WASHINGTON — If Americans in their infinite wisdom choose to keep a Democrat in the White House through 2016, let it be Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Increasingly the question of whether President Barack Obama should be challenged for the 2012 nomination is surfacing among disgruntled Democrats worried about a solid Republican victory next fall. They’re right to be concerned: the crises facing the United States and the world deserve better than Obama’s oldest established permanent floating re-election campaign.
There’s no doubt Clinton’s tireless and often effective performance as secretary of state demonstrates she would bring more seasoned judgment to the Oval Office than its current resident.
Here are a just a few reasons the Democratic Party should bite the bullet and jettison the nation’s one-term Senate orator and try to elect the nation’s first woman president.
Beginning with the political dimension of his conduct of the war in Afghanistan to class war at home, Obama’s priorities seem to be governed more by his re-election timetable than the demands of the national interest and reflective responses to the galloping changes in the global order
Contrary to mainstream opinion, Obama is a mediocre politician. Were it not so, surely he would have known instinctively that people get wise to polished repetitive, but empty speeches — and know the difference between bread and butter now and pie in the sky later.
Joblessness and fear of watching retirement savings vanish weigh heavier on the nation’s collective mind than long-range climate change and health care reform. The president’s touted political instincts should have told him all that. But, as James Carville once noted so cogently, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
But while Obama talked jobs and initiated a jobs bill in Congress on his sixth day in office, almost all of his mind and determination remained focused on health care — his overriding priority.
There is more. Even a short and substantively fruitless effort in spring 2009 to get agreement on a new U.N. climate change protocol outranked jobs at home on Obama’s must-do list.
Health care came first, no matter what. The president spent a year getting it on the books, while he assured the country that his close to trillion-dollar economic stimulus program was creating jobs.
Reality was, and is, different. Obama’s stimulus is mainly keeping teachers, firefighters and community organizers on payrolls even though they hardly classify as endangered species.
There is still more. Obama lost no time proclaiming the recession over — blind and deaf to the reality that it was a “jobless recovery.” He saw the upticking Gross National Product statistics and forgot or never understood they reflected only record earnings of financial institutions.
Hillary Clinton with her wealth of experience as first lady, a two-term senator from New York and now the world’s leading diplomat would hardly have been so blind.
Obama’s economic stimulus was a bust because, among his many other blunders, he left the writing of the legislation to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in their veto-proof Congress — without benefit of Republican input. As a result, Congress presented him with a Christmas tree adorned with pork barrels, but bare of jobs with a future.
Even his re-election campaign has disintegrated to a series of sound bites before handfuls of workers in shabby union halls.
We can only hope that reports about Hillary’s health problems are greatly exaggerated. Her party — and her country — badly need her services at this dark and crucial juncture of history. She’s likely the only potential winner the Democrats can muster.
• Kipling is a Canadian journalist in Washington.
Comments (21)
Add commentLook what Pres. Obama took
Look what Pres. Obama took over
Halfjay the truth is...
Halfjay, the truth is Obama took over what Hillary would have fixed by now!
No, the truth is that anyone
No, the truth is that anyone who thinks the president is omnipotent is an idiot.
Hillary Clinton wouldn't have faced the racism Obama does, but she would face sexism. Case in point: notice how people tend to refer to women in power by their first names and men in power by their last?
The truth yet again...
The truth yet again is that gender or color aside, Hillary has a demonstrated ability for leadership that Mr. Obama can't equal.
As to last names, Clinton -- like Kennedy -- is one of those last names that invariably raises the question "Which one are you talking about?" Hillary is just plain easier.
The truth is that Hillary
The truth is that Hillary would probably be just about as radical as Obama. Her senior thesis was on Saul Alinsky, if that says anything about her ideology.
What kind of leadership has she shown? Most of the world's countries are ticked off at America or laughing at us.
And...does anybody want Bill Clinton near the White House again?!!
I'd love to have Bill back in
I'd love to have Bill back in the White House. Who cares that he got a knobber from a fat chick and didn't want to fess up about it? His time in office was one of the most economically prosperous periods in America's history.
I think not fessing up to some hanky-panky pales compared to embroiling our country in a needless war that ended up being the most expensive in history so one's buddies could get rich.
After nearly 3 plus YEARS?
Kalfjay,
Let me get this straight, after more than 3 YEARS you and the rest of the Obamaniacs are STILL blaming Bush?
Didn't you hear, your messiah proclaimed that the recession was 'over'!!! Everything now according to him is just peachy keen!
Oh yes, in case you glossed over it, the pro-Hillary writer noted the FACTS pertaining to your messiah Obama: he DIDN'T care about putting people to work, he had a pre-set Political Agenda...which has been to DIVIDE the entire country!
So much for the 'post-partisan' President! He's been stridently partisan since he and the Dem Party controlled the House since 2006 and BOTH Houses of Congress from 2008 to 2010!!!!
He's INCREASED the National Debt by nearly 43% in only 3 plus years......that's almost DOUBLING it in less time that Bush's first term in office!
Further, NONE of the 'stimulus' created jobs, even the pro-Hillary author noted that FACT.....and as for the imperious nature of your messiah Obama when it comes to circumventing the constitutional legislative process (you know, IGNORING the US Constitution when it comes to creating laws-which is the SOLE purview of Congress), your fearless leader is about as transparent as a mud fence in the middle of a monsoon!
The ONLY way for Obama to win re-election is to invoke the Chicago Way Tactics with which he is so familiar: steal elections by having dead people vote, Illegal Aliens vote, multiple votes by individual voters, and of course to have ballot boxes go missing.
Yup...those are tactics with which he is MORE than familiar.............the rest of us have had ENOUGH of 'hope and change' from President Teleprompter.......it's time for a REAL change: ANYONE but Obama!
Cheers
Neanderthal
That's just funny.
I submit to you, with this opinion piece as evidence, that the "right" is far more obsessed with Obama than the "left."
Happy Holidays!
Crystal ball re-vote
Does anyone really think that if Democratic primary voters in the last election been given a crystal ball preview of these last three years, they wouldn't have voted for Hillary instead?
The right...
...has a woody for Hillary. They get turned on by stern girls who don't take their crap. I'd love to see a debate between Hillary and Mitt or Newt...she'd grind them up like hamburger.
Hillary will be mopping the floor with their type in 2016.
Check your calendar Latitude...
Check your calendar Latitude...with any kind of luck and common sense on our part she'll be mopping them up in 2012!
I find it troubling that so
I find it troubling that so many of you think one elected official can have so much influence--good or bad--on such large apparatuses as the economy and culture of the United States.
Also, Neanderthal up above would do well to research his statements and check his math before making himself look like an uninformed dolt. It's too late for that this time, but maybe next?
Yeah, well, mediadog, if your
Yeah, well, mediadog, if your side wasn't all so caught up in the razzle dazzle and emotion, you could have seen what was in store with Obama. Nothing he has done has been a surprise. The guy's been steeped in Marxism his whole life.
Next time, get yourself informed and open your eyeballs before you vote.
Marxism
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
For what it's worth, Obama
For what it's worth, Obama isn't any kind of messiah. However, he's still a much better option that any of the meatheads the GOP has optioned up to replace him. The fact that the GOP can't come up with anybody who would be better suited to be president than Obama shows what a limp-noodle party it is.
I just wish the GOP...
...would nominate Sarah Palin already.
C'mon righties, you KNOW you want her. Are you REALLY gonna nominate leftist turds like Gingrich or Romney? Limp noodles indeed.
"The proletariat will use its
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie; to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state."
- Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto, 1848.
"...the middle-class owner of property: This person must indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible." - Karl Marx
"Obama's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, is a leading proponent of Liberation Theology which is a religious overlay onto Marxism." It interprets scripture through the plight of the poor.
"I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets." - Barack Obama (Dreams of My Father)
"It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation." - Barack Obama
Calypso, I know you didn't
Calypso,
I know you didn't research that all yourself. What rightie web site do you usually cut and paste from?
Persnickety twitdom
Hello there,
Apparently you, like the rest of your Social Progressive club, has an exceedingly difficult time with empirical evidence and reality; nothing new of course, but at least you could do more than throw a tantrum and babble inanities.
Check the stats concerning the National Debt the day before Obummer took office and then check what it is now.......since the Nat. Debt is literally climbing EVERY SECOND, the number and percentile changes: that's not my personal subjective opinion, that's the finances and the math.....look those terms up in Webster's if they are not familiar to you.
Further, your messiah by Presidential Fiat (aka, Executive Orders) is doing what your fellow twits over at MoveOn, Daily Kos, and HuffPo begged and pleaded for him to do: to CIRCUMVENT the constitutional legislative process (you know, doing things according to the US Constitution) by using Presidential Executive Orders to use POLICY changes to do what he couldn't even get through the DEMOCRAT controlled Congress for two years!!!!!
He's killing the economy using this contra-constitutional process of Executive Orders to foist illegal de facto laws upon farmers, ranchers, small businesses, food producers, and of course, EVERY American family!
How is he doing that last bit? Well, let's see there my dear swifty: the EPA has placed policies on the books which will REQUIRE some 10-15 coal fired power plants to shut down, while refusing to allow the construction of anymore power plants.....and that will raise the electric power rates by up to 30 PERCENT per household.......
Oh, that means he'll be fulfilling one of his campaign promises "If you elect me your utility bills will SKYROCKET......".......lo and behold, Obama's EPA, through Presidential Executive Order, is in the process of doing just that for us all.
Ain't that lovely of him?
He's doing the same thing for American Energy: allowing other countries to drill in the Gulf but DENYING American companies to do the same thing; he even went so far as to promise the Brazilian state owned oil conglomerate 2 BILLION dollars in US Taxpayer funds so they could drill in the Gulf.....
Then of course, we have 'little' diddies like the Solyndra scandal; half a BILLION dollars just up in smoke.....and at least TWO other companies where he did the same thing.....and oh yeah, did I forget to mention that all of these companies just happen to be HUGE Political Contributors to the Obama Re-Election Campaign?
Yeah, then, he decides to sue all the states that are actually interested in securing their states from the economic abuse by Illegal Aliens upon their schools, hospitals, welfare programs, police/emt/fire services.......as well as getting tired of the explosion of RAPES, MURDERS, MUGGINGS, and BEATINGS by Illegal Aliens against US citizens.
Last but surely not least, while any US citizen has to show identification to cash a $10 check at any bank in the entire USA, or to buy more than a certain amount using a Visa or Mastercard, or to buy a six pack of beer, or a pack of cigarettes if you don't have grey hair, or to even sign up for a library card in most places, or to get the lights, heat, and cable tv hooked up..........but the Social Progressive Democrats-twits all- don't want to require ANYONE to have to show their ID when they go to the polls to vote in American elections.
Mexico requires that ONLY Mexican citizens can vote in their elections, same for the Canadians, same for the Brits, same for the Germans.....same all over the world........but not here in the good ole USA...no siree......SP's want to make sure that NO ONE has to show ID proving they are LEGALLY able to vote in elections....why?, because SP's want to STEAL ELECTIONS by having Illegal Aliens vote for them, have low life individuals who'll vote MULTIPLE times in MULTIPLE DISTRICTS (you know, like they do in 'good ole' Chicago Town)...but ALWAYS and ONLY for Democrats.....
Yes siree sir, 'we don't need no stinkin' legalities' when it comes to elections is the Democrat slogan........and you and your SP peers see nothing wrong with that........which is why we Registered Independents accuse you lot of having NO morals, NO ethics, and NO sense!!!!
Lastly, allow me to point out that if you SP's want to do things illegally, thereby throwing the Rule of Law to the wind (you know, as in Fast and Furious), you'd better be prepared for Civil War sooner rather than later..........yeah, I am serious, because at this stage of things, Soccer Moms are talking about Civil War on thousands of Web sites discussing politics, economics, and culture.
Be careful what you ask for Persnickety.....you just might get it and even from Soccer Moms.
@Neanderthal: calm down, take
@Neanderthal: calm down, take your pills.
First of all, can you specify what regulations Obama has shoved through via executive order?
Second, you claim he destroyed the economy with his policies, but then go on about some coal power plant thing that has yet to affect us. OOPS.
Third, I really just skimmed the rest of your post because it's full of immature, childish statements, but you're really confused on many points. Illegal aliens haven't contributed to a crime wave. In fact, crime has been steadily decreasing since the early 90's. People are "tired" of illegal immigrants because the economy turned to [filtered word] and people like to have a scapegoat, regardless of the facts. I'll ask you this, though: how're those anti-illegal immigration laws working out in Alabama and Georgia? Seems to me it's a bit hypocritical to take advantage of a system that exploits illegal aliens (you get cheap food and are apparently okay with businesses HIRING these illegal aliens) and then rail against those same aliens.
As for your ID card thing, unless you're proposing we enact a law (oh no! Big government! Ooh!) ensuring everyone has an ID card, it's a little suspect to require everyone to present it. Many people don't have ID, particularly those who live in poor areas. Considering there's no evidence of election tampering, well, anywhere, and considering whose votes would be suppressed by such a law (not Republicans'), it's either naively misguided or an effort to legally suppress votes.
Granted, I fully expect you to ignore this post and regurgitate more crap you found on Drudge or Fox News (it's a dead give where you get your information when you accuse others of only reading Huffington Post, DailyKos, and MoveOn--none of which I actually do read). So carry on.
And as an aside, Neanderthals actually had larger brains than we do, so were likely somewhat smarter. Perhaps [filtered word] Habilis would be a more accurate moniker for you.