Political wind

CNN and media don’t ask yet do Dems disservice

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The beginning of Peggy Noonan’s commentary, this morning, in the Wall Street Journal:

I will never forget that breathtaking moment when, in the CNN/YouTube debate earlier this fall, the woman from Ohio held up a picture and said, “Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mr. Edwards, this is a human fetus. Given a few more months, it will be a baby you could hold in your arms. You all say you’re ‘for the children.’ I would ask you to look America in the eye and tell us how you can support laws to end this life. Thank you.”

They were momentarily nonplussed, then awkwardly struggled to answer, to regain lost high ground. One of them, John Edwards I think, finally criticizing the woman for being “manipulative,” using “hot images” and indulging in “the politics of personal destruction.” The woman then stood in the audience for her follow up. “I beg your pardon, but the literal politics of personal destruction — of destroying a person — is what you stand for.”

Oh, I wish I weren’t about to say, “Wait, that didn’t happen.” For of course it did not. Who of our media masters would allow a question so piercing on such a painful and politically incorrect subject?

I thought of this the other night when citizens who turned out to be partisans for Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards asked the Republicans, in debate, would Jesus support the death penalty, do you believe every word of the Bible, and what does the Confederate flag mean to you?

It was a good debate, feisty and revealing. It’s not bad that the questions had a certain spin, and played on stereotypes of the GOP. It’s just bad that it doesn’t quite happen at Democratic debates. Somehow, there, an obscure restraint sets in on the part of news producers. Too bad. Running for most powerful person in the world is, among other things, an act of startling presumption. They all should be grilled, everyone, both sides. Winter voting approaches; may many chestnuts be roasted on an open fire.

Her narrower point is the “media masters” seem more diligent when is comes to shielding the Democrat Party candidates. Yet, if so, they are not doing their preferred political party nor leaning voters a favor. Without the full spectrum of questions asked and answered early on, we, regardless of affiliation, are left to assume what each Democrat Party candidate would do should they be elected President.

Worse, it “favors” the supposed national poll leader (what a screaming mistake that turned out to be four years ago). Which is Ms. Noonan’s wider point: saddle up boys and girls of all persuasions for, from this day forward, the questions will only get tougher.

Don’t you want to know now whether your horse is up to circling the track or just a donkey headed for the stall long before the far turn?

Hillary Clinton, Iraq

Same old Clintons on national defense

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Unfortunately, Senator Hillary Clinton has the same old habit as her spouse when it comes to our nation’s defense.

In October 2002, Hillary Cinton, along with 76 other United States Senators, voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein and his regime. To date, we have accomplished the one major stated purpose of the resolution by removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power and continue to make progress towards its other objectives. Since then, she has sought to explain away her vote as a warning to Saddam Hussein. In addition, Senator Clinton has said she would and would not quickly withdraw our troops from Iraq if she becomes the 44th President of the United States. I don’t do mind reading so it is impossible for me to say whether she was actually for or against the invasion of Iraq and what she would do as President. Leadership, to me, is clearly saying what you will do, then doing it, and standing by your words.

In an editorial this morning, the New York Post reported this about former President William J. Clinton’s opinion of our inavsion of Iraq:

“We’ve got the power, we’ve got the juice. We should do the job,” he told students at the University of Florida in an April 2003 speech.

Later that month, Clinton declared in St. Louis: “Saddam is gone and good riddance” — adding: “Bush has done the right thing in removing Saddam Hussein from power.”

And just days after Bush’s controversial State of the Union Address that year, Clinton said: “It is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted-for stocks of biological and chemical weapons.”

What’s more, Bill Clinton made a direct link between 9/11 and Iraq: In a 2004 Time interview, the former president stressed that because of 9/11, Bush had an obligation to move against Saddam: “That’s why I supported the Iraq thing,” he said. “There was a lot of [weapons] stuff unaccounted for … When you’re the president, and your country has just been through what we had, you want everything to be accounted for.”

Now, he says he was against the invasion of Iraq when he was publicly saying he was for it:

Clinton’s aides now insist that he really did oppose the war — his public statements notwithstanding — but considered it inappropriate to publicly go against a sitting president.

That President is still in office so what has changed?

Answer: The Clintons’ rhetoric and one of them is running to become the next President of the United States.

While he was in office, I could not tell what the last President Clinton would do against America’s avowed enemies. He says, “I tried,” yet, in my opinion, he did far too little about both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

If that is the experience his spouse is touting as what makes her qualified, then I say it was bad experience and severely detracts from Senator Clinton’s qualifications to be President.

People should say what they mean, do what they say, and only start the fights they intend to finish.