Frank Rich's Sunday NY Times column: "The Billary Road to Republican Victory"

[Faygo Kid]

By FRANK RICH
Published: January 27, 2008

IN the wake of George W. Bush, even a miracle might not be enough for the Republicans to hold on to the White House in 2008. But what about two miracles? The new year’s twin resurrections of Bill Clinton and John McCain, should they not evaporate, at last give the G.O.P. a highly plausible route to victory. . .

. . .In a McCain vs. Billary race, the Democrats will sacrifice the most highly desired commodity by the entire electorate, change; the party will be mired in déjà 1990s all over again. Mrs. Clinton’s spiel about being “tested” by her “35 years of experience” won’t fly either. The moment she attempts it, Mr. McCain will run an ad about how he was being tested when those 35 years began, in 1973. It was that spring when he emerged from five-plus years of incarceration at the Hanoi Hilton while Billary was still bivouacked at Yale Law School. And can Mrs. Clinton presume to sell herself as best equipped to be commander in chief “on Day One” when opposing an actual commander and war hero? I don’t think so. . . .

. . . If Mr. Obama doesn’t fight, no one else will. Few national Democratic leaders have the courage to stand up to the Clintons. Even in defeat, Mr. Obama may at least help wake up a party slipping into denial. Any Democrat who seriously thinks that Bill will fade away if Hillary wins the nomination — let alone that the Clintons will escape being fully vetted — is a Democrat who, as the man said, believes in fairy tales. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27rich.html?ref=opinion

[Diane R]

1. Wonderful. But I'm starting to wonder why the N.Y. Times endorsed Clinton, if the columnists don't.

[Faygo Kid]

2. I'll guarantee you Bill Kristol won't endorse Hillary on Monday

Or any other Dem, of course. The columnists go their own way. I read the NY Times and Washington Post every day, and I can tell you that the Post has two right wingers for every moderate/liberal columnist. Which you would expect from a pro-war cheerleader, but not from the Post that brought down Richard Nixon.

Which was a long time ago.

[Metta]

3. Rest of article is even better.

Thanks for posting.

[Demeter]

4. We Are SO DOOMED!

John McCain is the Reaganesque Father Figure the GOP Sheeple want and need to allay their anxieties about thinking for themselves. He's been broken to the leash by the GOP Powers-That-Be and is willing to toe whatever lines they draw. All parts of the GOP can cheerfully line up behind him.

McCain has to be brought down by a scandal that damages him in the Sheeple's eyes.

[Doctor_J]

5. Frankly I wasn't convinced before reading this

now I am. I don't think Clinton's chances of winning the GE are nearly as good as Obama's. Please reserve me a seat on the Obama Bandwagon

[NoFederales]

6. Heh, heh, heh; let's get it all out there ASAP before it's too late. And to

Clinton supporters yearning for their version of the "All In The Family" theme song--nostalgia will doom the Democratic Party.

NoFederales

[Joanne98]

7. This is very troubling.

Just before the holidays, investigative reporters at both The Washington Post and The New York Times tried to find out why, with no help from the Clintons. The Post uncovered a plethora of foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia. The Times found an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, some of whom might have an agenda with a new Clinton administration. (Much as one early library supporter, Marc Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had an agenda with the last one.) “The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat whose legislation to force disclosure passed overwhelmingly in the House but remains stalled in the Senate.

The Post and Times reporters couldn’t unlock all the secrets. The unanswered questions could keep them and their competitors busy until Nov. 4. Mr. Clinton’s increased centrality to the campaign will also give The Wall Street Journal a greater news peg to continue its reportorial forays into the unraveling financial partnership between Mr. Clinton and the swashbuckling billionaire Ron Burkle.

At “Little Rock’s Fort Knox,” as the Clinton library has been nicknamed by frustrated researchers, it’s not merely the heavy-hitting contributors who are under wraps. Even by the glacial processing standards of the National Archives, the Clintons’ White House papers have emerged slowly, in part because Bill Clinton exercised his right to insist that all communications between him and his wife be “considered for withholding” until 2012.

When Mrs. Clinton was asked by Mr. Russert at an October debate if she would lift that restriction, she again escaped by passing the buck to her husband: “Well, that’s not my decision to make.” Well, if her candidacy is to be as completely vetted as she guarantees, the time for the other half of Billary to make that decision is here.

The credibility of a major Clinton campaign plank, health care, depends on it. In that same debate, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Russert that “all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care” are “already available.” As Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reported weeks later, this is a bit off; he found that 3,022,030 health care documents were still held hostage. Whatever the pace of the processing, the gatekeeper charged with approving each document’s release is the longtime Clinton loyalist Bruce Lindsey.

[Joe Bacon]

8. SCREW YOU, RICH!

This bullshit is coming from the same asshole who kept telling us that Al Gore was the sleaziest person who ever sought the Presidency. Yes, Frank Bitch kept telling us in 2000 that Al Gore was a serial liar, making up the lie after lie, whether it involved Love Story, Love Canal, Father of the Internet, or lying about prescription costs. Bob Somerby's Daily Howler has ALL of Fart Face Frankies Falsehoods carefully documented in The Daily Howler

EARTH TO FLATULENT FRANK--THE CLINTONS AREN'T THE PROBLEM. YOU ARE!