THE SMALLNESS of our Politics

[RazBerryBeret]

Time's article about the debate and highlightng a quote from Obama's "The Audacity of Hope"

Obama's memoir dripped with contempt for modern gotcha politics, for a campaign culture obsessed with substantively irrelevant but supposedly symbolic gaffes like John Kerry ordering Swiss cheese or Al Gore sighing or George H.W. Bush checking his watch or Michael Dukakis looking dorky in a tank. "What's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics—the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial," he wrote.


I think that sums it up pretty well, a never-ending illegal war, economy in the dumper, foreclosures all around us--but let's focus on the trivial. (again)

entire article here:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1731655,00.html

[truedelphi]

1. Here's Clinton's defense (Time quotes her)

Clinton's main argument was that she can beat John McCain because she's already been vetted in this culture, "having gone through 16 years on the receiving end of what the Republican Party dishes out." She's basically saying that her dirty laundry — the questionable money she made in cattle futures, the Travelgate firings, her kiss of Suha Arafat, her husband's pardons, the unpleasantries of 1998 — is no longer newsworthy, and the mere fact of her political survival shows that it's irrelevant.

"I have a lot of baggage, and everyone has rummaged through it for many years," she said

My comments -
Her baggage is quite what worries me. Did the Clinton Presidency do much for the USA?

On the plus side, Bill shrewdly kept the budget at a surplus, thus insuring that perhaps those of us who have paid into Social Se4curity will someday be able to collect.

I also believe that he tried to offer some warning to the Bush Administration - that if heeded may have prevented 9./11.

Not unimportant things.

But when it came to health care, the Clintons folded. They did not possess the legislative power and ability to "LBJ" the things that we need through Congress.

They helped push through NAFTA, helped make any sort of meaningful campaign finance reform impossible, and also brought forth the bank de-regulation reform bill of 1999. That bill has enabled the financial Powers that Be to almost push us over the edge economically, and with the current socialism for the failing bank institutions deflating the dollar, will probabby due us in over the next sixty days.

If not sooner.

If Senator Clinton does manage to become the nominee, Obama may actually realize that he avoided being in the WH to oversee the coming Biggest Depression ever. And he may just breath a sigh of relief.

[jpertello]

2. Obama Campaign responds

David Plouffe, emphasizing Hillary's attacks again and again. An excerpt...

"Tonight we saw a real choice between the old politics of point-scoring and distraction and a politics that focuses on bringing us together to actually solve the challenges we talk about every single election. Continuing the theme of her campaign, Senator Clinton used every single opportunity she had to launch misleading attack after misleading attack against Barack Obama, which is why polls show that most Americans think she's running the most negative campaign and don't believe she's trustworthy."

[woolldog]

3. Great article. Thanks.