The Secret to Beating the Clintons
Call their bluff:
Mrs. Clinton is using illegal immigration as a homeland security issue in order to get to the GOP's right on the GWOT through the proverbial "back door" and paper over her gaping national security vulnerabilities. It's pure cynicism, nothing but a propaganda tactic; she doesn't believe a faux-nativist word she's saying. But, like her hubby, she is a master prevaricator and can effortlessly don any face she needs to to get what she wants.
And we all know what that is.
Throughout the '90s I always thought that the Republicans could have beaten Mr. Bill if they would only have exposed the phoniness of his feints toward the political center by calling his bluff and upping the ante, particularly on core GOP issues like tax cuts. Even the Contract with America, which propelled them into the congressional hegemony they've enjoyed ever since, was far too limited and unambitious to sustain the kind of political offensive it would have taken to defeat Clinton in 1996. The closest they came was the first government shutdown in late 1995, a confrontation polls at the time showed Mr. Bill losing. Unfortunately, Speaker Newt Gingrich didn't know when to quit, precipitated the second shutdown, allowed Clinton to slither off the hook and make his escape, and Republicans lost the courage to ever make another attempt.
Of course, running a cadaver like Bob Dole the next year didn't help matters. But GOPers could have used their continuing control of Congress to set the national agenda, especially as Sick Willie never sought a second term agenda that wasn't wearing a thong. And if it's true that "fortune favors the bold," they would - and did - have plenty of opportunities to whack the man from Grope down to size.
But Republicans weren't bold (apart from impeachment), and they never really ever laid a glove on him.
But judging by Mrs. Clinton's reaction to this deft and adroit parliamentary manuever, they may finally have figured out how the game is played.
Assuming that the head Pachyderms don't suffer selective memory loss - and George Bush's uncharacteristic vapidity on the immigration issue doesn't prove to be an insuperable obstacle (the White House is "quietly" supporting Real ID) - the ex-first lady's rise to ultimate power can perhaps be rendered a little less inevitable.
New York Senator Hillary Clinton is flip-flopping on her hard line stance against illegal immigration, announcing this week that she's "outraged" over the passage of the Real ID Act of 2005, which tightens drivers license regulations and mandates the completion of a border fence in California.
Two years ago Clinton proclaimed: "I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants," before adding: "We might have to move towards an ID system even for citizens."
But in a statement posted to her web site Tuesday, Clinton complained that the new immigration bill was "seriously flawed" and shouldn't have been attached to a "must-pass" military spending bill.
"I am outraged that the Republican leadership in both the House and Senate decided to . . . put this seriously flawed act into a bill to fund our troops," the top Democrat said.
"Emergency legislation designed to provide our troops with the resources they need to fight terrorism on the front lines is not the place for broad, sweeping immigration reform," she griped.
Mrs. Clinton is using illegal immigration as a homeland security issue in order to get to the GOP's right on the GWOT through the proverbial "back door" and paper over her gaping national security vulnerabilities. It's pure cynicism, nothing but a propaganda tactic; she doesn't believe a faux-nativist word she's saying. But, like her hubby, she is a master prevaricator and can effortlessly don any face she needs to to get what she wants.
And we all know what that is.
Throughout the '90s I always thought that the Republicans could have beaten Mr. Bill if they would only have exposed the phoniness of his feints toward the political center by calling his bluff and upping the ante, particularly on core GOP issues like tax cuts. Even the Contract with America, which propelled them into the congressional hegemony they've enjoyed ever since, was far too limited and unambitious to sustain the kind of political offensive it would have taken to defeat Clinton in 1996. The closest they came was the first government shutdown in late 1995, a confrontation polls at the time showed Mr. Bill losing. Unfortunately, Speaker Newt Gingrich didn't know when to quit, precipitated the second shutdown, allowed Clinton to slither off the hook and make his escape, and Republicans lost the courage to ever make another attempt.
Of course, running a cadaver like Bob Dole the next year didn't help matters. But GOPers could have used their continuing control of Congress to set the national agenda, especially as Sick Willie never sought a second term agenda that wasn't wearing a thong. And if it's true that "fortune favors the bold," they would - and did - have plenty of opportunities to whack the man from Grope down to size.
But Republicans weren't bold (apart from impeachment), and they never really ever laid a glove on him.
But judging by Mrs. Clinton's reaction to this deft and adroit parliamentary manuever, they may finally have figured out how the game is played.
Assuming that the head Pachyderms don't suffer selective memory loss - and George Bush's uncharacteristic vapidity on the immigration issue doesn't prove to be an insuperable obstacle (the White House is "quietly" supporting Real ID) - the ex-first lady's rise to ultimate power can perhaps be rendered a little less inevitable.
posted by JASmius at 8:57 PM
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