The Rational Psychic

I am sick at heart that the leadership of the Democratic Party has not ended this fiasco earlier. Yes, we are all having fun playing politics and watching Hillary fight the tough fight she has advertised she can fight. But, the fun ends when we see how deeply this contest is dividing the Democratic Party.

I believe that we, as Democrats, believed at the beginning of the nomination race that we would offer the uniting choice for the country. However, I believe that Hillary and Bill Clinton’s political strategy has sought only to achieve a short-term victory and ignored the consequences of her strategy and his/her tactics.

The statements and actions taken by the Clinton campaign, even if she were to win, would only weaken the possibility of a mandate by the Democrats and weaken her standing as our country’s Chief Executive after the Presidential race was over. And I’m not willing to contemplate the possibility of a Republican win even though I have such grave misgivings about a Clinton presidency.

I haven’t been shy about my preference for Barack Obama as a candidate. Nor have I tried to play nice and say that I felt Hillary Clinton was a grand lady. No. So why am I even more angry and alarmed today about the continuation of Hillary Clinton’s cynical campaign? It started with a simple link to a WHYY interview with President Clinton (that’s how we are still supposed to refer to Bill out of respect for the office) in which the President says that he believes the Obama campaign “played the race card on [him]“.

Next, on YouTube.com, I found a video clip in which the President then claims he never said (on WHYY, no less) that he believed the race card had been played against him.

I can hear the Clinton supporters saying, “Why are you talking about Bill, when Hillary is the one running?” The answer to that should be obvious. If Obama had to spend a week answering for the statements of a man he saw as little as once a week, how much time should Hillary spend answering for the statements and actions of a man she chose to marry in 1975? And whom she promoted so actively that she claims the majority of her public experience lies in her partnership with him?

Other telling bits to look at are listed below. Most shocking is the demonstrated and substantive racist actions taken by our former President. The first, a backhanded kind of compliment of the former president is just an appetizer. This video shows former Ambassador Andrew Young on Bill Clinton’s ‘blackness’ and Hillary Clinton’s willingness to create a “defense committee” related to Bill’s alleged affairs before he began his first presidential run.

I thought this was a great Obama device: video of Bill Clinton on his perception of the importance of “courage to change” versus the “wrong” type of experience (in a 1992 debate with GHW Bush) and the obvious comparison with Obama. I didn’t even realize that Bill was 46 when he ran for President in 1992. He was just a pup! Who would trust a guy that young to run the country!? Oh…wait, we did.

Sources that indicate a level of institutional racism that I am ashamed to say I didn’t know of when I voted for Bill Clinton in ‘92 and ‘96. These include a news article and an appeal to the US Supreme Court from October, 1990. My reading may be inexact, but the gist appears to be that under Bill Clinton’s governorship, state legislative voting districts were not apportioned in a way which was in legal conformity with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Finally, a documentary from the BBC that I never saw before but which has plenty of nastiness and maneuvering by both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Revealing statements by friends and former allies regarding how Hillary managed President Clinton’s contacts with women during his 1982 race for the Arkansas governorship.

Oh, yes, and a very interesting statement that Hillary Clinton was into teacher testing long before the No Child Left Behind legislation was proposed by the present Administration.

All in a life’s work, I say.