I got an email from Kos today saying something like “Bernie Supporters: Diary about Hillary’s Good Things! Hillary Supporters: Diary about Bernie’s Good Things!” I like this idea. In the first place, I LIKE finding positive things about people when I can, instead of grinding them into the ground harping and crowing about the negative things about them (no, really, I do). In the second place, I have always been a strong Bernie supporter, and still am (nothing I’m about to write should be taken to mean I’ve gone back on my very serious, in fact life-or-death, reasons for doing so. The following should be taken not as “I didn’t mean it when I said ___,” but rather, “I mean the following, PLUS I meant what I’ve said in the past too, unless I’ve changed my mind.” If you’re wondering about any of my views, feel free to ask in the comments). But I’ve never been a “Bernie or nothing!” guy, and in fact, I’ve always had the opinion that if Hillary won the primaries, her presidency would be a relatively good one.
I have attempted here to keep ONLY saying positive things, in keeping with the assignment we’ve gotten from Kos. I think it’s bullshit to engage in an examination of someone’s good qualities, only to give backhanded slights (or forehanded ones, for that matter).
If anyone’s thinking “Oh my GOD! Then if you haven’t drunk the Koolaid, at the very least, you’ve been snookered! Kos was just getting you to say something positive about Hillary!” note 1) he also invited HILLARY supporters to diary positively about Bernie, and 2) my diaries… usually get like 26 recommendations, so I don’t think there’s a HUGE propaganda impact from this one. Anyway, herewith: my reasons for thinking well of Hillary!
She is Bold
We’re all agreed, I’m sure, that the right wing’s reasons for hating Hillary are NOT good. But I think I was there at the time that hatred began, to note the precise reason WHY it began. Now, I remember that Rush Limbaugh was already smearing the Clintons when they got elected. I remember being in a laundromat in around 1993, just a few months after the 1992 election, and this… person… who looked like all of your worst nightmares of a right-wing low-information voter was there, wearing a Rush Limbaugh shirt featuring “The Clintstones.” (That SCINTILLATING right-wing sense of humor that they’re uniquely known for.) Rush’s picture was at the bottom, reminding us, “See? I TOLD you so!” And the picture above was a caricature of the Clintons as white trash, hillbillies coming to trash the people’s precious White House with their tawdriness. So Rush was already smearing them when even we who voted for Bill Clinton didn’t even know what on earth they stood for at all.
So the hatred really started before there was even a pretext for it. But I still recall when they lit up on HILLARY in particular: when she advanced an idea for health care. Now, I leave it to you to decide whether it was “a woman’s place is deciding which type of White House doily to choose, not setting policy” sexism, at a time, remember, when only a TINY percentage in the House and Senate (maybe one in the Senate?) were female, instead of like today, when we merely have a SMALL percentage and probably the fewest women in any advanced nation’s parliament. But the fact that she took on 1) the whole nation’s conception of what a First Lady should be and do, and 2) with such a HUGE project?
Say what you like, but that’s a person who has some brass nerve. And (see below) it was for a good reason.
She is a Leader
Taking up from her boldness, it seems to translate also into her manner as a leader of men and women. Any president will need to give commands by the dozen, hell, by the HUNDRED, every hour they’re in office. This is a subjective judgment, but do we see in her a wimp? Someone who will shrink from taking command, taking charge, and knowing when to organize and when to delegate the humming little messes that she’ll be surrounded with every day? I don’t.
She is Smart
I don’t mean that her educational qualifications are all in order, though they certainly are; graduating with a BA from Wellesley, and then a JD from Yale Law School, in an age before everybody-gets-a-medal grade inflation, is no mean feat. But in Washington, that is actually less remarkable than you might think: a HUGE percentage of our congresspeople and senators have law degrees, many from the Ivies or west-coast Ivies.
Nor do I mean that she’s an expert in everything; NOBODY is an expert in everything. Get it. Friends, if we’re lucky enough to get a president who’s an expert in economics, they’ll be a novice at foreign affairs; if they’re an expert at both, they’ll be an infant about the military; if none of those fail, they’ll be unschooled at managing people; and so on, and so on. So we’ve got someone who has expertise and experience in the law, which is a great area in which to have knowledge.
But my point is that she’ll be CURIOUS. This is not a Donald Trump, so incapable of quick or deep thinking that he simply gets bored with debates and walks away from one when he does; nor yet some George W. Bush sort of person, whose eyes glaze over when asked to read and understand a damned newspaper article. Not to exaggerate in a cartoonish way, I’m sure she’s not the second coming of Einstein. But she is a person who will ask QUESTIONS. If there is a serious issue, she will sit down, ask for pitches from her advisers, stick her catcher’s mitt out and focus her mind on catching them, and she’ll do her damned job (a lot of which must be done with a president’s brain) mentally, instead of abdicating it.
Her Policies Will Be Positive
No, not unfailingly; NO president’s policies are unfailingly positive. Even FDR had some missteps along with the successes. But yes, I just said “her policies will be positive.”
Now while those of you who have ever seen me post… well, anything about her are packing your brains back into your head from where your clockwork exploded, let me say this: health care. (It is hard to write a diary like this; if I make an exhaustive list of her policies, it will get into the weeds of my disagreement with her, or I will find mixed bags of things I agree with, and other things I don’t. I didn’t want, either, to give her short shrift by only citing one, but this is only one of a DOZEN policies I’ve seen her advocating, with which I agree.)
She advanced an idea for health care for all the millions of uninsured, in the 1990s, WAY before President Obama came along. That was a Good Thing. She ran into resistance because of it. She should be celebrated for doing that.
She Doesn’t Deny Climate Change
That is fucking well important. Clean energy initiatives are expected!
UPDATE, 2:47 a.m. PST, 3/4/16: Thanks for the responses! I guess no one saw this diary, but I feel great. All the best to you all.