As I watched Lanny Davis lying through his teeth on Larry King last night, I had a strange feeling of deja vous. Today I realized that George Stephanopoulos had triggered the same feeling in me the other day when he was floating the idea that Hillary would consent to being Veep. And now I know why. I was a member of a religious cult for a couple of years in the early 70s when I was in college, and Lanny and George remind me of weak cult types, like many I knew back then, like myself. Thus the deja vous.
In my cult back in the 70s, there were plenty of Lannys and Georges. Larry G was a Lanny. He was never one of the golden insiders, but was a loyal worker bee, always striving for acceptance and praise form the great leader. His greatest thrill was to be ordered by AK to sweep up her poodle's crap or run errands for her. It was the same with Garry N and John F, Bill, W and many others. When you look back, most of the members shared this uneasy status, never knowing when they were going to get a cookie or get their head chewed off. A very few had the golden insider status. And it was most instructive to us all when two of the golden insiders were knocked from their pedestals and humiliated worse than any of us. Anyone who's been involved with or studied cults will be familiar with these tropes.
So back to Lanny, sweat bulleting on his forhead, dragging a fake smile out of his soul like a dead rodent. What could possibly motivate Lanny to be the last to jump the Hillary shark thereby appearing the fool in the eyes of the world? How about membership in a cult in which the highest and most noble action is displaying loyalty to the leader. In a cult, everyone else is wrong. You are right. And if the entire world is against you, why that only feeds your sense of martyred rightness. And that was Lanny. And what about George, destroying his career as a journalist on national TV for Hillary. What could possibly inspire an intelligent fellow like George to commit such professional hari kari? Cult membership of course.
In my cult there was an original charismatic leader Dr. K who died. The cult was then perpetuated by AK, his assistant and most senior follower. AK lacked Dr. K's authenticity and charisma however and she dragged the cult down into the gutter. The parallels are apparent: Dr. K is Bill Clinton. The uncharasmatic and self destructive assistant carrying on after Bill's forced retirement is Hillary. AK came to a bad end along with the cult and the same is happening with Hillary and her cult. Hillary is not Bill and so must resort to increasingly corrosive and destructive tactics in order to keep the organization together.
As with my 70s cult, most of the followers of Hillary's cult are innocent. It is the leadership circle, dictitorially run by HRC that is guilty of misleading the troops. HRC may say support the candidate whoever that ends up being. But strangely, her followers swear in great numbers that they will vote for McCain or sit it out if she doesn't 'win.' Think Masada. They know Hillary is gladdened by their loyalty to the death. The party be damned.
Further parallels: When one of their insiders defects, all hell breaks loose. When Bill Richardson switched, he was branded a Judas by Hillary's hatchet man James Carville. The religious reference only makes sense when Hillary is seen as a messianic figure and her organization viewed as a cult. She is the Way, the Truth and the Light. Loyalty to Her is the highest value. Martyrdom is desirable. Leaving the cult is spiritual death.
The suicidal actions of the Clintons starts to make sense when viewed this way. Cults are never wrong. They never compromise. They will lie cheat and steal to advance their cause. They will fight to their last breath to prevail. They only die when they fall in ruins from their self destructive hypocracy hurting many along the way.
I was a member of the Clinton cult myself all through the 90s. But I never fell for the latest incarnation with Hillary at the helm. Maybe my experience with AK and that religious cult back in the 70s protected me. I hope we're seeing the HRC cult's death throes. But don't be fooled, at the last second it can lash out with it's scaly tail and pull the Democratic Party down into the abyss.