There Is No Real Hillary Clinton

[Purveyor]

People aren't meant to be relaunched as often as phones, but here we are

By Jeb Lund October 8, 2015

In the last day, Hillary Clinton announced her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal that she will likely claim she only championed as part of her duties as secretary of state and that, in reality, she just as likely helped to create. She probably opposes it as strongly as she did NAFTA, which her husband created, and which she and Barack Obama campaigned against in 2008 and then proceeded to do nothing about. This is a habit. She probably is doing this because, in spite of a career in which neoliberalism got her this far, Bernie Sanders is starting to eat her lunch among labor voters, progressives and anyone who is not a big-money donor. You know, the people who vastly outnumber the latter and do things en masse, like vote.

In the last 10 days, once-prospective Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy praised the House Select Committee on Benghazi for doing what it was always — only — ever intended to do. "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?" he told Sean Hannity. "But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping." McCarthy, who possesses both the look and adroitness of a personal injury attorney, accidentally disclosed that the allegedly most vital investigative body in American government is a petty leverage tool as sound as a plastic spork trying to pry open the pull tab on a fruit cup. Telling the truth only cost McCarthy his shot at a job doing the opposite.

But while the former issue addresses an agreement that covers 40 percent of the world's total trade and represents a volte-face by a candidate critics accuse of having zero core beliefs beyond electability, the latter is what will make headlines forever. A trade deal, the future of American labor and the shrinking manufacturing base of this country is something for "unserious" social-democrat whackos like Bernie Sanders to talk about.

When we talk about Benghazi, we're talking about who Hillary Clinton really is. And that's something we'll be forced to talk about until November 2016, with cynical political imprecations like murderer, with sad-sack troll jobs from dead-enders like Rand Paul, and with the inevitable Hillary Clinton response. A new declaration of authenticity — whatever that means, in a contest among people who think it's normal to believe they can and should lead the free world — a new field trip to middle America, maybe a video with grandmothers, as if it say, "I, Hillary Clinton, recognize that those are grandmothers."

This is our debate now.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/there-is-no-real-hillary-clinton-20151008#ixzz3o63lrXp7
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[PatrickforO]

1. What makes this article so horrible and so sad is that it is true.

I'm for Bernie because he is consistent and I agree with him 99% of the time. Plus, he's one of us - he wears rumpled clothes and is not a millionaire.

I'm sure there is a real Hillary Clinton and she's OK, but we're never gonna see her because she's too busy having to explain everything over and over and over and re-booting herself every few days.

[roguevalley]

16. it is. I find this however visually and factually hilarious:

'a petty leverage tool as sound as a plastic spork trying to pry open the pull tab on a fruit cup.'

[Fairgo]

28. i love the visual though

dicey strategy, weak tool, disappointing reward

[portlander23]

2. Also this

Although Issa did once nearly catch Hillary Clinton in an act of perjury for denying she'd seen a cable she'd signed, before everyone who's ever read State Department cables explained to him that all cables from Washington are automatically signed with the name of the Secretary of State. Later, Issa spent 16 days in a Chinese finger trap.

[sabrina 1]

3. And when Democrats decided that playing dirty was what they needed to fight the

tactics of the people they claim to despise, see Brock eg, that was the day our party lost its moral authority.

So now we have the equivalent of the NRA dream of 'fighting gun violence by arming EVERYONE' It's called a free for all.

And this is why we MUST as Biden said in a moment of truth, remove the filthy money from our electoral system.

Because it is the MONEY that bought people like McCarthy and his gang of right wing operatives, passing themselves off as Representatives of the people.

When that money becomes as illegal as it should be, all the 'PUNDITS' and' OPERATIVES' and 'STRATEGISTS' and 'THINK TANKS' that flood our political system today, flying like moths to a flame, with zero interest in actual issues, who are there ONLY for the money, willing to say or do ANYTHING to get it, well, I try not to wish bad things on people, but I hope they all starve.

What the Dem Party should have done of course was to EXPOSE these corrupt, despicable tools, instead they decided to join them and to take some of that money themselves.

[artislife]

15. ^^^this.

I am against big money, even though I happily accept it and DEPEND on it to deliver the WH to me.

[arcane1]

26. And it devolved into a contest of brands and slogans instead of ideas and policies.

It's time for something new.

[Art_from_Ark]

34. Agreed

[JaneyVee]

4. TPP is a renegotiation of NAFTA.

If the author doesn't even understand that point he has no credibility. And Hillary has no problem destroying her rightwing opponents like McCarthy, Issa, et al.

[Fearless]

24. Wrong.

TPP is regarding trade between east and west not the Americas

[JaneyVee]

25. Canada and Mexico are involved in TPP. It is a renegotiation of NAFTA.

[eridani]

33. Yes--making it hundreds of times worse. n/t

[dreamnightwind]

5. I think it's even worse than that

I see very few substantive shifts from Hillary, they're shifts in how she markets herself. Granted, they are presented as policy positions, but they are more accurately campaign positions. The policies that actually get fought for after election will only coincidentally, if at all, resemble those of her campaign. I'm not picking on Hillary here, I'd say the same, though to a lessor degree, about Obama.

Hillary is, at her core, a multinational corporatist. She cares about the interests of the global movers and shakers, and IMO not in proportion to how well they advocate for the least of us, but in proportion to how much global power and influence they have.

In, this, I've always felt her core is very solid. She can't campaign on it and expect to win, so the front-end campaign stuff makes it look like there is no real Hillary, but there very much is a real Hillary, and IMO it has more in common with a Rupert Murdoch or a Henry Kissinger than it does with a Bernie Sanders or the homeless guy down the street.

[pangaia]

11. Perfect assessment of this power hungry .01% er

Makes me sick..

[stupidicus]

22. indeed, and that's precisely why

repugs don't make a fed case outta the big dollars she and other dems get from the high rollers.

We lefties oughtta pay as much attention to repug omissions where dems are concerned as we do the lies they otherwise try to sell about the "socialist/marxists" like HC.

That's about the only thing they haven't attacked her over, ain't it? It would be a damning political admission for them both, kinda like the truth McCarthy revealed about the Benghazi Commission. It would leave little doubt as to who is really in charge, and it ain't we voters.

[dreamnightwind]

23. Right, they will attack her for being duplicitous

and having no core, as the OP does, but not for using her "flexible" campaign positions as disingenuous marketing tools to get her quite solid corporatist core elected, because they're part of the same core and do the same thing but feigning the other side of the carefully filtered campaign issues.

And it's good to notice how the corporatist intersection of the two parties is precisely where the approved punditry always suggests the serious politicians will unite to "get things done".

We don't want, or need, those things done. Their whole game is to narrow down that intersection to corporate interests so that's all that can be accomplished with bipartisanship (TPP, Heritage/Romney/Obamacare, entitlement "reform", austerity programs for the 99% liquidity programs for the "job creators", military adventurism to guarantee corporate access to global resources, etc etc).

Bernie's aware of this. To some extent he is part of the same old game, but to a smaller extent than any other serious candidate in recent memory. He will seek out common ground and ways to get things done outside of that corporatist intersection between the parties. Increasingly, there is oppportunity on the right wing (citizens more than politicians, but that's where it starts) to be receptive to such, and Bernie is exactly the right person to lead this.

[stupidicus]

30. yep

I agree completely, including the BS assessment.

If there is one pleasure the DU experience has provided me, it is seeing a far more widespread understanding and acceptance of all that here. I've long hoped it was the case in the wider public as well.

That is the major ingredient in his "bipartisan" appeal to the extent that it exists.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. Thank you for the post

Thank you for the post and I would be remiss in not giving you and your associates a little and big and hope you have a nice weekend.

[hifiguy]

7. There is no there there.

She has been completely consumed by ambition, in the manner of Richard Nixon.

She has fatally compromised any principles she ever had by embracing - very publicly - the likes of Lloyd Blankfein and War Criminal Henry Kissinger. She has cut so many corrupt deals - often in the name of self-enrichment - that she is a waffling, doubletalking, empty cipher - she will say anything that might advance her boundless but empty ambition. Very much like Richard Nixon.

She is welded at the hip to the banksters, plutocrats and MIC.

She has only one core belief left - that she should be POTUS, and by any means possible.

She has been running for the presidency for more than 20 years - longer even than Richard Nixon.

No one who wants the presidency that badly should ever, EVER have it.

[HooptieWagon]

27. That is exactly it.

No one knows who the real Hillary Clinton is, because she long ago sold her soul to the devil on the altar of ambition.

[hifiguy]

29. A few months ago I thought the parallels with Nixon were

interesting but perhaps spurious.

Continued reflection has led me to the conclusion that the difference between them can only be measured in nanometers and individual quirks of personality.

She is, as tulare tom put it, Nixon in a pantsuit.

[uponit7771]

8. The right is desperate to continue their "you can't trust Hillary" meme

[Flying Squirrel]

9. Article was too long by half

Ended up skimming it, got the gist

[artislife]

17. Don't hurt yourself. nt

[people]

10. There is no real Hillary Clinton

I understand that today she came out against private prisons. Will she say she's a democratic socialist tomorrow?

[pangaia]

37. I think there IS a real Hillary Clinton.

She is showing it. A corporatist 3rd-Wayer who will say whatever is needed to get what she wants-- which has always been to be president of this country.

[Tommymac]

12. Anyway the wind blows...

"Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality.

Open your eyes,
Look up to the skies and see,
I'm just a poor {girl}, I need no sympathy,
Because I'm easy come, easy go,
Little high, little low,
Anyway the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me."

[Puzzledtraveller]

13. This has been presidential politics from time immemorial.

Nothing new here.

[olddots]

14. " too late my time has come "

Oy .

[pangaia]

18. WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT THE JOB?

An interesting brief discussion on the qualities needed for true leadership, discussing Plato's REPUBLIC

A few brief quotes--

"The first book ever written on political leadership was Plato’s Republic. Plato argues that in fact, no person of talent and character really wants to be the ruler of a nation or state.".

"Because leadership is so hard, so demanding, Plato believes that the “best and the brightest” will not seek it out."

"I think that John Adams offered us a perfect model of the reluctant Platonic leader who takes up the job out of stewardship, service and social purposes.

“I must study politics and war that my sons (daughters) may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”

There is more than a bit of truth in this.

"In my view," ( to quote the next president of the US of A) Hillary Clinton want to be president so bad you can see the waves of desire shooting our from her like a million Qin arrows!

On the other hand, my take is that Bernie Sanders doesn't necessarily WANT the job. But rather, somebody has to do this.


http://www.wbez.org/blogs/bez/2012-08/why-would-anyone-want-job-102020

[CJCRANE]

36. That's an interesting quote from John Adams.

I was thinking about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs recently and how the elites have us all scrabbling around on the bottom rungs just trying to scrape by. Their austerity policies, pointless wars and fear mongering seem designed to prevent most of us from getting to the top level, where we get to express ourselves freely.

[azurnoir]

19. what direction is the wind today? now that's "real"

[SoapBox]

20. Trust!

And no, I do not trust her.

Nor do many, many millions of American voters.

[jalan48]

21. Maybe it's become more like the House of Lords.

We don't get to really choose them-but there they are. Some are ok others not. I think we're supposed to revere them somehow.

[JaneyVee]

31. I've met the real Hillary Clinton.

While working for Gillibrand. She is the kindest, warmest woman who never stops working.

[DonCoquixote]

32. for WHO?

Wall Street?
WARMONGERS?

she does not work for the common person.

[oberliner]

35. "When we talk about Benghazi, we're talking about who Hillary Clinton really is'

Not the kind of crap one expects to find on a site like DU, but it is the kind of crap one would expect to find Jeb Lund.

He of this "famous" essay:

Jeb Lund was, within the context of the part of the Internet where he last routinely appeared, a dick. I was a dick. This was on several message boards, where I wasted thousands of hours, taking my ever-diminishing allotment of physical vitality, sunshine, and mental acuity, and pissing it all away on discussions like, "Is Ben Roethlisberger more morally repugnant than Ray Lewis?" (Trick question: Fire both of them into the sun.)

I wasn't a dick because I was trading insults and jokes all day. That doesn't make you a dick, by message-board standards. Short of sites like "Is Anyone Up?" or dedicated cyberbullying, joke/insult boards are probably the most sociopathic venues in a medium whose dissociative qualities already engender sociopathy. The point is to reduce people to posting styles, categorizable tropes, parades of strawmen and cutout-people set on fire to public delight—because, hey, there were no humans involved. Being an unempathetic prankster, malcontent, and gossip is doing it right.

http://gawker.com/5987590/let-me-introduce-myself-farewell-to-mobutu-sese-seko