The Clinton’s are back in action again- smearing their distinct brand of shameful calumny all over the democratic primaries. Don’t take it from me, a life-long republican who has been decrying these sleazy creatures since they started lowering the bar for public discourse by publicly destroying Gennifer Flowers in 1991. Consider Vanity Fair’s Bruce Feirstein’s characterization of Clinton as a ‘nasty man: …Bill trots around South Carolina like some kind of thuggish company hit-man, attacking Obama’s character, provoking him on race, dissembling about his record, and attempting to diminish—and dismiss—the appeal of Obama’s candidacy by predicting that he’ll win because of the black vote. Ergo, he’s a single-constituency candidate. And the goal is to triangulate him into oblivion. It’s the same old Clinton game, over and over: …There is no yesterday that can’t be rewritten; there is no consideration about the blowback from all this tomorrow. The only thing that matters is winning, or appearing to win, at no matter what cost, today.” Watching Clinton disgrace himself, his presidency’s legacy and his party all over again reminds me just how much of a disgrace he and Hilary are to our country –and how they tend to embody the worst in our culture. They are the Paris Hiltons of politics- debauched scandal-mongers who stop at nothing to ‘succeed’ in this media driven culture of celebrity and slander.
It strikes me as unfortunate and so typically human that the tables have turned squarely against so many of the very liberals who bought into the Clintons’ politics of personal destruction in the ‘90s, when it was directed at Clinton’s ex-girlfriends, sexually harassed whistleblowers and other republicans and ‘obstacles to power.’ Now that millions of liberals are interested in supporting a new star in the democratic party- one whose name is not Clinton- they are feeling Bill Clinton’s pain in ways they never imagined.
Consider the Washington Post’s proudly liberal E.J. Dionne: “Doesn't calling in Bill Clinton as the lead attacker merely underscore Obama's central theme, that it's time to "turn the page" on our Bush-Clinton-Bush political past? And with both Clintons on record saying kind things about Reagan, why go after Obama on the point? Honestly: If Obama is a Reaganite, then I am a salamander. Yet there was Hillary Clinton's campaign, unveiling a radio ad on Wednesday implying that Obama bought into such ideas as ‘refusing to raise the minimum wage.’ Come on, guys.”
The Clinton attack machine is working, perhaps too well. Its success at dismantling Obama’s campaign ‘at any cost’ may come with a higher price tag than even Hilary can cover- awakening a sense of moral indignation in the hearts and minds of many liberal, former-Clinton turned Obama supporters. Many members of the democratic base that for years cheered the Clinton attack machine, as it destroyed the lives of many members of ‘the vast right wing conspiracy’, are now seeing the truly dark nature behind the Clinton curtain.
A similar sense of shameful reflection and disappointing self-discovery is happening to republicans as well. It is appropriate to distinguish between the personal and dirty nature of the attacks from the Clinton camp and the more broad and political nature of the fire on the right. With the emergence of John McCain as a valid contender for the nomination, the voices of extremism and distortion on the far right have come haunting into the ears of so many who cheered them for so long when they were attacking the ‘real’ enemies in the democratic party. But now their ire has shifted to John McCain for his transgressions on immigration, campaign finance and taxes.
Everybody’s favorite voice of reason, Rush Limbaugh, said this week that McCain’s nomination would ‘ruin the republican party.’ Stephen Hayes of the National Review writes “Other conservative politicians--or former politicians--have taken their anti-McCain arguments to absurd lengths. Take Tom DeLay, for instance, whose K Street pandering led to numerous indictments and contributed greatly to the Republican losses in 2006. The former House majority leader said, without a trace of irony in his voice, that John McCain ‘has done more to hurt the Republican Party than any elected official I know of’.”
Malevolent race-bating this is not, but it is unreasonable and unsavory- "That's just so preposterous," said conservative supply-sider Jack Kemp. "I don't agree with McCain on several things. He's gotten right on the economy. He's right on foreign policy. And he's right on the war on terror."
As a champion of contemporary conservatism, and a former employee of Jack Kemp’s, I too support John McCain -on the issues and on his character. I do not support Barrack Obama on policy, and don’t honestly know how to assess his character other than to appreciate his inspiring rhetoric and to respect his efforts to define himself as an American leader, rather than an African-American candidate. I have more disdain for the despicable tactics of his opponent than I do respect for his policy positions. But the real clarion call here is for all partisans to taste the poison we may have previously savored when it was being spat not at us but onto our opponents. Friendly fire kills. And it costs, despite what the Clintons may think.
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