No Embellishment
Hitchens on what Hillary Clinton really did in to Bosnia:
I can remember, first, one of the Clintons’ closest personal advisers—Sidney Blumenthal—referring with acid contempt to Warren Christopher as “a blend of Pontius Pilate with Ichabod Crane.” I can remember, second, a meeting with Clinton’s then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin at the British Embassy. When I challenged him on the sellout of the Bosnians, he drew me aside and told me that he had asked the White House for permission to land his own plane at Sarajevo airport, if only as a gesture of reassurance that the United States had not forgotten its commitments. The response from the happy couple was unambiguous: He was to do no such thing, lest it distract attention from the first lady’s health care “initiative.”
Did a quarter million Bosnians die for the sake of Hillary’s ego? It would seem at least partly so.
UPDATE: Makes you wonder what she’d do to her own party to secure the nomination, eh?
Or what she’d do to her country. Maybe she would be the female Mugabe.
I am so very tired of the Clintons and their cheap (and sometimes deadly) dramas. Please let’s agree to make it stop this year.
Bill was fine.
My biggest complaint is that he could have been more prescient regarding the economic slow down and advised people to be more fiscally responsible at the dead end of his term.
Hillary is a different creature. Who knows, she may be good. But there’s something about the way she does thing, the way she seems to think (more important than her ideas), says things, and something in her voice that make me think disaster (as far as a US political disaster can really go in this age).
This brings me toward what I’m currently thinking is the biggest of Bush’s failures as president.
Bush has his big faults. Namely, giving congress free reign and allowing obscene, mostly unnecessary, spending. I can understand, money was cheap (very low interest rates on the national debt at the time). It made sense to borrow the money and invest in the country. But it could have been spent more judiciously. Anyway, I digress.
These aren’t Bush’s big failure as president. His policies have not been bad. Iraq, easy call, had to be done, regardless of the outcome. Medicaid drugs, don’t like the idea, but I’ve also seen studies that show a dollar spent on drugs saves 2 on Medicare. Stem Cells and science in general: ok, really bad qualitatively, probably not financially well allocated either, but also not too detrimental in the short-term (which is will end soon).
Other than giving congress too much leeway and money, Bush’s big failure is in presentation. He failed in his primary role as President, being a communicator and figure head for the united states.
The best example of this that stands out in my mind is his HIV policy in Africa. It’s a fine policy, but there is a mixed signal. Abstinence is encouraged, but is not required for aid. More importantly, abstinence only IS NOT a condition that determines aid. However, countries believe otherwise and act accordingly. Abstinence Only is chosen unnecessarily, and help is also not pursued, based on false perceptions.
[Side note: Perhaps a letter to the president is in order regarding HIV aid money. Without abandoning his principles, he could at least temporarily stop aid for abstinence only programs. Just to clarify that it is not necessary.]
Most people, probably. Me, not so much:
“Hillary in particular will have no qualms about leveling the party to the ground and sowing it with salt.”
Now more than ever:
Hillary Milhous Clinton.
Like Richard Nixon, but without the charm.