Critical Evaluation: And The Winner Is...
a bonehead update
2008-05-12
By DeAngelo Starnes

   Hillary Clinton can take solace in the fact that she won a nomination for something significant on these pages: 2008 Bonehead of the Year.  Let us count the ways.
  
   Mrs. Clinton began running for president before Bill even left office.  She astutely recognized the pipeline feeding the presidency comes through holding office as a governor, the Vice President, or a Senator.  So rather than return to Arkansas, she accepted the invitation to run for the retiring Daniel Moynihan’s open seat.  She did the Bobby Kennedy move and bought a house in New York in September 1999.  Her time in the Senate would provide credibility to the name recognition she would parlay from her time as First Lady.  She was the presumptive frontrunner from the time she took her Senate seat.
 
   So it has to be extremely frustrating to watch what she thought was rightfully hers fall to someone about whom the country knew virtually nothing prior to a dynamic speech at the 2004 Democrat National Convention.  And that’s a long fall from grace when you consider the nomination was hers to lose, she had deep pockets along with a substantial war chest prepped to bury all comers, and she had a nation-wide network of campaign offices.
 What happened is that she ran into a real person who was more statesman than politician, more grounded than licked-finger-to-the-wind.
 
   She blew her time in the Senate.  Given her stature and time in the previous White House, she has demonstrated virtually no leadership during the most unpopular presidency in history.  She could have played the contrarian role to the Bush/Cheney agenda.  She should have been screaming every time the White House reversed and dismantled the accomplishments of her husband’s presidency.  She should have been first in line to cast her votes against the Iraq Invasion, tax cuts, the elimination of habeas corpus, warrantless wiretapping, and the Supreme Court nominees to name a few.  She could have gotten her campaign off the ground by introducing the programs she claims her presidency will accomplish, especially once the public turned away from Bush/Cheney en masse.  Even if those programs failed, at least she would have shown the electorate she had the gumption to take on the powers that are killing the middle and working classes. 
 
   Now maybe you could make the case that she laid low because she was a first term Senator.   But that sure hasn’t stopped Obama from making a splash, has it?
 
   Then we come to the campaign.  As my man David Mills noted on his blog Undercover Black Man, she has campaigned very chaotically.  In the beginning, she was on cruise control similar to the way John Kerry ran against Bush in ’04.  Then when Barack began laying a can of whup-ass on her campaign, she realized the coronation wasn’t in the bag.  And that’s when the fangs came out.
 
   She whined, she cried, she lied.  She back-tracked, she flip-flopped, she faked-laughed, she name-called.  She’d have you believe she drinks beer, she shoots guns, and she’ll drop a bomb on Iran or Hezbollah at three in the morning.  She’s worn so many faces and assumed so many personas that it made me wanna holler, “Will the real Hillary please show up.”
 
   Well, be careful for what you ask because now she’s gotten low-down with her latest missive.  According to her, “working, hardworking Americans, white Americans” won’t support Obama.  Aside from expressing flat-out racist sentiment, how insulting is that?  Not just to the Black voters that stood just as steadfast by her husband as she did during that Ken Starr b.s. investigation, but to the white voters who do support Obama.  Further, such a statement implies that the only hardworking Americans are white Americans.  Most galling is its direct appeal to white Americans to band together to defeat this Black upstart, Barack Obama.  It says, he’s crashing the party and is not part of our club. 

   But when you’re cornered you either fight or run like hell.  Either way, you’re you at your purest moment.  And she’s cornered even though she doesn’t want to throw in the towel.  With more primaries scheduled to be had, I ain’t mad at her for not quitting.  But the math can’t be spun.  Bow out gracefully and speak about your attributes to your supporters.  Demonstrate why you’ve been worthy of their support with your head held high.

   Instead, she makes a bonehead statement in a bonehead move.  She’s exposed herself as a sore loser.  She’s demonstrated that she’s willing to torpedo Obama’s chances against McCain in the fall.  Imagine how much of a friend she will be in the Senate as Obama tries to pass his agenda once he becomes president.  More like a female Iago if you ask me.

DeAngelo Starnes is a writer and attorney. He lives with his wife and son in Denver.