The Anchoress

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The other day - for reasons I don’t understand - I tripped through the blogosphere Q & A style, and people seemed to like that.

So, here are some more:

Q: What is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s motto for this session of Congress?

A: Well, I am not privvy to the great-woman’s thoughts, but it would appear to be, “Mr. President, tear down any economic advantages you might be pursuing for us, and while you’re at it, please make us as vulnerable to the oil-producing nations as you possibly can. Also, get this stuff put into the bible, ASAP!”

Q: Bill Clinton said Saddam had nukes, but it turned out he didn’t. But that wasn’t a lie, like it was when Clinton and all Democrats Bush said Saddam had WMD…but now it looks like Syria had gotten ‘em, somehow and um…North Korea helped. But I thought North Korea was on board with the Clinton/Albright “framework” which was all “we give you nuke stuff and you stop making war noises and go dance a foxtrot with Maddy” or something and now…how…what?

A: I know, I know, it’s confusing. I don’t fully understand it either but Syria and NoKo were building something bad - heaven only knows how they got the materials - and Israel had to go over there and blow the thing up for us, which they did, Shalom, Israel! There is only one narrative you have to take out of this whole strange story: George Bush cannot pronounce the word “nuclear” and so obviously, this was, is and always will be his moronic fault and failing.

Q: If Obama has to talk about his Weather Underground pal, shouldn’t Hillary have to talk about her husband’s Weather Underground pardons?

A: Now, you stop picking on Hillary, she never knew what Bill was up to in that Oval Office because she was, you know, dodging sniper fire and solving the troubles in Northern Ireland! And besides, Bill pardoned a-lots of people and some other far worse terrorists, so, you know, you be cool. Nobody wants to hear that crap! Besides, the Clintons version 2.0 is totally transparent-like and Hillary’s all down with Mary and stuff, right now.

Q: If you don’t support Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy, does that automatically mean that you are suffering from a toxic form of cynicism?

A: Of course not. If you don’t support Barack Obama it means you are a racist; unless you are a woman over 55, in which case you are both racist and age-ist and a man-hating victim of oppression who wears comfortable shoes. And as far as I am concerned, and I don’t care who knows it - there is NOTHING WRONG WITH WEARING COMFORTABLE SHOES. I do so, myself, and I have pretty feet, with no corns or bunions.

Q: What’s the deal with these monks getting a recording contract and now these singing priests and all that? Are those damn Catholics fixing to infiltrate popular culture again? Is a remake of Going My Way in our future?

A: As to “Going My Way,” never having been a fan of Der Bingel, I hope not. As to the rest of it, I highly doubt that Hollywood will be expending any dough making inspiring or uplifting stories including beautiful and efficient nuns who impact wayward girls, or manly, faithful priests who make a difference, when the more negative and sensational stereotypes - though unprofitable - are so very tantalizing and much more in line with their bleak worldview, which permits neither wonder nor joy. Although, if a buck is to be made, all bets may be off. “Toxic Cynicism” is more rampant in the entertainment industry than in Washington DC, although it’s a near thing.

Q: Is there any good news coming out of Iraq? Or Afghanistan?

A: Yes and yes. And yes.

Q: Is Jimmy Carter (for whom you voted in 1976) the most repellent ex-president, ever?

A: Gosh, let me think. Bill Clinton went overseas and criticized our efforts in Iraq, but he’s still Bill, you gotta love/hate him; and Jimmy Carter has said much worse things and may be in violation of the Logan act, besides, so yes. I say yes.

Q: Are “peace” activists really peaceful people?

A: Some are. I have on my desk a review copy of a book by a Jesuit priest who is so pacific he’s making me feel clammy, but having lived through 1968 and that whole era where people went around glassy-eyed saying, “Peace! Love, man,” while saying and doing some profoundly graceless and unpeaceable things, I’d say, a lot of them are just phoneys looking to belong to something, or for something to be angry about.

Q: Is Cinnamon the new cure-all that’s “good for what ails you?”

A: I’m sorry, your urethra cannot like it!

Q: On a personal note: cats or dogs?

A: I like them both very much, but there are differences.

I like this ironic photo essay using Obama’s “bitter” words.

But it also reminds me that what Obama said wasn’t that far off from Bill Clinton’s trying to turn the Oklahoma City bombing into a narrative about middle Americans, incapable of thinking for themselves, being urged on to hate America by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

Both, in their way, were implying that middle-class Middle America is populated with easily-swayed, unintelligent rubes.

Slightly O/T, after the OKC bombing Bill Clinton used the words “evil” and “cowards” to describe the bombers/terrorists. And he didn’t get any of the flack for it that Bush did after 9/11.

So…Obama is not saying anything new. Neither did George Bush. Bill Clinton beat them both to it.

Maxed Out Mama has a great and substantive post about Obama and the delusions of some of his supporters.

Is it just me or is Bill Clinton looking increasingly like the the smug bastard son of Boris Yeltsin?

Except - I can’t remember - did Yeltsin ever treat both the press and the populace which such arrogant disdain? He may have. But then again, Yeltsin was a communist with Pravda behind him; he didn’t have to tell the truth or pretend to respect the intellects of his countrymen.

I should just perhaps be glad that the Clinton’s breathtaking disingenuity is finally becoming plain for others to see.

Speaking of disdain for the intellects of his country men, Obama has just blown new life into Hillary’s campaign by dissing Pennsylvania’s blue-collar middle class. Speaking to a group of mega-rich donors - you know, the sort who are “bouncing on fluffy pillows of honest-to-goodness wealth while shaking a rhetorical finger at us for daring to try to get comfortable on our foam rubber mats of hard-earned wages” - the rookie Obama “transcended racial bigotry” by indulging in the feel-good bigotry of “moral, economic and educational superiority” which seems to run rampant in some leftist quarters these days. Not that you read much about it.

Now, of course, they will tell us hapless rubes - if we can be persuaded to look up from quoting our bitter bibles and polishing our resentful gun racks - that what we heard ain’t what we heard at all. Instapundit is giving major linkage to the story here, here and here.

Two great candidates the Democrats have brought us this year, aren’t they? Don’t y’all forgit to vote fer your’n betters, now! They’ll learn ya an’ tell ya anythin’ you wants ta hear, an’ they’ll laff n laff if’n it gets too serious, an’ they’ll take care all yer needs, too! so you don’t never have to be lovin’ that old time religion anymores, cuz yer govimint will be yer god, and y’all will be her people.

And finally - why does Al Gore hate the press so much, when they so obediently do his bidding? Whoops.

Related: Civic Immaturity is the new sophistication

Does she stay in the race and face a mortifying loss next Tuesday or does she get out with some dignity and credibility still intact?

As analysts declare that Hillary Clinton needs to win, and win soundly, in Texas and Ohio in order to remain even remotely viable in the race for the Democrat nomination, Drudge is promising a “developing” story claiming Barack Obama has garnered a four percent lead over Hillary in Texas.

A drubbing next Tuesday would be the supreme mortification. To go from presumed-and-inevitable to castaway in a matter of months may forever weaken the Clinton brand, both here and abroad. It could impact both the Clinton’s powerbase and profits.

Hillary could back out of the race this weekend - “suspend” it - and take her chances that between now and the Democrat convention some of Obama’s sparkle will have faded with the public, some backlash to his charm will begin. She knows the nature of the game of politics: one flub, one bad photo, one unguarded moment and the rise and rise of Obama can come a swift descent. Pulling out now, saving her strength and garnering new resources while leaving Obama to take some licks from the experienced and hungry John McCain could be a good strategy. By convention time, the Democrats - currently as sick of the Clintons as the rest of us - might actually be happy to see her re-emerge, refreshed and “ready.”

And ducking out now would buy Hillary some time. The inquiries about her husband’s business ventures, the requests for her White House papers and - perhaps most importantly - the clamor to see her tax returns, will die down, giving Mr & Mrs Clinton and their staffs some time to study these documents and develop appropriate spin for each, should they ever be released to public and press scrutiny.

There could be many advantages to a “suspension” of the Clinton campaign, and no doubt those advantages are being discussed today, and being measured against the risk - the one overwhelming risk - that between tomorrow and this summer the nation will discover that it does not miss Mr. & Mrs. Clinton in the slightest, that it is content to keep him in his borrowed private jets and her in the senate, where wonks and scoundrels may safely graze, and their spouses skip serious scrutiny.

That will surely be a disappointment to Hillary’s personal ambitions, but it might - in the end - be a bit of a relief, after all. And besides…they’ll always have Yucaipa.

It seems Bill is still not really helping the Hillary Campaign.

Got an email from a reader directing me to Striken Fancy, who had linked to The Agitator who wonders if Bill Clinton is deliberately trying to sink Hillary?

I thought at the time that Bill Clinton’s comments comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson were tacky and self-defeating, but I hadn’t really given them much more thought than that. But this guy made some interesting points.Bill Clinton has mastered southern politics all his life, the activist said. He knows all the buzz words, he knows all the code words, he knows where you do and don’t tread. Clinton, the activist said, has been on the right side of racial politics his entire political career. No one that savvy slips up the way Clinton did. It had to have been a calculated move. And because it was a calculated move, it was a deeply cynical, baldly race-driven move. Clinton, the activist said, was signaling to white voters that Obama isn’t his own man. Clinton was giving white voters the okay to marginalize Obama–to put him aside as just another stooge the party has to prop up to appease the black folk, but not someone they ought to take seriously. This, the activist told me, was unforgivable.

Agitator goes on: So why would Clinton do it? Well, maybe he doesn’t want his wife to be president.

Stricken Fancy recalled what I had written right after Thanksgiving, ‘07:

Mrs. Clinton, as the “first woman president” would also be a “wartime” president. If she is elected to the Oval Office, her presidency would immediately be more historically compelling and relevant than Mr. Clinton’s ever could be. And, as someone said recently - I can’t remember where I heard it, probably talk radio - if Hillary, as CIC, takes action in the war on terror, particularly if she does so in response to provocation, everything she does may well be measured against all of the provocations to which Bill did not clearly respond in the 1990’s.

Possibly President Clinton’s weird “misspeaks are designed to do more harm than good for his wife. I can’t say for sure - maybe on some sub-conscious level it’s true. Clinton has always had something of a self-destructive streak in him; it’s part of what makes him human and compelling and - for some - endlessly fascinating.

I went on in that piece to say that Hillary was simply campaigning stupidly, but that was well before Clinton did his “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina” schtick. What do you think - was I on to something? Is Bill trying to sabatoge his wife’s campaign?

WELCOME: Pajamas Media Readers. While you’re here, please look around. Today we’re also talking about Original Sin, blood covenants and foreskins…it’s a Lenten thing!

Hillary Clinton has every right to be seriously teed off at MSNBC and David Shuster:

In a conference call with reporters, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson Friday excoriated MSNBC’s David Shuster for suggesting the Clinton campaign had “pimped out” 27-year old Chelsea by having her place phone calls to Democratic Party superdelegates on her mother’s behalf. Wolfson called the comment “beneath contempt” and disgusting.

Well, that’s absolutely right, and the decline in professionalism within the mainstream media continues. Shuster’s comment was tasteless and classless. It’s not how you refer to the daughter of an ex-president and sitting senator. It’s not how you talk about anyone’s daughter.

President Harry Truman threatened to punch a reporter in the nose for much less.

I expect Shuster has just helped Hillary’s coffers get filled with the donations of outraged parents. His gaffe was inexcusable and Mrs. Clinton will use it to her advantage, which is not a bad thing when you’re ringing up $500,000 in parking bills. She does not reassure about managing our money, does she?

Bill Clinton, however, will likely overdo - somehow - and end up making the net effect a wash. He is running around saying he has learned his lesson from his excesses in Nevada and S. Carolina:

Clinton also said that everything he said in South Carolina about Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was “factually accurate,” but a lot that has been said about what he said is “factually inaccurate.”

“I think the mistake that I made is to think that I was a spouse like any other spouse who could defend his candidate,” Clinton said, referring to his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is waging a hard-fought contest with Obama for the Democratic nomination.

He’s still splitting hairs and language, which shows he hasn’t learned much, but yes, it is good that he figured out at as a former president he is not like any other spouse. Nice to see him tuned in.

UPDATED: Ann Althouse says Shuster should be fired for saying “all Americans should be proud of Chelsea Clinton.” I agree that that was just gag-inducing obsequience.

And so is this. MSNBC cancelled programming to air a 1 hour Hillary bio? Too much. Way over the line. A typically overplayed hand.

Wow, a lot of people disagree with me about Shuster’s comment being tasteless and classless. It seems to me that adult children of candidates should be able to campaign for their parents without hearing that they’ve been “pimped out.” As I said elsewhere, if - when the Bush twins did their little skit at the RNC convention Shuster had said they were being “pimped out” what would your reaction have been?

IMHO dislike of the Clintons should not color a matter of basic civility. Shuster was rude. He apologized. The network suspended him to cover their rear ends. That should be the end of it. If Hillary “punishes” MSNBC by not debating she’ll look like she is afraid to debate and looking for an excuse.

Captain Ed: As for David Shuster, he deserves a short time in the penalty box for using a prostitution term to describe anyone on a news show. It’s not just offensive — which it is — but it’s intellectually lazy and a lame attempt to sound “down wit’ it”, something of which we don’t need any more from television.

My son Buster sent this and a few other clever Animaniac excerpts to me and notes, “no wonder my generation is so cynical.”

:::SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE:::SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE:::

Exit polls in South Carolina indicate that Bill Clinton’s hijinks and race-baiting hurt Hillary more than helped her.

So, what is next, for Clinton?

I jokingly said to a friend last night that Clinton’s racial remarks are becoming so bold that I fear he will next show up in a white suit, carrying a mint julep and drawling something about “uppity” classes.

But of course, that was not serious. And it might have been a little mean-spirited…sorry.

I do wonder what the next big Clinton drama piece will be. We had Crying Hillary before New Hampshire (predicted by me here).

Will we soon have “Too Ill to Campaign Bill” and “Worried About Dear Husband, but Valiantly Campaigning On to Save America Hillary”?

Come on, you know you’re thinking the same thing. An “Ill Bill” can be useful for eleven solid months. Gets him off the trails and back behind the scenes, fades the memory of his atrocious work these past few weeks, keeps Hillary both grim and heroic, and leads the easily-swayed-by-emotion drama queens of the political press - who have lately been making unfaithful noises - back solidly into-the Clinton- camp-where- they freaking-well-belong-and they’d -better-not forget it.

Seems they (the press) have been getting “uppity” too, and believing they actually can criticize the Clintons. They’ve almost begun to behave like anti-Clintites! This will not stand!

Of course - some in the press will subliminally do a bit of the Clinton’s race-baiting for them. Check out the quickly changed headline caught by Instapundit, and expounded on by Vanderleun. Classical Values is playing with anagrams.

Meanwhile, NPR crunches the numbers on Hillary’s “35 years of experience” and calls…um…distortions, and the LA Times wonders why South Carolina does no longer seems to exist at all in Hillaryworld.

Asked it a while ago - in light of this move and this breathtaking breakdown (check out that bottom line and ponder to whom Mrs. Clinton may be so very beholden), it’s worth asking again - is it time, finally, to let go?

UPDATE: I dislike - I very much dislike - editing comments. I believe folks are entitled to their opinions and to full respect for them. That said, I think I cannot allow or tolerate comments that openly speculate on the murder of a president or ex-president (or anyone else, really) by a first lady (or anyone else) and so I am going to spell it out: Don’t do that. If you do, your comments will be trashed. To my way of thinking it crosses a line that should not be crossed. I have very few rules about posting, but I’m serious about them.

WELCOME: Instapundit readers! While you’re here, please look around. Today we’re also remembering that it was ten years ago, today that Bill Clinton told the world “Saddam has nukes.” We’re also debating whether Bush killed the GOP, looking back at when Rudy met Arafat and when Bush Sr. won the Distinguished Flying Medal. We’re happy about this book is becoming a movie and we’re liking this gorgeous piece of music, and recommending prayer. Also participating in a fun book meme.

Brilliant Gateway Pundit -and his equally brill readers - remember what so many of us have forgotten: This weekend in 1998 brought the Iraq intelligence that shaped our policy (under Clinton) to depose Saddam and got us all talking about the WMD which, as we all know, Bush (and only Bush) “lied” about. He brings us the video:

“Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation’s wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people but on developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them….I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, “You cannot defy the will of the world,” and when I say to him, “You have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.”

Yeah, he always could talk the good game, anyway.

Do go over to Gateway’s and be reminded of a few other peculiarities about how history has been revised on this issue, is still being revised. Also check out some of the quotes in the comments section!

And remember: Iraq and WMD - you heard it from the Clinton Administration first! You heard it from many others, too, but it started at this SOTU address - that’s right, the intel pre-dated Bush.

I can be more generous than many who find it easier to say “Bush lied” than to actually look at the facts; I happen to believe that Clinton was telling the truth as he understood and believed it.

One other good thing to remember as you consider this election year: Sandy Berger, in preparing to face the 9/11 Commission w/ President Clinton went into the National Archives, stole classified documents relevant to the investigation and destroyed them. Clinton chucked, “that’s Sandy” and the press yawned. And Berger will have his security clearance back in time to be on Hillary’s staff.

Oh and, don’t be fooled by the press venting a little at the Clintons. They’re still ignoring most of the muck, and following the guidance.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further… And one fine morning -

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Back in December, I wondered if Bill Clinton wanted Hillary to lose her presidential bid. It was a matter of comparing his “vacation from history” presidency to her presidency which would be “historic” forever, and more.

Perhaps he figures if he can burnish his legacy by “helping to elect the first woman president” (subtext: she couldna done it without me!) it’s all to the good. If his inefficient presidency were to fall by the wayside in the history books, a Hillary in the Oval Office will insure his place, right next to hers.

Victor Davis Hanson says Clinton sees Hillary’s election as a validation of his presidency.

Gay Patriot has a good post up about Bill Clinton’s legacy, which can be summed up in one word, for now: divisiveness.

…instead of building on the legacy of the compromises he helped effect together with the Republican Congress during the middle years of his tenure in the White House, Clinton seems determined to secure his legacy not only as a divisive figure in American politics, but also as a divider in his own party.

I suspect the “divisive” Bill Clinton was always part of the game plan. As I wrote in 2006:

Because Mrs. Clinton is planning a run at the White House, she and her husband are simply shoveling at them the same Triangulation Kibble they used to feed the left (and the center) in 1991 and 1992 - except that this time the ingredients are reversed: this time Bill Clinton is the Hard Left Outside while Hillary is the Deeply Moderate Center. Same food, different packaging; it is a particularly useful recipe for both Clintons because his “centrist” credentials, and her “leftist” credentials are so firmly in place, that no matter how the ingredients are mixed, the same multitudes are fed, and things even taste the same.

When Bill ran for the White House, Hillary was the attack dog who took heat and attention away from his weaknesses. Bill serves in the same capacity for Hillary, today. While you’re being distracted by Bill’s red face and astonishing fairy tales, you’re not reading about Hillary’s Massive Conflict of Interest or Bill’s 20 million dollar payout (and possibly more and more serious conflicts of interest). While you’re reading that one of Obama’s problematic friend, you’re not reading about hers.

The Wall Street Journal says Barack Obama has been a little slow to pick up on the tag-team strategy:

His behavior is part of the familiar Clinton playbook of letting others do the dirty work so the candidate can stay above the fray. Hillary and other surrogates took on the task of saving her husband from his lies under oath by inventing the specter of the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” calling Paula Jones trailer trash, and portraying the widely respected Ken Starr as a rabid partisan.

Now Bill is returning the favor by attacking Mr. Obama; at the same time, other surrogates raise his long-ago cocaine use, only to apologize after it’s been widely reported.

Howard Kurtz describes how the media is complicit in the Clinton domination of anything they wish to dominate:

When Barack Obama said at the debate Monday that he wasn’t sure which Clinton he was running against, he wasn’t kidding. With Hillary Clinton having vacated the Palmetto State, Bill is the Clinton campaign here. And the buzz among reporters was about dropping off the Obama tour to watch 42 in action.

Some in the press are disgusted, but they don’t get much notice.

It is really pretty shameless. Hillary claims that all of the presidential candidates have “passionate spouses” working for them, but she’s the only one whose spouse is a former president, media darling and de facto head of the Democrat party. She plays a nasty game with disingenuous wide eyes, and she succeeds at it, largely because the cynical and bored media are entertained by it and because - possibly - they’re afraid to not appreciate the Clinton moxie. They don’t want to have to grovel and apologize to the Clinton’s for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, Hillary should stop “succeeding” by virtue of her marriage or various “victimizations” and try to do it based on her thin senate record (at least she and Obama would then be on a fairly level playing field) and on her many, many years as a really, really concerned person who cared a great deal about many, many things.

In a pop-culture saturated world, the Clintons are pop-culture politicians. They don’t have to be anything but interesting, and they will have their following and the press will still gawp in awe. You don’t have to love them, you just have to fall in line. They’ll do the rest.

The Clintons believe in Gatsby’s green light of aspiration - the future is all for them, and you will give it to them, or get out of their way. If you’re quiet about it, they might ask you to be Hillary’s veep…especially if it will save the black vote for her.

And so they beat on, two boats driving hard against the current, and we are all borne back, ceaselessly, into the past.