 20 percent of the electorate know Democrats can't elect a president without support from millions of moderates or independents. To win, the party must reach out to centrists – including people who backed the war or who regret the decision to go to war yet think a pullout would be catastrophic. But this faction just doesn't care. It would rather have the Democratic Party be a small tent full of ideological clones who hold centrist sellouts and Red State America in equal contempt than a big tent that could actually change national politics. And it is so influential that its spiritual leader, Howard Dean, is party chairman.

(snip)


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051209/news_lz1ed9bottom.html

There are lots like her. Some just don't support her any more.

She chose that stance, she has to live with the consequences.

They're in complete disarray :sarcasm:

the dems are really in trouble now, eh? :-)

I've never seen the Democratic party so focussed as it is now. The rest is marketing.

is the target, but no one else as frequently or vehemently is attacked it seems.

said he was a uniter not a divider, he wasn't a country builder, would bring integrity back to the WH. He ran as a moderate. I don't believe making 1/2 the population miserable is the way to go for either side. My way or the highway isn't ever going to work in this country. While there are issues with the Iraq vote I don't believe for a second that the core Dems did anything less than what they thought was right for this country at the time. They responded to the fears of the majority of the country. I will say with pride that Wellstone voted against the war. Unfortunately he is gone. At any rate we are there and need to figure out how to get out. The time is for solutions and ideas not mudslinging and further divisions.

on blogs and message boards.

Yes, the political system was changed by the Internet. But this is also a place for many to hide behind the anonymity of the Internet and to vent and to take a strong position and to refuse to compromise, while politics is compromise.

So we have here people attacking Clinton and Lieberman and, I suppose Kerry and Dean - anyone who does not follow a very tight line determined by - who, exactly?

I think that most of us, Democrats, not DUers, do not necessarily follow everything that Sheehan does or that Roger Moore does, or even the Daily Kos. We are grateful for them to illuminate a different way of looking at things but even their 15 min of fame soon fade away. Until the next opportunity.

And, the Presidential elections are 3 years away. At this time last cycle, Lieberman was the top choice... a simple name recognition.

is the question! Your comments about the article are accurate in my opinion. I hadn't thought of the viewpoint of new avenues for venting and strong postions before. That is very true.

What a surprise.

:eyes:

those who thought the war was all right or not but we have to stay now..yada yada yada.

Good Luck to them with their Bullshit.

So be it. I return every request for donations to her with a note that when she quits being Bush Lite, I might donate.

She's endorsing our kids dying in Iraq daily for no reason. Maybe she needs to look at www.icasualties.org to see what she's signing onto.

That means to get out of Iraq and give up on Empire. It means cutting back on the military budget meant to maintain full spectrum dominance forever. It means ending a drug war when we should have known better after the violence and corruption of alcohol prohibition. It means calling bullshit on "free trade" and reigning in corporate nations that outnumber real nations in the top 100 based on revenue.

It means calling bullshit on the show where some stand up like the Washington Generals when everyone knows the bill is going to pass. It means calling for breaking up the 6 largest media companies immediately with the commitment of a true warrior instead of some friendly Senator that dines in the elegance of the taxpayer dining room reserved for the 100 chosen "leaders." It means saying that it is only American to have a straight up vote for President and demand that a majority vote is required for every elected office.

It means getting the priorities straight and not call for rearranging the furniture as the Titanic sinks. Besides that I have not heard of Hillary calling for national health care in whisper mode, much less in let's pick the best model of the industrial nations to follow. I have not heard her call for a roleback of the trade agreements that seek to bypass the sovereignty of nations and allow a race for the bottom of wages so that we might have a perfect Plantation Earth.

I haven't heard Hillary say this is no way to run a country or that Bush is a war criminal or the worst president ever. I have not heard Hillary say, if it does not have a paper trail it is not a voting machine. I cannot even figure out why Hillary would be a better president than me, much less all the other hundreds of millions that did not sit in the Senate and let the country hit the bottom of hell and then ask for money to start digging.

Corruption of the entire system is not a left or right issue as if anyone has a definitive list of traits for what is left or right. Some things are just right and some things are just wrong. Liberals and conservatives both philosophically oppose a drug war, yet we have one in full failure.

Why doesn't Hillary give a speech on the benefits and evils of Empire when that is the issue before the planet? Because it is all an illusion hiding behind distractions and entertainment, whipped up hate and, thank goodness a diminishing ignorance of the big picture.

And the above article leaves out what keeps most people home on voting day- they do not see how either candidate is going to change much of anything. What we need is a populist revolution that seeks the best path instead of failed representatives seeking to keep us on a path of ruin.

I don't even know if Cindy Sheehan is on the left, don't have to be liberal to be against the war, think Pat Buchanan.

But Hillary does have a problem, She is trying to please everyone, and will end up pleasing no one. She could end up joining the vast right wing conspiracy and become her own worst enemy.

San Diego has huge Navy and Marine bases and huge defense contractors, and the UT knows what side their bread is buttered on.

So, even though the paper has a heavy right wing bias, it makes perfect sense that they'd stand up for pro-war Dems.

Donations won't flow to pro war dems from the working class. If they take corporate donations they are no different from W.

From the exerpts posted here I don't think the newspaper is being unfair -- they're simply describing the phenomenon we're all experiencing, and some of us are participating in.

I think the Hillary-bashing is unseemly and divisive, and I think it amounts to cutting off your nose to spite your face. But that's just my opinion.

I've argued her bona fides before this, and will undoubtedly do so again...

Hekate

:rofl::rofl: