Hillary is running for president. Color me unexcited. I won’t vote for her in the primary, though I’ll vote for her for president, if that’s what it comes down to.
Just as a side note, I saw a commercial for a UFC show taking place on some Marine base, over in Iraq, I think. Here’s proof that I’m neither a soldier or a man because let me tell you, if a bunch of 18-40 year old men willing to beat the shit out of each other and risk death showed up on my base for any reason other than to join me in the fighting, I would not be whooping it up watching them go at it, I’d be fucking pissed off.
If anybody 18-40 years old came over there to “support” me by performing and then running back here to the U.S., they’d be lucking if I didn’t punch them in the nose. “Support.” Whatever. You want to support the war? Join up. You want to support the troops? Get them out of harm’s way. Fuck, let’s not even go that far. Give them an accomplishable mission.
Because, let me tell you, this troop “surge”? Would be hilarious if lives weren’t at stake. What on god’s green earth is a “surge” supposed to accomplish?
Here are some questions I have.
1. Is there really a government that can rule Iraq in place?
2. Is Iraq in a civil war? If not, how will we recognize a civil war? And, if there is a civil war, will it be one based on religious-sectarianism? If so, will we take the side of the government or try to remain neutral?
3. What will victory look like? How will we know when we’ve won?
4. How can you win against an enemy that is willing to kill themselves for their cause? If they fear death less than they hate you, how can you win a fight against them?
5. Hillary supports this war. What is her plan for how to wage it?
6. What will Hillary do to restore the rule of law and reinstate our Constitutional rights and protections? Or does she believe that indefinite ignoring of the Constitution is necessary in order to wage the larger “war” on terror?
7. Does Hillary actually think the country is best served by over twenty years of Clinton/Bush rule? Does she really think the people are best served by two families trading power back and forth for decades?
Well, apparently she does.
But it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Tiny Cat Pants 
I was watching a special on the troops who just deployed (they knew they were redeploying for a third tour back in November…so all this bullshit about "deciding what to do with my policy geek squad" we got in December was just that). Some reporter type said "the US is at war." and some soldier piped up "No, sir. The US Army is at war. The US is at the mall."That pretty much sums it up.
I’m convinced that conservatives are the only ones who are truly interested in the Hillary campaign.
I’m actually curious to hear from folks in other parts of the country. Is there more excitement about her on the coasts?
I can’t speak for all of New England, but most people I know view her with hesitation. I think it’s great for the nation that we have gotten to a place that a woman may have true potential to be voted into the presidency. But I wonder–as do many people I’ve chatted with about her–if Hillary is the woman I would want as president. Not so much "Do I want this woman as my president" but more of "Do I really want this *person* as my president?"It’s a little tricky. I feel compelled to be in favor of her because, god damn, there’s a woman running for president. But when it comes down to it, I don’t think she would be my favorite candidate so far, based on her history and things I have heard her say.And I would love to hear her answers to your questions…
I have to admit that I’m not all that comfortable hearing people talk about "Hillary." Considering that no one else with that surname is running for president now, could we start calling her "Clinton"? Or "Hillary Clinton" if we’re afraid of confusion. I understand that she’s got a husband also known as "Clinton", but to my ears it still comes across as condescending, kind of like referring to the Secretary of State as "Condi" with no surname.I think Hillary Clinton is a fine senator. But I think it would be a mistake for the Democrats to run an all-but-Republican for president, and I’m not enthusiastic about her as a candidate.
I’m in New York. The really progressive Dems dislike her (way over the line of contempt) for her positions on the war, the neo-cons hate her because she’s a woman and a Clinton and a "liberal" (whatever that means to them…and yes, roughly in that order) and are getting hard-ons fantasizing about destroying the Democrats through the vehicle of her candidacy. Most of the people I know are either unexcited or exactly as Kathleen describes — torn between "hey, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to vote for a woman" and "I don’t really like her." It strikes me as a selfish egotistical candidacy, but I never have admired her statecraft and hey, you have to be an egomaniac to think that you should be president.
nm, I appreciate what you’re saying about referring to her as ‘Clinton,’ but when she’s running her campaign as "Hillary for President" and encouraging us to "Join Team Hillary" (see the website), it’s going to be hard to get folks on board.It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out for sure. I agree, I’d love to vote for Clinton just for the thrill of voting for a woman, but I’m just not excited about her.And, damn it, if she’s going to trade on the fact that she’s already got White House experience–in other words, she’s trying to show that she’s been in national politics since ’92, then I expect to hear an Iraq plan.She knows what what her husband inherited as President and she knows what he left Bush with. She supports the war, based, I presume, on this knowledge.Well, then, Clinton, let’s hear it. What is your grand plan?Because, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think George Bush is one of the worst people in the world. And yet, if Canada came down here and deposed him, I’d fight them tooth and nail. And I would say that there could be no peace in the country until they left. And even if they did leave, I would never be okay with them coming in and imposing their will (even if I sympathized with it) on my country.What makes an ordinary Iraqi any different than me, an ordinary U.S. citizen?It seems clear that the longer we stay without meeting articulated goals, the weaker we seem. And, the weaker we seem on the world stage, the worse for us.I want to know what Clinton thinks victory will look like. Will it be a thriving democracy? But what if the Iraqis want a thriving democracy that is hostile to the U.S.? Will it be an end to fighting? What if installing another dictator as feared as Hussein would end the fighting, would that be okay?I also would like to know what the end of the war on terror would look like. How will we know when we’ve won that war? Is it possible?How will we continue to fight when we’ve already asked so much of our fighting forces? How can we continue to ask our troops to return over and over again to Iraq?The wounds from Vietnam still run to the bone in this country–even though the draft was supposed to insure everyone suffered equally–precicely because some folks feel like they sacrificed more than others and that their sacrifices have never been properly acknowledged.Now, we have another war that the American public feels deeply ambivalent about, where the cost of the war is not shared equally, but is unduly high and borne by a small group. What do we do for those folks when they come home? And what kinds of scars are we going to have to live with as a society for the next fifty years as we try to reintegrate these folks back in?Odysseus fought for ten years. He was lost to his family for ten years after that. And when he came home, he was told to walk to a place where he and his tools were unrecognizeable. Are we going to offer every returning soldier an oar and tell them to keep walking? What are we going to do to bring them home, physically and psychologically?
Those are questions that ought to be asked of any candidate. Also how to pay for it all, since one of the things that Bush has done is to pretty well bankrupt the gov’t.
Also, once they answer these questions, how do we ensure that those answers are well-known and easy to find?
Let’s see: they go on all the Sunday morning news-talk shows and discuss the stuff, they put their ideas up on their campaign websites, they make a lot of speeches including the ideas which get covered in the newspapers and on local and national news reports. You know. The campaigning thing. I actually think that the Democratic candidates so far have a true range of opinion on most of these matters, and it’s in each of their interests to get their own ideas out there and distinguish them from the others. Of course, I think it would be more in the interests of the country if they all waited a year to do it, so we could use the next twelve months to focus on Congress fixing some things that are broken, but nobody asked me.
Yeah, but you can’t blame them for wanting to ride the anti-Bush momentum now, while we have it.
I’m trying to get my head around the idea that Bush will do something to improve his popularity within the next year. No, I can’t do it.I don’t blame any individual candidate for working with the election cycle as it exists, rather than as it would work better. But I do think that the best thing that could be done for the political climate and in the direction of ethics reform in the federal government would be to move the primaries so that they couldn’t be before June of the election year, and to limit fundraising activities until the beginning of the election year. I’m just a dreamer, I guess.
>Hillary is running for president. Color me unexcited. I won’t vote for her in the primary, though I’ll vote for her for president, if that’s what it comes down to.>yeah, them’s pretty much my sentiments as well.