Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Heh. I said much the same thing a few days ago. Before her defeat (and I must remind myself she’s not defeated yet), I would have seen anyone in the field in the White House - no exceptions - rather than Hillary and her combination of Michiavellianism and liberal idealism.

As the threat she poses to the nation (in my view) starts to fade, the nemesis role is mellowed somewhat. Hillary would have destroyed the country, but she would have done it out of shortsightedness, ambition, and nannyism, not malice.

I can never feel sorry for Hillary - she is relentless, rapacious, but most of all, supremely ARROGANT - because she thinks that she can remould the universe. She is just another closet communist.

Don’t feel too sorry for her. After all, her campaign probably put out the message (falsely) that she’s quitting to rally support for New Hampshire.

I’m just cynical enough to believe it and Carville’s just cynical enough to try it.

Don’t count her out too soon. The Clinton machine has a lot of weapons in its armory.

what’s really amazing is that the MSM now feels like the chains have been lifted and they can all really report about her as they wanted too, but always feared doing so would screw them. the sharks smell blood.

Is Hillary feeling bad for herself because the goal she has spent the last twenty years working towards is suddenly and unexpectedly slippping away, or for us because we are going to be deprived of her leadership and subjected to that of some lesser mortal?  The former is quite understandable, although I worry about giving power to anybody who wants it so badly.  The latter smacks of hubris or perhaps a Frederick the Great syndrome.  Either way, it is one thing to be sympathetic to her undoubtedly very real suffering, but entirely another to grant her whatever she wishes just to alleviate it.

As has been noted so often before, politics ain’t beanbag, but I’ll admit that the thought of John Edwards winning would make me cry too.  Anyway, whatever happened to the idea that one had to run for and lose a presidential contest at least once to be really qualified for the post?

Except one, Jim: The aura of inevitability.

"You see, at bottom, I don’t think Hillary is a bad person.”

This is where we disagree, I think Hillary is bad, bad to the bone. Arrogant, Narcissistic, and self-righteous.

Pass me the popcorn. This is going to be great fun.

Wow.  Who says that Americans have short memories when it comes to politics.

She has been out of the closet for a long time - she is an unabashed, unashamed communist. And her personal life is not too pretty, either.

Whats that quote from the Tom Hanks movie about girl baseball?

“Crying!?  There’s no crying in baseball!”

Crying?  There’s no crying in politics!  I’ve seen GWB shed a tear or two, but I wonder how it’s framed when a female president cries.  Weakness?  Apathy? Strategy?

I understand precisely the emotions you describe, and see your point about feeling a bit sorry for Honoria.  But what exactly can you mean about Hillary not being a bad person, by the very lights you describe?  What bad people can you think of in history who did not have much the same aim - to mold entire cultures and nations into something they thought better? C.S.Lewis pointed out that devils are made of fallen angels, not fallen amoebas - things can only fall as high as they rise.  Lewis, in fact, has an Honoria Glossop of his own in The Great Divorce - a far less comical woman who made her husband’s life a misery while she was alive, and refuses to enter heaven itself unless she can continue to improve him there.

The fact that you feel sorry for Hillary (and I do too, a little), probably is only further proof of your superiority as a person. Don’t imagine for a minute that Hillary feels a bit sorry for any opponent of hers who goes down.

Get a load ot this.  The perfect blend of Clinton moralizing and huckserism:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=85000645

This makes me wonder. Would it have been better that Ted Kennedy won the nomination and lost to Reagan and (hopefully) been marginized in the process. Will Hillary spend the next 30 years sneering and smearing in the Senate?

Sorry, Prof., but I can’t say I’m as sympathetic as you.

I have seen Hillary as ambititious (in the bad sense).

I have seen her as conniving, as having a strategy to get to the top since before Bill was governor. (I don’t think she thought of being President herself that far back--feminism hadn’t come that far yet, but of getting Bill into the White House.)

I have seen her play the victim when it suited her (as in telling an interviewer--and this was after the whole MonicaGate, “I guess we Democrats just aren’t any good at [lying].” (Sorry, I don’t remember the exact phrasing.)

(Seems like she’ll play that card, or the press is already playing it for her, judging by the above quotes. Maybe the Downeasters will vote for her out of pity.)

And I have seen her bring out the claws when it suited her.

I’ll just say that I’m glad I was never on the other side from her in a courtroom!

I do agree with you that I don’t need anybody “moulding” me. I do see that trend in Hillary, but that to me is only her being a good Democrat; Kennedy would love to be our savior, as would Gore, Kerry, as well as others of old. And of course there was LBJ and his “Great Society”, paternalism if ever there was.

I do not see Obama or Edwards as better alternatives. In fact, not in several years have I seen any Democrats I would call potential leaders; seems to me that that party has died and just doesn’t have the sense to lie down.

At least Honoria was merely large of build and forceful; I never saw her as aggressive such as I see in Hillary.

Though the tears were probably real enough (hey, I get weepy when I’m tired and disappointed too), some were predicting a few days ago that it was time for her to show some vulnerability, maybe even in this exact way. Could it be that this display of emotion was at least partially calculated for effect?

I rather like Honoria, and could also like or respect Hillary to if she where more like her.  For Honoria is smart, confident, and means what she says.  Hilliary on the other hand thinks she can have it both ways.  Shed some botox crocodile tears this morning and say poor me, than in the afternoon say I am stronger smarter and will kick some ass when needed. The two faces of Hillary just don’t mesh.  I will never agree with her politics, but if there was a bit more Honoria or Maggie in her and accepted she was an old, 60 years old not 35; and was confident, and if she thinks that she knows best , don’t be afraid to say so.

Feel sorry for her? 
What about Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broderick, Monica Lewinsky and all the other women she helped slandar?  All innocent women who were only guilty of being able to do by sight what Hilary could only do and did once in her life; turn Bill on sexually.  Not a very high standard either.
She is a mean, cold, ruthless cunt who only gives a damn about herself.
She is “at bottom” a truly evil and empty human being.

Hillary is not only a bad person, she’s evil.  She is an unapologetic, proud and committed defender of abortion.  Defending the murder of children isn’t a quality that good people possess.

It’s hard to feel sorry for Hillary when she’s already been co-President.

Oh, come on. This ploy is as genuine as the infamous Hillary Cackle. She doesn’t so much as spit without a plan. You can’t throw a stone at Hillary without hitting a focus group.

But the sympathy ploy won’t work on the electorate (that means it won’t work on me, and one or two of my friends). She’s the worst thing to happen to US politics since Aaron Burr. Unfortunately for all of us, she’ll still be able to screw us over from the Senate, thanks to those poltroons in NY.

Two words: Richard Nixon

In fact, she might be more Nixon than Richard himself.  Her ambition scares me to death.

I agree that Hillary is evil, but let Bertie say which of his many intendeds, if intendeds is the word I want, was the worst:

Scanning the roster of the females I’ve nearly got married to in my time, we find the names of some tough babies. The eye rests on that of Honoria Glossop, and a shudder passes through the frame. So it does when we turn to the B’s and come upon Madeline Bassett. But taking everything into consideration and weighing this and that, I have always been inclined to consider Florence Craye the top. In the face of admittedly stiff competition, it is to her that I would award the biscuit. Honoria Glossop was hearty, yes. Her laugh was like a steamriveting machine, and from a child she had heen a confirmed hack-slapper
***
These are grave defects, but to do this revolting duo justice neither had tried to mold me, and that was what Florence Graye had done from the start, seeming to look on Bertram Wooster as a mere chunk of plasticine in the hands of the sculptor. The root of the trouble was that she was one of those intellectual girls steeped to the gills in serious purpose, who are unable to see a male soul without wanting to get behind it and shove.

Never forget that when she said “Listening Tour” she was thinking “listening to her.”

Those that leave all to chance should notice the injection of the only possible obstacle that the first black president could not overcome. a real un-attackable black man that is able to out platitude the group that has made a science of it. On the Rebuplican side I can honestly say that with only reservations toward Huckabee any of those others on the podium Sunday night at the Fox forum would be guided sufficiently by some principle to make the decisions not such a begin-with-a-clean-slate every time anything comes up to insure a reasonable chance of survival in a tough world. Democrats in my life have been puke in that office. Largin Testin

Is a person who cannot say “no” to sticking scissors in the base of a baby’s scull a bad person?  You be the judge.

First, not buying it.  She did this for cynical reasonas.

But i do think someday, maybe far away from the cameras, she will stop and, yep, cry.  Cry because she has done so much in her naked ambition.  She has hung on to a marriage even as it disintigrated into a hallow shell.  She has put up with all the shit bill has put her through.  All because she is convinced that she can run this nation better than us poor schmucks can.

Is she a bad person?  Well, she is an elitist of the worst variety.  Its not quite evil, but it is scary in a democracy to have someone run for president who obviously doesn’t believe she ever has to level with us.  Maybe that isn’t evil, but its bad enough.

For bonus points, ask yourself this… if Hillary was so involved in the clinton presidency, then how come bill felt comfortable enough to cheat on her, IN THEIR OWN HOUSE?

I don’t see why you would feel sorry for her. Do you feel sorry for Biden or Richardson?  Will you feel sad when Guilliani gets booted?  Being able to run for president is an honor and a privilege, bigger then the Oscars, even.

At the same time I think saying that Hillary lost is very premature.  She has a full month to get herself together again before the Feb. 5 primary (which is the real primaries, when you think about it).

She IS a bad person. You are simply being affected because you’re a male.

Hillary was either carrying out a pre-planned moment to elicit sympathy, or so tired that she slipped and launched into an excercise of self-pity. She wasn’t sad for the country, that’s the misdirection she intellectually knew she had to use--it was all about herself. She was supposed to walk to the White House and it’s not happening how she knows it should be.

Tears?! Those weren’t tears! Real Hillary don’t cry… those were “melting snowflakes”! Yeah… that’s the ticket, “Melting Snowflakes!” So back off, all you hooligan, meany-boys, before you make more snowflakes die!

It’s a trap!

Kohut in his book on treating the narcissistic personality disordered patient identifies their relationship to others as being of two varieties: I am everything and YOU are nothing, or I am worthy only because YOU are everything (and I admire you).  As we see the first relationship fall away, intuitively we feel the tug of her sense of emptiness and how we assuage it (as she slips more into the second mode of relationship).  Not that I know this lady, but that would fit the paradigm.

I thought Hillary already had the superdelegates locked up?  There’s enough of them to basically wash out a whole bunch of primary losses.

GWB and RR may have had tears in their eyes, for someone else (the dead of 9/11, wounded soldiers).  With Hillary the tears are all about her.  Like everything else.

No, that’s not it.  She’s a grasping, monomaniacal bitch.

"Could it be that this display of emotion was at least partially calculated for effect?”

No! Such a strategy would be far too big a risk. Hillary is not THAT desperate at this point.

“There’s no crying in politics!”

Tell that to Ed Muskie.

Approximately 150 million Americans are in favor of allowing abortions at least in some circumstances, yet Hillary Clinton is picked out as specially guilty of this so-called crime. Virtually all politicians are “Machiavellian” at least part of the time and certainly all are ambitious, yet Hillary Clinton is singled out as the “evil” carrier of this traits. Even something as normally praiseworthy, or at worst neutral, as “having a plan” is “infamous” if it’s Hillary doing the planning.

Is this typical of the conservative mind?

"You are simply being affected because you’re a male.”

Steverino has a point. Men DO tend to have an instinctive reaction where crying women are concerned.

Try to remember that inside, she’s solid-state, and there are no user-serviceable parts.

Here, read this.

Oh boo hoo, I don’t get to be president.  Remember this: Being the president isn’t about the person running getting to fulfil a lifelong dream to be at the ‘top’.  Being president is about the people who put you there. 

The president should enable (or get the out of the way to allow for) the realization of the dreams of millions of Americans, not their own fantasies of power and prestige.

Huckabee is a Pat Buchanan/Ross Perot distraction.  Neither Giuliani nor McCain are viable nationwide.  That leaves Romney ("I like mandates"), acceptable only at the margin, and the field’s sole candidate of convictions, principles:  Fred Thompson.

We think Thompson may be last-man-standing; like Reagan, abhorred by partisan media.  (Think how Obama would fare against him in debate.) Pre-empting the feckless Barack by resort to race-baiting demagoguery opens Thompson to run with Bobby Jindal, Congressman and Governor, Rhodes Scholar, born-again first-generation native of Baton Rouge, Mississippi.

A Thompson-Jindal ticket uniting ideational conservatives with evangelicals, a dark-skinned Southerner to boot, would trump (say) an Obama-Kerrey duo any day.  Sorry racists such as Jackson, Sharpton, might seek consolation from Blackface Jane Hamscher, but Louis Farrakhan’s day is past.

A Thompson incumbency through 2016, followed by President Jindal’s from 2017 - 2024, would put Paid to fifty years of suppurating Boomer narcissism from 1968.  With Tennyson’s Ulysses, America might say:

“Though much is taken, much remains; and though
We have not strength as in old days,
That which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by Time and Fate, but strong in Will
To strive, to seek, to find-- and not to yield.”

Actually, touched back-to-Earth, America would be revitalized, strong as ever, our “equal temper” ready for great things.

You’ve had a serious lapse alowing yourself to feel sorry for the Evil One, but it’s just a temporary moment of weakness. Here’s how to toughen up. Just remind yourself that Honoria Glossop wasn’t a Democrat, didn’t work from Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals, wasn’t a lawyer on the Senate Watergate committee, didn’t loathe and despise the U.S. military and Secret Service, didn’t tell Marines serving in the White House to serve canapes, didn’t employ any shady private detectives, didn’t squelch any bimbo eruptions, didn’t have any overbilling issues at the Rose Law Firm, did’t cry when Rick Lazio had the temerity to approach her lectern, didn’t hate America ... you get the idea. Plus, bro, you’re going to have help. When serious dirt starts appearing in the media about Obama and Edwards, you’ll know where it comes from.

I think a word that well describes Hillary would be;

ambitchous

I have to side with the majority here - Hillary has nearly every bad character trait that I can think of - self-centered, greedy, hypocritical, dishonest, practiced professional liar, serial perjurer, narcissistic in the extreme, arrogant, obnoxious and irritating.  Whew!

Nope, can’t feel sorry for her, not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent.

Not to mention but that the fictional characters you refer to just wanted to nag their subjects into improvement.  Like Stalin and Castro, Hillary would be willing to kill those irredeemable fools and morons who refused perfection.

http://www.usactuary.com/I_Believe.html

http://www.usactuary.com/I_Still_Believe.html

She can’t have lain down with that dog and not picked up some fleas.

I don’t care if Hillary is good or not. I don’t think that even if she was good that her record of non-accomplishment is sufficient to justify her vote.

I feel the same about Barrack, Huck, Paul, and Hunter. Only the latter has correct positions on issues. I could hold my nose and vote for someone who was right on some issues and wrong on others, if he had a record of successful administration.

Suppose, just suppose, that this is the mirror Hillary needs to face. The intervention to end all interventions. And suppose, against all odds, that it actually works. That she finds a certain humility she has never before had. That suddenly her intelligence begins to function and she becomes what Ted Kennedy never could—a senior statesman in the Senate, who appreciates that even Republicans are interested in solving social problems, and that they might be right that it should able to be done without stealing other people’s money to do it or without coercion…

Well, ... one can dream!

"Suppose, just suppose, that this is the mirror Hillary needs to face. The intervention to end all interventions. And suppose, against all odds, that it actually works. That she finds a certain humility she has never before had.”

You do realize, don’t you, that what you’ve done is repurposed the finale of Steve Martin’s old ‘Theodoric of York’ routine for Hillary?

Are you kidding me??!! Of course the tears are real, but because she’s losing. The evil comes in trying to sell the tears as high minded sorrow for poor USA which will be sadly deprived of her tender ministrations. Typical sociopath behavior.

I don’t know if I feel sorry for her, but I have been surprised by some of the media coverage. Interviewers aggressively insisting that she isn’t actually answering the question, reporters pouncing on small errors. It’s almost like she’s a Republican, but even with Republicans the media eventually let go- with Hillary they are like pit bulls and just keep hanging on.

Oops, Hillary was so overconfident that she moved to the center too early. These tears are her first move back to get back the lefty wing of the Democratic Party. She will come back and get the nomination. Count on it. Cynical? Come on now, this is Hillary CLINTON we’re talking about.

My guess is she’s trying to affect the women who’re thinking that the young, “hunky” Obama might be interesting to watch for the next four years.  Tears might have the effect of inducing sympathy.

On a related note… on a campaign stop tonight, two men started shouting “iron my shirt” at her so she could milk it for more female gender identification. Why would two men shout such a peculiar thing. It sounds like a phrase specifically designed to elicit a response from the audience. Perhaps resentment from housewives of the opressive males in their lives?

The Onion reported that Hillary’s dropping out of the race was merely an instance of pandering to the electorate.

I understand your feelings, but I haven’t a rap of sympathy for Hillary, and she can’t take my onion rings and give me carrot sticks either.

And don’t forget the White House travel offfice,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_travel_office_controversy

Hillary has been at the forefront of attacks from Edwards to the GOP for as long as the thought of compassionate, wise, and intelligent women as our Commander-in-Chief became a reality. Hillary is the best suited democratic candidate to lead our country in the vocation to solve domestic and foreign issues that matter to today and for future generations. Do the issues matter or does somebody’s likability and celebrity matter more? This is not a beauty contest. We need a leader.
Who really is defining Hillary? All we hear from the media and her opponents is how Hillary is cold hearted, is not in touch with voters and issues, and is portrayed as more of the same of the current Bush administration. NOTHING could be further from the truth. Voters need to look at the issues that matter to them the most, the positions and records of the candidates, and determine who is passionate and most likely to achieve those goals on day one. The nation cannot afford to train in an inexperienced leader/politician to be our President. The media needs a reality check and should project the sentiments of our society based on the important issues and how we are going to accomplish the goals represented by our nation’s consensus. Moreover, take a look at the national polling numbers that suggest Hillary is still favored nationally, her growing endorsements, and what do these early primaries really mean historically, when it comes to the final results for the democratic nomination. The media’s self-fulfilling prophecy of writing off Hillary’s campaign will not counteract our nation’s desire and destiny to move forward against the fiasco of the last 7 years towards economic prosperity and a more peaceful world.
The importance of America’s future leader will have global implications. Who do you think the rest of the world will most likely respect and cooperate with when it comes to achieving our foreign policy goals, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? We should not under estimate the charismatic influence and experience of a woman like Hillary and her ability to achieve the successful execution of global matters of concern. We are in a global economy and the fall of the USD any further will lead to a world recession.
Simply put, our nation needs results. Although Hilary is characterized as a polarizing figure, this fact will be inconsequential in a US government held by Democratic majorities in the House, Senate, and a capable Democratic President. Strength, conviction, and the ability to rally a competent cabinet along with a Democratic Congress will be essential to real reform in government; and Hillary is the one who can lead our nation through of the tough situations our nation is confronted with today and in the future. Seemingly, a rational reporter would write off former Mayor Giuliani before Hillary, you would suppose?

It’s hard to feel sorry for any of these people, who get rich just by running for office.

See: I’m a Ron Paul guy in theory, but then I look at all the money he’s backrolled by running this time around and I have to ask myself—if he doesn’t spend it on campaigning (he’s not, is he?), shouldn’t he live on principle and donate all that war chest that’s left over to something else, maybe another more-viable candidate?

So in that, I don’t feel sorry for Hillary, or Romney, or Edwards, or Biden.  I am sure a cool couple-million would help me nurse a defeat in the primaries.

I know that’s jaded, but let’s not pretend that these people are “like you and me”.  They don’t think they are, and if we fall into tha trap, we will let them tell us all kinds of lies.

My first introduction to Mrs. Clinton was an American Spectator essay, “The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock” and that image has always stayed with me.

Thus instead of looking to Honoria Glossop who now faces the prospect of losing the brass ring that was once within her grasp, I am more of a mind to remember Smeagol whose grasp of the Ring of Power so thoroughly corrupted him that he became Gollum.

I think that it is mere power and the lust for it that has corrupted the Clintons. I only wish the 2008 election could attract a candidate who didn’t act like Gollum willing to jump into a volcano to get the Presidency. Oh, wait, it has.