Hillary Clinton is Unfit To Be President

History will not smile.

One of the few things from Bill Clinton's vacuous presidency that George Bush wasn't able to undo within three months of taking office was the progress he help foster in healing racial relations in this country. I have argued for years that Bill Clinton did more to damage the Democratic brand then a thousand Rush Limbaughs could ever do. His DLC, New Democrat inspired abandonment of our most fundamental principles--from the belief that democratic government is more than a shopping mall for "services", to the foundational principle that social responsibility is as important as personal responsibility--left our party lost and without purpose.

But there is one area of the Clinton presidency that left a truly virtuous and lasting legacy - healing the racial divide in our country.

This legacy, however, has been erased. Worse, it has been reversed. Historians will undoubtedly look back on the 2008 presidential campaign as the time when the Clintons took all the good works they did to move beyond the tense, racial integration of the 1960s to a new, colorless vision of America in the 1990s. The irony is that Bill Clinton's use of the presidential bully pulpit to hammer home that vision helped pave the way for the ascendancy of Barack Obama.

But for the Clintons, doing the right thing has always been easy when they have nothing to lose. It is only when tested do we see the courage of one's convictions. In the campaign of 1996, they didn't need the racist vote. In 2008, they did.

What history will show is not only the shallowness of the Clinton's commitment to their own stated positions. We've already seen this with the NAFTA issue. (Is Hillary lying when she says she always opposed NAFTA? Or was she lying when she was selling it back in the 90s?) History will also show that they are willing to do great harm to their party, and their country, if that's what it takes to win.

This is a fundamental character flaw and it makes Hillary Clinton unfit to be president of the United States. In fact, it makes her unfit to be a Democratic senator of New York.

The fact that she is willing to pit, in her words, "hard-working Americans, white Americans" against presumably not-hard-working black Americans not only makes her unfit to be president, it makes her a disgrace to the Democratic party.

•  The main reason she is unfit to be president

  is because she lost the primary.

  by discocarp on Thu May 08, 2008 at 12:57:29 PM PDT

•  Preach!

  The fact that she is willing to pit, in her words, "hard-working Americans, white Americans" against presumably not-hard-working black Americans not only makes her unfit to be president, it makes her a disgrace to the Democratic party.

  I wonder when the DNC / Supers will get this.

  by Chi on Thu May 08, 2008 at 12:59:56 PM PDT

•  her promise to serve the interests of

  hard-working white Americans makes her unworthy of all the following offices: President, Senator, Mayor, Vice President, Judge, state delegate, city councilwoman, and dogcatcher.

  by tamandua on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:00:37 PM PDT

•  I'm married to a jazz musician

  does that make me fit to go on stage and improvise with a saxaphone?

  After all, I know a lot about the saxaphone; I've been around a soprano, and two tenors for 22 years; had short experience with a bari and alto, as well. And I've listened to hundreds and hundreds of live shows, thousands of hours of recorded music. I can tell most jazz heads by the rythms of the solos.

  Problem is, when I pick that horn up, I can't make it tell the truth anymore. It just lies and lies -- squeaks on the Coltrane tunes, hollers on the Shorter pieces, and rumbles when it should yell for Albert Ayler.

  And on top of that, everybody can see, no matter how I try to hide it, that my music appeal more to white people.

  I'll let him play the gigs, I'll write the blog posts, grow the garden, and bake the bread.

  by zic on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:03:40 PM PDT

•  History will look at HRC's votes & real actions

  ...and that record will show her heart and intention far more than your temprary angst at the fact that she's pointed out that she's gotten considerably more support than Obama by a certain demographic sector.

  by Iddybud on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:04:13 PM PDT

•  oh, she's fit enough

  by rasbobbo on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:05:05 PM PDT

•  I've been a Democrat

  for 50 years.  I became a Dem because they were the party with a soul, not just about economics, but with a focus on social justice.  The headlines and commentaries I'm seeing today are driving a stake through me.  This is so painful, watching the Dems embroil in racial division goes against my very core and everything I believe in, everything I've taught my children, the way I've lived my life.  I feel like I'm in mourning right now, so I'm turning off my computer, the news, the world and I'm quietly going off on my own to grieve.  I have no idea how to feel or how to cope with this.  

  by RoCali on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:05:18 PM PDT

•  You're dead on, and here's a related aspect

  to what you enlighten us with here:

  Hillary knows she must be president for she is the smartest person in the country. You could see it throughout this campaign -- particularly in the debates -- when she would reel off point after point detailing exactly what she would do on health care or Iran or whatever else was being asked about. This character trait is one reason I never thought she would be a good president.

  Now, in the final hours of the campaign, we see the ultimate example of this superiority complex: She knows that a black man can't win in the fall, no matter how naive so many others in her party are, and therefore, she is refusing to get out of this race. No matter who else tells her it's time to go, she's not going to listen.

  She's running the risk of turning her once good name into a punchline for the rest of her days here on this earth.

  by QuestionableSanity on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:05:37 PM PDT

  •  Hillary is not fit to be President!

    She is even more an egomanic then Cheney!  She needs to have her a** kicked all the way back to up state NY now!

    by ajleiker on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:32:42 PM PDT

•  alllow me to quote myself

  from something I posted here on March 8:

  I think some actions place a candidate beyond the pale.  I recognize that for each of us we will draw the line differently.  In sorrow I have reached a point where I cannot support Hillary Clinton.  Her willingness to accept a campaign that uses half-truths and in some cases outright dishonesty is not what I am willing to accept in our leadership.    I cannot reward in any fashion a candidate who is willing to denigrate a Democratic opponent and imply that he is not ready to be president.  In light of a statement only a week before that she was honored to be on the same stage as him, I can only look at THAT statement in light of the later statement, and read it as an attempt to manipulate people in order to gain a political advantage. . . .

  I have to live with my conscience.  For months I have at times sought to put the best case on things that bothered others.  No longer.

  Let me be blunt.  As I look at the campaign run by Hillary Clinton, not just the words and actions of her surrogates and employees, but her own words and actions, I have regrettably come to the conclusion that based on that campaign, and in light of that campaign her record as a Senator, that she is morally unfit to be President of the United States.

  peace

  by teacherken on Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:51:16 PM PDT

•  Beyond Just a Character Flaw

  It is not just the lying, but the willingness to do ANYTHING to position oneself for seeming political viability -- no matter what the impacts.

  Witness the vote to authorize the Iraq war -- thousands of Americans (from the economic "draft resulting from, in part, NAFTA) DEAD -- scores of thousands of Iraqis dead.

  Witness the pandering to what she THINKS Jewish Americans want to hear about obiliterating Iraq in the context of an attack on Israel. Well, I'm Jewish, and I think that those kind of statements are pandering to and exploiting the worst fears -- it's a kind of surface philo-semitism that really has the opposite effect -- making things WORSE, inflaming the situation. Furthermore by exploiting the fear, it is actually a hostile act designed to keep a population under control -- to make Jews feel fearful by keeping the "threat level" high.

  And then, of course, there is the issue of possibly millions of dead Iranians, who demonstrated in sympathy for  the U.S. following 911 -- all  this, perhaps just an abstaction -- and campaign fodder for her.

  Frankly, whether the statement was calculated (in which case it was demogogic) or spontaneous (in which case I would have to question foreign policy ability, or worse, sanity), in my view, it disqualifies her from holding the office of chief executive (and I'm not too happy about her being in the Senate either).

  by martyinsfo on Thu May 08, 2008 at 02:24:49 PM PDT