Cohen Blasts Bloggers as Haters?

Richard Cohen's "Haters Without a Cause" (WaPo) has it wrong.

Bloggers have been loudly, harshly and many times inelegantly sounding the alarm against the presidency of Hillary Clinton. But most don't hate her. They hate what she stands for.... a by-right dynastic candidate; and what she became.... a resume'-stretching manipulator.

In fact, one has to wonder if there is really anything more to the Clintons than chest-pounding politics and goal-post shifting.

Was Bill really a political wunderkind, or were savvy advisers.... like James "It's the Economy Stupid" Carville, and Dick "I Can't Stand Them Now" Morris.... really the wind in his political sails.

During Hillary's campaign, Bill appeared egocentrically out-of-touch.... his rants jarred, his scolding and blame-shifting reminded voters of the "As Bill and Hill Turn" soap opera of their White House years.

While Hillary trumpeted what she stands for.... she didn't mention that when given the chance for action she fumbled badly.

Bill charged Hillary with heading up a universal health care initiative. Instead of listening and compromising to make gains, she met behind closed doors and hoarded her power and decision-making to the extent that even the Democratic Congress rejected her highhanded proposal. The Democrats lost their Congressional majority in the next election.

What this long campaign season has exposed is for Hillary.... who couldn't and wouldn't recognize she lost until her own supporters tip-toed into her fantasy to suggest she concede.... that it is her way or the highway.

We've had nearly eight years of that type of messianic ideologically-rigid executive. A weary and discouraged electorate yearn for someone who can lead the country away from the Bush administration's destructive, "stay the course" corporate-serving governance.

Hillary's ambitions and policy-wonk skills seem to be well-served in her position as Senator from New York. She should stick to what she's good at and cast herself as the next Ted Kennedyesque Lion of the Legislature.

But, placing the power of the Oval Office, or the close-to-power vice presidency, in Hillary's obstinately-unyielding hands, with Bill as the loose cannon careening about the premises, was, and still is, to be loudly resisted.... however inelegantly.

And, that was the bloggers cause!.... not hate.

McCain's Muddy Roadmap

Listen up!

Dick Morris, the spurned toe-sucking friend of and political-guru for Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign... now a scores-to-settle political analyst for Fox News.... has weighed in on the current presidential campaign in "Obama Has the Upper Hand. But McCain Can Still Take Him." (WaPo)

He sums up his view of the race.... "A candidate who cannot get elected [Barack Obama] is being nominated by a party that cannot be defeated, while a candidate who is eminently electable [John McCain] is running as the nominee of a party doomed to defeat.

"In this environment, McCain can win by running to the center."

Which only highlights what is really wrong with politics in American today. Advisers who want the candidate to say anything regardless of their real convictions in order to win. Run here, run there, run anywhere there are votes. And, McCain seems to be sucking up the hackneyed Morris ideas like a sponge in a cesspool.

McCain was okay with unending war in Iraq, but now he says "most" troops will be out by 2013. He sponsored and fought hard for corporate-pleasing amnesty legislation for illegal aliens, but now says we have to go slow and secure the borders first. He dismissed global warming, but now he's greener than the Jolly Giant. In fact, he's swerving to the center so fast his Straight Talk bus is about to rollover like a bellyrub-begging pooch.

There definitely was a time when a candidate could abandon his previously held positions to pander and waffle to get the vote, and then revert when elected. Take The Decider, for example. When he ran for the presidency he said we should not involve ourselves in nation building, he was for smaller government and a balanced budget.

But, those weren't the real Bush policies, they were Morris-prescriptions for winning since Bush has involved us in nation building in Iraq, installed a bloated government of Homeland Security and No Child Left Behind bureaucracies, and presided.... along with a complicit GOP-controlled Congress.... over the wholesale selling of America while incurring monstrous debts.

Morris is advocating just such a disingenuous campaign. And, while McCain is courting the center, Morris crows that the right wing can do McCain's "swiftboat" mudslinging a' la Rev. Wright. Have no doubt, Obama's in for a bumpy ride as he navigates his "one America" course.

But Morris hasn't factored the public's savvy into the equation. In this YouTube world, every McCain policy detour will be billboarded, every flip-flop becomes a pothole on the road to the White House.

Someone needs to point out to Morris that Obama has the upper hand because he a leader with convictions running against a morally bankrupt GOP spin machine. Morris needs to take his forked-tongue and retire to the dustbin of political losers.

Obama: Go For Thrilla in Phila...

Yesterday's substantial win in Wyoming's caucuses by Barack Obama.... 61% to 38%.... over "Ma Barker" Clinton (as dubbed by WSJ) helps him regain his Big Mo, but it's still far from an eight count. So, before the next big bouts in Mississippi and Pennsylvania, take off the gloves....

Not the smearing, innuendo, conniving and misleading gloves that land Ma Barker's low blows, but, as Maureen Dowd pointed out in "The Monster Mash," it's time for Obama to start seriously rebutting Hillary's kneecapping remarks.

As, for instance, her loud refrain that she has far more national security experience than Obama has, when as Dowd points out.... "Having a first lady tea in Belfast is not equivalent to bringing peace to Northern Ireland."

After his losses in Texas and Ohio, Obama needs to be more fierce about winning. Being "Wimpy Man" won't be a winning strategy for Obama.... Just ask Bush "41" who drug that defeatist label to a second-term loss.

As Dowd points out, "Hillary successfully recast herself in Ohio as a beer-drinking former waitress. Only after last week's reversals did the Obama camp raise a louder ruckus about her tax returns. Obviously, Ms. Night Shift does not want to reveal the details of the fortune that Bill Clinton has made, sometimes through dubious associations."

And, when it comes to Billary's campaigning methods, who would know them better than the former political adviser to President Bill, Dick Morris. While he thinks, "It's Over" for Hillary after her narrow wins in Texas and Ohio, he knows "Hillary won't withdraw".... and will bulldoze forward with "ever-escalating rhetoric."

Perhaps, as Morris suggests, in the next round Obama needs to unleash his own phone-rings-in-the-middle-of-the-night ad.... "have a woman's voice, with a flat Midwestern accent, answer it and say, 'Hold on' into the receiver. Then she should shout, 'Bill, it's for you!' "

That would land.... with Hillary's lack of any meaningful experience in foreign affairs.... a solid and telling blow!