Politics: April 2005 Archives

I want to like Hillary better, I really do. The Democratic Party has pretty much reduced its political agenda to government giveaway programs, unrestricted abortion, and the acceptance of buggery. They need to get serious about being a national party again, and Senator Clinton (D-Standbyourman) is one of the few leaders who can stand up to the shrill, narrow constituencies of her party.

So when I see her get tough on North Korea and their nukes, my heart is gladdened. During her time in the Senate, and especially with her work on the Armed Services Committee, she has tried to be a serious voice, and by all accounts she works hard to understand the issues under their purview. States are primarily about enforcing worldly justice, by enforcing the law internally and by defending against external aggressors, and anyone who wants to be president must take that seriously.

Yet through it all, she is a Clinton, and being a Clinton means that you have to get in a nasty cheap shot while ostensibly doing something for the public good. When Admiral Jacoby, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, delivered the assessment that North Korea has the capability to put nuclear warheads on missiles that can reach the U.S., Clinton called it

...the first confirmation, publicly, by the administration that the North Koreans have the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device that can reach the United States....Put simply, they couldn't do that when George Bush became president, and now they can.

She apparently forgot that her husband was president when North Korea promised to stop its offensive nuclear program in 1994, in exchange for fuel and other goodies. Well, they took the fuel, continued the program, and that's why we're in this situation today: because her husband accepted the word of an insane tyrant. The problem didn't start with President Bush (and, in fairness, it didn't start under President Clinton, either), it was inherited by him.

Disagreeing about the best way to defend the nation is healthy and good, but using the subject primarily for political ammunition is a grave betrayal of public trust. Someday, there will be a nationally-known Democrat with some degree of intellectual honesty whose name is not Joe Lieberman. Maybe that person will be Senator Clinton. She's got about three years to make it happen.

He is not our worst ex-president — that would be Jimmy Carter, affectionately known in Springfield as "History's greatest monster — but he's trying his best to claim the title:

[Clinton] said he had met "two great popes" in his lifetime, John Paul II and John XXIII. Clinton said he recognized that John Paul "may have had a mixed legacy," but he called him a man with a great feel for human dignity.

This from the guy who is primarly remembered for messing aroud with the White House help:

Specifically, 53% of Americans named "Monica Lewinsky" or the "affair, adultery, sex scandal" as the most memorable moment of President Clinton's eight years in office, more than four times the number who cited "the economy" (12%).

UPDATE: As I typed this, Drudge has posted the full quote:

“[Pope John Paul II] centralized authority in the papacy again and enforced a very conservative theological doctrine. There will be debates about that. The number of Catholics increased by 250 million on his watch. But the numbers of priests didn't. He's like all of us - he may have a mixed legacy.”

Getting carnal favors in the Oval Office, standing up for 2,000 years of Christian truth...it's all pretty much the same, right?