…Hillary Clinton! For phoniest display of belated emotion in
a Presidential campaign!
Hillary’s emotional outburst, last month, at the tanking of
her multi-million dollar, mass pandering campaign reminded me
of a scene in Mike Myers’ Wayne’s World where he, as Wayne,
throws water on his face and emotes about something while “Academy
Awards Clip” flashes on the screen. Hillary Clinton does not
do anything that is not coldly, if not icily calculated. However,
seeing her ambitions and life’s work of becoming the first female
president go down into the primordial-primary ooze may be something
for which she might exhibit a little emotion.
She showed no emotion when I met with her along
with another Gold Star Mother: Lynn Braddach from Oregon, whose
son Travis Nall was also KIA in Iraq. We poured our hearts and souls out to her
and she hardly even blinked, let alone shed a tear for our heartbreak
for which she has been a major neo-connette chearleader. Well,
at least she was “for it” before she was “against it.”
The meeting with the Senator from New York occured in September
of 2005, just a few short weeks after we left Camp Casey in
Crawford, Tx on August 31, 2005. Anti-war sentiment was high
and the apex was a mass march and rally that hundreds of thousands
of like-minded (many for the first time) attended in the belly
of the evil empire on September 24th. Since then, the motivation
and energy of the anti-war movement has ebbed and flowed with
each subsequent fresh assault on peace and democracy by BushCo
with the help, support and justification of “Democrats” like
Hillary Clinton.
After Hillary was roundly booed at a campaign
event in New Hampshire, I am sure that there was a high-level
meeting of her campaign that came up with the strategy of the
new and improved and “emotional, but not too emotional” Hillary
Clinton. This is the same campaign that thought Hillary could
demonstrate that Senator Mike Gravel (who chastised her in a
debate about her vote to sanction
Iran) was crazy by laughing at him, as if she were
the insane one, with a very bizarre and disturbing cackle. This
is the same campaign that told Ms. Clinton that she should,
under no circumstances, apologize to the families of the needlessly
and tragically fallen for her support of the war that killed
them. This is essentially the same campaign that handed the
White House over to Bush again in 2004. Kerry’s campaign was
such a resounding “success,” Hillary thought she could run the
same careful and calculated one and be victorious… There seems
to be a disconnect here.
America
is tired of panderers and blatant political animals that carefully
campaign so as not to offend anyone by telling the truth.
The truth is something that has been profoundly lacking in most
political discourse for many, many years. BushCo did not invent
lying and deceptions; they have just elevated dishonesty to
an art. The truth is hard and can be as cold as Hillary in New
Hampshire in January, but I believe we all thirst for it and
will drink from the cup of the candidate who offers it to us.
The
two remaining Democratic candidates can not run on their records
(which are essentially the same), so they have to run on an
ephemeral and hard to quantify promise of “change.” We need
change, but do any of the remainder candidates really offer
it? Or will it always be more of the same old, same old until
we break from the mold of the two-party duopoly that is designed
to block democracy, not elevate it.
With the radical shake up of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, we will
have to see what the next “new and improved” Hillary will look
like. With little excitement in a contest that seems to be dragging
on ad infinitum, at least we all have something amusing to look
forward to!
As many on the real left predicted, the contest for the next
corporately owned and operated president is narrowing down to
a few chosen-ones. Consequently, we the people of this country,
whether we are black, white or in between; rich or poor; Christian,
Jew, Muslim, or religiously ambivalent; straight, gay or sexually
ambivalent; we must reclaim and reassert our role in democracy
which is to keep the politicians as close as possible to honest.
BC Guest Commentator, Cindy Sheehan, is the
mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was tragically and needlessly
killed in Iraq
on April 04,2004. Since his death, Cindy has become internationally
known for her anti-war activism and is currently running for Congress against Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
She wrote this article from her current location of Cairo,
Egypt. Click
here to contact Ms. Sheehan.