Hillary

[Rapunzel]

I'm not really a huge fan of politicians lately, regardless of party! I'll let you know if I find somebody I do love.

Ditto.

The only politician I actually like on a personal AND political level right now is Mitt Romney. And, I feel that way knowing a number of his friends and personal advisors along with living in the state he's governed for the last few years. He's a good leader AND a good person. If he gets the nomination the Democrats are going to have a hard time attacking him on a personal level because he doesn't have any skeletons and his family is a cohesive, happy one. When he ran for the senate seat against Ted Kennedy (before he became governor) the only things Kennedy could blast him on were the fact that he was a Republican (in the uber-liberal Massachusetts that's tantamount to a bad word) AND his religion (yup, Kennedy attacked his - my - religious beliefs).

If it's a race between Romney and Clinton I'll vote for Romney. And, I will bet that most of the rest of the country would as well.

[houseelf]

I'll say only this: I want to see fresh blood in the upcoming elections. I absolutely will not vote for a neocon (including Condi) nor will I vote for a Clinton. Good candidates who are not rehashes on either side of the aisle: Barack Obama , John McCain, Colin Powell (provided that he continues to separate himself from the neocoms and proves to be more centric).

Kelly

Edited to obscure what a dumbshit I can be.

[Gwendolyn]

Osama Barrack

Barack Obama

:!

[PrincessFiona]

Crack me up...I thought Kelly was mentioning a new politician that I hadn't yet heard of!

Don't feel bad, Kelly...it's Monday!

kris

[houseelf]

Ufda!

[Tenacious_D]

I just have to chime in and say that I think Bill used Hillary (politically) as much as she used him. My gut tells me that their marriage from an early point was one of political convenience. Why didn't she leave? Who knows! I do respect her for keeping her head up and being the strong woman that she is.

Will Hillary win. No. I think most people are far more critical of women candidates than they are of male candidates and for that reason Hillary has no chance.

[Laker]

I will have to find links...but....

Bill has been hired by and is currently consulting the UAE on how to politically handle the ports deal in America. It was Bill's idea to delay the port deal for a 45 day review. Bill also gets $$$ ($300k) from the UAE for each speech that he gives to them. (I heard there were 2 recent speeches on the radio tonight). Meanwhile, Hillary is running around bashing the ports deal that her husband is helping.

How can anyone actually like her?

[DCJenn]

Cause she's HOT. and I mean that in a purely Hot kind of way.

she's one of those people with charisma that sizzles. Like her husband, but better and less smarmy.

Jenn

[Rapunzel]

I always thought she was actually less charismatic than Bill. She comes off as a one-note, angry, ranting characature of herself in the various snippets I've seen on the various news programs lately.

And, by hot - physically attractive? Nope, definitely not. She's not going to win any ugly contests but the words "beautiful woman" do not come to mind when I view her face. She's, well, average.

I don't think I hold a woman to higher standards. I do think that the idea that "It's time we had a woman in the office!" sets people up to have lower expectations and standards for a woman IF their actions are just to get specifically a woman into the position. I don't want to see an affirmitive action mentality when it comes to the highest executive office in the nation. I think that her past history demonstrates a tendency to be a poor leader. And, that's exactly why I would not vote for her. Period.

[DCJenn]

Meet her in person and you will be forever changed...

She's hot, I tell you...


Jenn

I will have to find links...but....

Bill has been hired by and is currently consulting the UAE on how to politically handle the ports deal in America. It was Bill's idea to delay the port deal for a 45 day review. Bill also gets $$$ ($300k) from the UAE for each speech that he gives to them. (I heard there were 2 recent speeches on the radio tonight). Meanwhile, Hillary is running around bashing the ports deal that her husband is helping.

How can anyone actually like her?

I searched for information on this, and only managed to find one "article" on newsmax.com - which may or may not be legitimate news. Otherwise I only found bloggers. I have no issue with Bill being paid for speeches -- all sorts of fomer presidents, congressmen, high-ranking military do so. As far as a former president receiving compensation from a company or government in the Middle East .... Ever heard of the House of Saud?? The entire Bush family has made tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of dollars from their various dealings with Saudi Arabia.

The newsmax "article" said

• The former president’s spokesperson told the Financial Times: "President Clinton is the former president of the U.S. and as such receives many calls from world leaders and leading figures every week. About two weeks ago, the Dubai leaders called him and he suggested that they submit to the full and regular scrutiny process and that they should put maximum safeguards and security into any port proposal."

Assuming this is accurate, it does not say that Clinton was a paid adviser with respect to this situation, nor does it say he would financially benefit from the deal going through.

As far as how it reflects on Hillary... I would have an issue with it if she were backing the ports deal, contrary to the rest of the Democratic party - and most of the Republicans. THAT would make me suspicious of her motivation.

[Rapunzel]

Financial Times ( http://ft.com ):

Bill Clinton helped Dubai on ports deal

Bill Clinton, former US president, advised top officials from Dubai two weeks ago on how to address growing US concerns over the acquisition of five US container terminals by DP World.

It came even as his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, was leading efforts to derail the deal.

Yup, the Clintons are either playing a game of some sort or they've formally taken to different sides of the fence. Methinks it is a game.

Bill has actually been touring the Middle East doing paid speaking gigs there. He's been lambasting free speech in the West along the way (ie he's against publishing cartoons that turn a critical eye to violent behavior encouraged among Islamists):

From yahoo:

DOHA (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton warned of rising anti-Islamic prejudice, comparing it to historic anti-Semitism as he condemned the publishing of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

Clinton described as “appalling” the 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September depicting Prophet Mohammed and causing uproar in the Muslim world.

“None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions ... there was this appalling example in northern Europe, in Denmark ... these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam,” he said.

I don't think the man has actually viewed any of the "appalling" cartoons. And, if he has, he's got some serious perspective problems. Here are the cartoons that were used as the excuse for tens of thousands of thugs to turn violent around the world:

http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_imag ... _cartoons/

And, in comparison, here are the anti-Jewish cartoons routinely published in newspapers in the Islamic world:

http://www.adl.org/main_Arab_World/default.htm

My opinion is that Hillary is jockeying for a Presidential bid and Bill is trying to wiggle into being the head of the UN (perfect fit for him - a hopelessly corrupt, rabidly hypocritical beauracratic hades).

[Rapunzel]

Bill Clinton apparently also has a love affair of sorts with.... Iran.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section ... m=3&y=2005

Who Should Apologize to Whom?
Amir Taheri

Where is the country that Bill Clinton, a former president of the United States, feels ideologically most at home?

Before you answer, here is the condition that such a country must fulfill: It must hold several consecutive elections that produce 70 percent majorities for “liberals and progressives.”

Well, if you thought of one of the Scandinavian countries or, perhaps, New Zealand or Canada, you are wrong.

Believe it or not, the country Bill Clinton so admires is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Here is what Clinton said at a meeting on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, just a few weeks ago: “Iran today is, in a sense, the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority.”

And here is what Clinton had to say in a recent television interview with Charlie Rose:

“Iran is the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami (in 1997). (It is) the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: Two for president; two for the Parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralties. In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.”

So, while millions of Iranians, especially the young, look to the United States as a mode of progress and democracy, a former president of the US looks to the Islamic Republic as his ideological homeland.

But who are “the guys” Clinton identifies with?

There is, of course, President Muhammad Khatami who, speaking at a conference of provincial governors last week, called for the whole world to convert to Islam.

“Human beings understand different affairs within the global framework that they live in,” he said. “But when we say that Islam belongs to all times and places, it is implied that the very essence of Islam is such that despite changes (in time and place) it is always valid.”

There is also Khatami’s brother, Muhammad-Reza, the man who, in 1979, led the “students” who seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days. There is Massumeh Ebtekar, a poor man’s pasionaria who was spokesperson for the hostage-holders in Tehran. There is also the late Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, known to Iranians as “Judge Blood”.

Not surprisingly, Clinton’s utterances have been seized upon by the state-controlled media in Tehran as a means of countering President George W. Bush’s claim that the Islamic Republic is a tyranny that oppresses the Iranians and threatens the stability of the region.

Clinton’s declaration of love for the mullas shows how ill informed even a US president could be.

Didn’t anyone tell Clinton, when he was in the White House, that elections in the Islamic Republic were as meaningless as those held in the Soviet Union? Did he not know that all candidates had to be approved by the “Supreme Guide”, and that no one from opposition is allowed to stand? Did he not know that all parties are banned in the Islamic Republic, and that such terms as “progressive” and “liberal” are used by the mullas as synonyms for “apostate”, a charge that carries a death sentence?

More importantly, does he not know that while there is no democracy without elections there can be elections without democracy?

Clinton told his audience in Davos, as well as Charlie Rose, that during his presidency he had “formally apologized on behalf of the United States” for what he termed “American crimes against Iran.”

But what were those “crimes”? Clinton summed them thus: “It’s a sad story that really began in the 1950s when the United States deposed Mr. Mossadegh, who was an elected parliamentary democrat, and brought the Shah back and then he was overturned by the Ayatollah Khomeini, driving us into the arms of one Saddam Hussein. We got rid of the parliamentary democracy {there} back in the ‘50s; at least, that is my belief.”

Duped by a myth spread by the Blame-America-First coalition, Clinton appears to have done little homework on Iran. The truth is that Iran in the 1950s was not a parliamentary democracy but a constitutional monarchy in which the Shah appointed, and dismissed, the prime minister. Mossadegh was named prime minister twice by the Shah and twice dismissed. In what way that meant that the US “got rid of parliamentary democracy” that did not exist is not clear.

There are at least two things that Clinton does not know about Iran and Iranians.

The first is that the claim that the US changed the course of Iranian history on a whim would be seen by most Iranians, a proud people, as an insult from an arrogant politician who exaggerates the powers of his nation more than half a century ago. The second thing that Clinton does not know is that in the Islamic Republic that he so admires, Mossadegh, far from being regarded as a national hero, is an object of intense vilification. One of the first acts of the mullas after seizing power in 1979 was to take the name of Mossadegh off a street in Tehran. They then sealed off the village where Mossadegh is buried to prevent his supporters from gathering at his tomb. History textbooks written by the mullas present Mossadegh as the “son of a feudal family of exploiters who worked for the cursed Shah, and betrayed Islam.”

Apologizing to the mullas for a wrong supposedly done to Mossadegh is like begging Josef Stalin’s pardon for a discourtesy toward Alexander Kerensky.

Clinton does not know that it was President Harry S. Truman’s energetic intervention in 1946 that forced Stalin to withdraw his armies from northwestern Iran thus foiling a Communist attempt to dismember the Iranian state.

Clinton does not know that if anyone has to apologize it is the mullas who should apologize to both the Iranian and the American peoples. He does not appear to remember images of American diplomats paraded in front of TV cameras, blindfolded, and threatened with summary execution every day — images that did lasting damage to the good name of Iran as a civilized nation.

Speaking of apologies, Clinton also ignores the fact that Iranian agents in Lebanon, led by the “ liberal progressive” Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Mohtashami, organized and carried out a string of terrorist attacks in the 1980s that cost the lives of over 300 US citizens, including 240 Marines.

And does Clinton remember the dozens of American citizens who were held hostage by the mullas’ agents in Lebanon, sometimes for more than five years?

Clinton forgets that anti-Americanism, and hatred of the West in general, is the ideological backbone of Khomeinism; that that the devise of the mullas’ regime is “Death to America”, and that the American flag is burned or trampled under foot in thousands of official buildings throughout Iran every day?

Clinton claims that the mullas “still kind of like the West in general, and America in particular.” That must be as much news to the mullas as to anyone else.

The former president endorses another claim of the mullas that Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi dictator, invaded Iran on behalf of the United States.

Clinton says: “Most of the terrible things Saddam Hussein did in the 1980s he did with the full, knowing support of the United States government.”

Don’t be surprised if Clinton’s next apology is addressed to Saddam Hussein, another victim of American Imperialism!

[SueC]

And, no, I don't think I want to see her as a candidate in 2008. I don't think the nation is ready for a woman to be in the oval office so I'd rather a male Democratic who has a better chance be on the ticket.

Why don't you think we are ready for a woman in the oval office? Quite frankly, I think we're way overdue. Think of the countries in this world who already have women 'running the show'. Here we profess to be this great, forward-thinking nation and we aren't 'ready'? Ready for what? Progress? Real Discussion? An end to lockerroom size-measurement politics? :>

kris

I should have phrased that differently. I'm ready. I do not think the majority of the poeple in this country are. This thread is a case in point. Here we have an incredibly smart woman who people assume didn't do it on her own and berate for the personal choices she has made in regards to her marriage. Any woman that runs will be crucified for whatever choices she made in regards to children, career, etc, as Hilary has.

[Rapunzel]

Hillary Clinton's female status nor her alleged level of intelligence does not remove her from scrutiny and criticism regarding her ability to lead a nation - the most powerful nation on the planet I might add. I most certainly will not put on kid gloves when examining a woman's potential for such a position because she is, well, a woman. And, being intelligent is not a good enough basis for electing someone president.

This is EXACTLY the mentality that worries me - this idea that women should be held to a lesser standard because they are women.

I do think that Tara makes a good point about integrity. And, I agree, most of the nation would not vote for her because of her perceived lack of it. Her being female is a red herring.