Hillary and Bill: The Bonnie And Clyde Of Politics

[Radio_Lady]

Hillary And Bill: The Bonnie And Clyde Of Politics
By Stephen Fleischman
ARedInTheHouse.com

“We rob banks!” said Clyde Barrow.

“We rob you of your political initiative…” Hillary Clinton might have said when she and her husband, the President of the United States, managed to kill the chances for Universal Health Care for all Americans by, deliberately or otherwise, playing into the hands of the Insurance Industry and their HMO backers. They set the movement for a single payer plan back a generation.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is now the Democratic front-runner in the race for the Presidency of the United States in 2008. We are currently in that murky, foggy area where the runners are cantering before they break out in the open field gallop to the finish line.

Bill Clinton may not have robbed banks, but he robbed gay and lesbian citizens of their civil rights with his “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for the armed forces:

"Sexual orientation will not be a bar to service unless manifested by homosexual conduct…., or a marriage or attempted marriage to someone of the same gender." - quoted in "The Pentagon's New Policy Guidelines on Homosexuals in the Military.”

The policy has continued under the Bush Administration, unofficially, stretched to include gays and lesbians in the general population when it ran up against issues of gay marriage.

Before the end of his second term, Clinton was fighting impeachment in the House and the threat of being ousted by the Senate charged with perjury-lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. His Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was urging him to wag the dog. That bit of advice came in handy. How else do you rob your constituents of their political initiative? Start a war. We know from historical experience that it works every time.

More at: http://www.wbai.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=8772&Itemid=2



Stephen Fleischman, television writer-director-producer, spent thirty years in Network News at CBS and ABC, starting in 1953. In 1959, he participated in the formation of the renowned Murrow-Friendly "CBS Reports" series. In 1983, Fleischman won the prestigious Columbia University-Dupont Television Journalism Award. In 2004, he wrote his memoir, “A Red in the House.” For additional information, see: www.ARedintheHouse.com or www.SEFleischman.com.

[Lindacooks]

1. What is this crap, anyway?

And don't the authors know that President Clinton is, um, not in office anymore? And that this country has been brought to its knees by chimpy et al?

Sheesh.

[Radio_Lady]

4. I'll pass your comments along to the author -- or you can do the same.

He posted his email address on WBAI.org in the original commentary.

Thanks for your post.

Warm regards,

Radio_Lady in Oregon

[Old and In the Way]

2. All this time, I thought it was Republicans who torpedoed Universal Health

Care. And I know Bill was just dying to make an issue out of gays in the military. Amazing how Mr. Fleishman can still flog the victims of the Republican Inquisition.....

[Demeter]

3. I Must Agree That the Health Care Plan Was a Total Setback

As was the Don't Ask, Don't Tell.


Clinton tried to straddle the issues: one foot on the side of the needy, the other on the side of comforting, or at least, not arousing and upsetting, the powerful and bigotted. I believe that the Clintons were well-intentioned. Well, we all know the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

As a result they devised compromises that weren't acceptable to either side, and had these compromises been accepted, they wouldn't have worked, much as Bush's Medicare drug plan doesn't work.

A good policy doesn't straddle issues; it resolves them, to the point were people cannot imagine how they survived before without that policy.

As for Clinton starting a war to distract: nope, no sale. Clinton did some important early intervention in the Balkans. His African efforts were too kind for the situation, which is generally hopeless. And I'd take Clinton's foreign policy any day over a Bush. I must state that the Iraqi policy was wrong, but not as wrong as Bush's, and certainly not grounds for starting a war.

The thing that most bothers me about Hillary is: she doesn't see two sides of the issue and pick the side of the angels. She's still trying to straddle the gap between obviously GOOD and Constitutional and EVIL and Fascism. But she hasn't got Bill's nimbleness (nor evidently any advisors of the caliber that Bill had).

[Radio_Lady]

5. It will be interesting to see if Hillary really considers a run for the

Presidency. Right now, I'm sure she is on staying in the Senate. Ultimately, it is still possible she may decide to pass. She has a lot of baggage to be sure. I wish her well and will vote for anyone who has a "D" after his/her name.