Before I delve into a couple of Hillary-centric things (you may have heard about her on the news this weekend), I must include a preface about Hillary and her husband William. Here it is: I do not like the Clintons. I think that most of the successes of the William Clinton Administration were grossly overexaggerated and I find William and Hillary to be the sort of people who will stab you in the face while smiling and apologizing for the burden that is stabbing you in the face. It should also be noted that the reason I do not like the Clintons is not born out of some vague form of feigned exasperation along the lines of “Oh, they’re the Devil” or “How can you like them? Look what they did!” that seems to be vomited out of those who make up the anti-Bush and anti-Republican segment.
My problem with the Clintons is that they represent the worse form of apathetic and emotion-driven thinking. To say that you like the Clinton’s (I’m talking strictly about the rabid followers and other apologists, not the ones who voted for them merely because they thought their opponents were pointless to vote for) is to say that you secretly hate life while outwardly extolling its virtues. Sure, there is some hyperbole in that last sentence but the point is this: if you are a big supporter or apologist of Hillary or William Clinton you are no different (in any respect at all) than the blind supporters and apologists for Fox News, President Bush, or Exxon. Understanding that is the key to understanding the political Rosetta Stone that we all so badly want to claim as our own.
There is this huge misconception that has taken hold of our country since 1991 that the Clintons are just like you and me—that they hate big business, have a desire to cut big government, and are all-around good guys. The Bush’s (H.W. and W.) are from privilege and attended Yale; the Clinton’s were middle class and borderline poor and had to work to get into a good college. The Bush’s are below average public speakers; William represents the very essence of the great modern day public speaker (Hillary is average but more consistent than the Bush’s). And on and on. Good versus evil. Entitlement versus middle class. Because we are a country that loves labels it was very easy to see that William was far superior to George H.W. in the ’92 election. Youth versus age. New Government versus Old Government. Unfettered Idealism versus Stodgy Cronyism. When William went on MTV and George H.W. scoffed at an MTV interview, the labels were set: William was cool and became the closest embodiment of a rock star than any previous President America had ever seen, whereas George H.W. was seen as an old Establishment guy who didn’t belong. Fast forward to 1996 and you have Clinton running against another old Establishment guy who didn’t belong (Bob Dole) and an eccentric old guy who didn’t belong (Ross Perot) and it was pretty clear Clinton would win again.
Like a coach running a team that already has an established core of healthy veterans—if you win you’re a genius, if you don’t you’re worthless—Clinton oversaw a country that was becoming increasingly wealthy in almost every aspect that could only be disrupted with a phenomenal amount of energy put forth into stunting it (excluding the Internet stock bubble, of course). People’s salaries became higher, disposable income became higher, unemployment went down, technology rapidly advanced at every turn, and so on and so forth. What is funny about the early- and mid-90′s is that it is never compared correctly to the Wall Street/Wall Street-era 80′s. Ask anyone to summarize the early 80′s and it will be “the rich got richer” this and the “it was a time of extravagance” that. To be sure, there were a lot of rich people in the early 80′s but didn’t Hollywood completely distort that reality? Aside from Miami, New York, and Los Angeles, how fervent and perverse was the greedy, coke-riddled, morally unethical financial sector-inhabiting male?
From where I sit, it looks as though the 90′s was the tipping point for real greed. Yes, the 80′s had Ferraris, exquisite jewelry and clothes, designer brands, and cocaine but the 90′s informed us that it was okay to get that $10,000 oven, $5,000 marble backsplash for your kitchen, or $65,000 SUV that would rollover with ease and get twelve miles to the gallon. The toys of the latter were reserved for the rich, whereas the toys of the former have become the playground for the Everyman. These contradictions are at the very heart of why I dislike the Clintons and their supporters. Anti-Reagan people equate Reagan with Gordon Gekko, cocaine, the mass incarceration of minorities with the War On Drugs, and reckless greed in every sector. That’s fine. But do not overlook the de-regulation that went on with the Clinton Administration or that the 90′s saw the proliferation of outrageous personal debt per American and the insatiable desire to buy things that were once in the realm of the upper class. Basically, the cocaine of the 80′s was replaced by the Viking kitchen of the 90′s.
Instead, for the most part, William is looked at with the utmost reverence when compared to George W. (or Reagan). People remember the good times they had with William but conveniently forget the part his Administration played in almost everything that has happened since January 2001. William made massive cuts to the military during his tenure, refused to approve the head shot on bin Laden when he could have been killed in Yemen, and his overall pacifist foreign policy (the crown jewel of his foreign policy, to me, being that he apologized to the Japanese on behalf of the US for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). I am not saying that William is wholly at fault for 9/11 but there were seeds from his Administration that bloomed during Bush’s. (If you really want to get technical, you can make a case that the events leading up to 9/11 can be traced as early as Nixon accepting payoffs from the Saudis in the early 70′s.)
At every turn, William dodged bullets mostly due to an apathetic (yet rabid when they wanted to be) fan base. Take Monica Lewinsky, for instance. William obstructed justice, perjured himself to a grand jury, and lied to America with a straight face about it. The result? He was able to convince everyone to be convinced that she was a whore. Everything you need to know about how our society now operates can be gleaned from that one event. The fact that an overwhelming majority of a nation was quick to bury a woman who blew the President (a President that had a rather large list of other affairs and lawsuits filed by other women, by the way) then gave him a free pass for breaking federal laws all in the name of “sex is a private matter” is still mind-boggling. People wonder why women have it tough in the workplace or why voters mostly choose men over women in politics, well, all you have to is think about all of the women who were quick to defend William while casting Lewinsky as the worst kind of whore. Does blowing the President make you come across as being gold digger-ish? A little bit. But to defend someone who holds the highest level of power imaginable and use it to get a twenty-something to perform sexual acts is really something that all women at the time should have abhorred at.
If you, to this day, see the Lewinsky scandal as being something that was brought on by her or that Clinton had every right to lie about because “it was a private matter” you are pretty obviously someone who would rather have the government be in charge of everything. You are probably the type of person who is vehemently against the war but offers no alternative solution, save for retreating. You are probably the type of person who feels that $4.50 for a gallon of gas is the end of the world or is indicative of today’s problems, yet conveniently overlooking that gas is always cyclical and this too shall pass. The price of gas and the war in Iraq is not the problem with our country. It is the fact that we live in a country wherein Bush sucks because he’s Bush and Hillary Clinton lost the nomination because Obama was black or the media liked Obama.
Hillary Clinton is an immensely divisive human being and politician and she lost because her campaign missed the boat on Obama entirely. They were convinced that he was not going to run and that they would only have to worry about John Edwards. It didn’t happen. Obama ran and people liked him and voted for him. Only people like the Clintons could be so wholly divisive towards Obama, his voters, and the Democratic Party and then turn it all against them by waiting until the last minute to concede.
Now, there are rumblings that Hillary should be Barack’s Vice President. Again, only someone like her could run a debacle of a campaign, disparage every aspect of Obama and his voters, blame the media, then turn around and put feelers in the press about how she commands so many votes and that if he doesn’t pick her he’ll lose. To me, the Clintons represent so many things that are wrong with how people act and think today. Yes, George W. is a terrible public speaker. Yes, his Administration has done a horrid job of dealing with the public about Iraq. Yes, he has chosen the wrong people for his Administration. This leads us to the $1 million question: would you rather be clueless (but richer) and not know anything about anything (Clinton Administration), or would you rather be clueless (but a little poorer) and know everything about every bad thing (W. Bush Administration)?
If you like your government to be on cruise control then Hillary was your dream choice. She would have made no tough choices, William would have brought back all of his buddies to the White House (but that wouldn’t have been cronyism—cronyism can only be applied to Republicans), and the media and the Republicans would have been the excuse for everything. Hillary would have made disparaging remarks to [insert name here] in a speech and then blamed you for making her say it.
I will always admit that George W. has made some huge mistakes but the war in Iraq is unequivocally necessary and will ultimately become a success for both sides if enough time is allowed. If you want to believe that the war in Iraq is all about oil and Haliburton contracts then fine, but you would be missing the bigger point: there is no such thing as peacetime, only non-wartime. If you think about things with too much emphasis on emotion you will be inclined to believe that rising gas prices and stories from a national media that can only write about soldiers dying, coming back fried, and car bombs is a recipe for the end of the world. Only in our society today can we get attacked on our soil, agree with the counterattack, then turn around and say all is lost because we did not get out of there quick enough. It is called having your cake and eating it too. It is called Clintonesque.
And thank the fucking Lord she finally deigned to let us all know that her campaign is over.