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I think some of the wild bitterness in this primary cycle arises from frustration that this campaign is not about retribution. Bush and Cheney should live out their lives behind bars in The Hague. That much is beyond reasonable debate. But it goes beyond that. In a just world everyone who even voted for Bush would be deported to an uninhabited island; quarantined like an infection.
But that’s not going to happen, and I doubt any Democrat could win the 2008 election on a platform that 50% of 2004 voters should be deported to Monster Island.
An idealist watching a political campaign is like someone watching an Olympic high-hurdles race getting frustrated that the runners are too dumb to realize it would be faster to run around the hurdles. Bullshit, and ONLY bullshit, wins Presidential elections.
I was thinking about this a while back pondering Hillary’s “no apologies” IWR stance. On the surface it seems delusional. I didn’t think she’d be able to maintain it, but I was wrong. It’s actually quite clever.
Her stance is not a quirk of personality; it is a rigid, crafted campaign rule that was almost certainly devised by Bill, the best politician we have ever seen. A substantial majority of Americans supported the war (just like Hillary), turned on the war (just like Hillary), are worried about pulling out prematurely (just like Hillary) and are in no mood to apologize for supporting the war in the first place (just like Hillary)
It is the quintessence of all things Clintonian. Slippery, but highly effective if one’s objective is to actually win an election.
The reason Obama gets little traction with “I was smart enough to oppose the war” is the same reason Al Gore (who I adore) has concluded that he’s not cut out for American electoral politics. Whatever the problem is, the American people are largely responsible for it, they know it, and they don’t want their nose rubbed in their own idiocy.
Obama’s boasts of prescience and Edwards’ apologies can only appeal to people who never supported the war, and are proud of having never supported the war. Unfortunately, that’s only about a half of Democratic voters and only 25%-30% of the overall American electorate. Similarly, condemning Hillary as, “dumb enough to be fooled by George Bush” is not very effective in an electorate that gave Bush 90% approval ratings at one time.
Any politician who truly spoke truth to power would say, “This is you people’s fucking fault. You vote for morons and obsess over trivia. You are self-pitying drama queens who belong on a reality show, not in a voting booth.” That sounds like something I would say, but not anything like something Bill Clinton would say. (And that’s why I’m an embittered hermit and Bill Clinton is the only Democrat I have ever seen re-elected.)
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