Quote of the Week (Honorable Mention)

"I wish him well... It's over. But I do hope he gets some more target practice before he goes out again."

-- Bill Clinton taking the easy jab at Dick Cheney but apparently failing to realize that he's really the last person who should joke about shooting someone in the face

Don't Believe the Hype, It's a Sequel

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that the true test of a first rate intellect is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still function.

For example: "Hillary Clinton would make an excellent secretary of state," and "Hillary Clinton would make a terrible addition to the Obama cabinet."

Or: "The current drama surrounding Hillary Clinton's potential appointment to secretary of state is almost entirely the creation of the conflict-addicted media," and "Hillary Clinton would almost surely bring unnecessary drama with her to any new post within the Obama administration."

Or, now that I think about it, maybe this: "I really liked Bill Clinton and thought he was a great president," and "Bill Clinton is a narcissistic sociopath who drags trouble behind him wherever he goes like tin cans tied to a wedding limo."

With all of these disparate notions fighting for supremacy, the question then centers around whether the good to be had by appointing Hillary Clinton to a high position in the incoming government outweighs the bad. Is she really worth all the political and emotional baggage?

Honestly?

No, she isn't.

I won't be one of those people who spent months vociferously supporting Barack Obama only to then criticize him the moment he wins; I in no way feel "betrayed" by any of the decisions he's made in the couple of weeks since securing a landslide victory and the mandate that comes with it. On the contrary, I'm encouraged by his desire to bring former adversaries into the fold; I think it's good for the country, by and large, and fulfills the promise Obama made during the campaign to shun the mistakes of his illustrious predecessor, a man who never met a spineless crony he didn't like.

But bringing Hillary Clinton on board is an entirely different animal.

I despised the kind of cynical and unscrupulous campaign Clinton ran during the primaries, but I'm willing to chalk that up to the nature of modern politics -- particularly because it has no bearing on her capacity to represent the United States as its top diplomat. What does present a problem, however -- and will continue to -- is that with Hillary Clinton, you never get just Hillary Clinton; it's always a package deal that includes Bill.

And if you think Bill Clinton won't find a way to inject his special brand of self-obsessed melodrama -- the proudly sly, Melrose Place-meets-the-White House shtick that we endured for most of the 90s -- into the otherwise focused, serious and drama-free environment created by Team Obama, I've got a story about not having sexual relations with an intern I'm sure I can convince you of.

Bill Clinton doesn't know how to lay low and relinquish the spotlight; he'd be an albatross around the neck of his wife and therefore a 300-pound millstone around the neck of the Obama White House.

And as Obama's own campaign said in reference to its opponent in the general election, that's not change -- that's more of the same.

Blonde Joke

Ya gotta love Fox News.*

In an effort to stir up a little dissension in the ranks, Barbie Doll anchor Megyn Kelly -- the dumbest of the network's cadre of dumb blondes -- intimated earlier today that Bill and Hillary Clinton may not be voting for Barack Obama.

As they arrived at the polling place, Kelly enthused like a schoolgirl on prom night:

""Who do you think they're voting for? Seriously. It may not be Barack Obama if you believe a lot of theories. IT MAY BE JOHN MCCAIN! Their last hope that Hillary can come back four years from now and take over in the Oval Office."

It's bad enough that Fox is still citing the jokes tossed back and forth within its own newsroom as some sort of conventional wisdom, but for God's sake, Meggy -- do yourself a favor and stop trying to think.

You'll only hurt yourself and the rest of us.

*No you don't.

The World I Knew

Like a lot of Americans, I've never considered Al Gore to be a particularly dynamic speaker. Even taking into account the recent and somewhat involuntary injection of pathos he's received via some very favorable conventional wisdom, he's still a bit of a dud. Honestly, when you think of the most inspirational, stirring addresses you've heard in your lifetime -- the kinds of thunderous calls-to-arms that leave audiences weak-kneed and fully prepared to mobilize for that potentially suicidal offensive into the depths of hell -- the guy who used to joke that his version of the Macarena involved standing completely still and who once called Joe Lieberman "passionate" just doesn't immediately come to mind.

That said, I do remember a series of speeches, delivered by then Vice Presidential Candidate Gore and culminating at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, which seemed to hit all the right notes and make for a bold and powerful statement against what at that time were the beginnings of a political dynasty -- one that had clearly lost touch not only with the American people but, quite possibly, with reality. Gore's familiar refrain during the '92 campaign -- those who were ready and willing to usher in a new revolution in U.S. politics will remember it as a sort of battle cry -- was only seven words long, yet spoke volumes: "It is time for them to go."

Ironically, 16 years ago, Al Gore's dismissive declaration -- the reckoning for which he was calling -- was aimed at a Bush administation. And ironically, 16 years ago, the logical cure for such a political and cultural cancer, at least in the opinion of Gore, was a Clinton presidency.

I was only 22 at the time, just starting out in the world, and yet my memories of the Clinton campaign -- the way it made me feel not just about the potentially bright future for my country but about my own importance in the electoral process -- are as vivid as if they were only a few days old. Put simply, Bill Clinton made me believe that I mattered; that the course the nation would take depended on me and those my age; that I indeed had a voice and a responsibility to use it; that there was -- dare I say it now -- hope.

It was time for my generation to stand up, be counted and help take charge. It was time for them to go.

And a Clinton would lead the way.

It's almost incomprehensible to me, 16 years later, that the name which was once so closely associated with faith in the future of this country and in the power of those who haven't yet been thoroughly contaminated by the astringency of the process has now become synonymous with the worst kind of Machiavellian, win-at-all-costs cynicism. To put a finer point on it, I may have wisened over the years and accepted the reality that the Clintons, like most politicians, are opportunists above all else -- but I never thought I'd see the day that Hillary Clinton so absolutely obliterated every last vestige of waning decency attributed to the Clinton name and legacy by invoking an event as horrific as the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in an effort to win an election. Over the past several months, it's true that we've occasionally seen the worst the Clintons have to offer the political landscape. We've witnessed innuendo atop gossip atop baseless accusation atop outright lie atop sickening bedfellow atop jaw-dropping proclamation atop unadulterated bullshit. We've watched Hillary Clinton straddle the sometimes razor-thin line separating admirable tenacity from self-obsessed, destructive folly. By this time, we thought we'd seen it all -- that at the very least her expanding army of skeptics would be deprived of any sort of final Hollywood-esque surprise twist.

Then, through either blatant underhandedness or negligent stupidity, she actually insinuated that her opponent for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama, just might be felled by an assassin's bullet in the coming month. "Hey, you know, anything can happen -- just sayin'," she seemed to be offering up, during last week's interview with a newspaper in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She's since gone on to "apologize" for the galactically ill-advised comment -- something I feel the need to clarify because Clinton didn't, in fact, say she was sorry for even bringing the word "assassination" into the current political discourse as much as she argued semantics, attempting to justify the meaning behind her statement while tossing out an anemically half-assed mea culpa to anyone who may have misconstrued her point. In other words, Hillary Clinton doesn't seem to understand that raising, even for a moment, the specter of that most grisly and epochal of possibilities has zero place within a political campaign, any campaign -- no matter the rationale.

Which is why Hillary Clinton should not be president.

Which is why it is time for her to go.

I've never believed that Clinton should heed the calls of those attempting to hector her into dropping out of the race. True, I haven't been an outspoken fan of Clinton during this campaign, but at no point have I thought that she should simply step aside and let Barack Obama and his supporters roll over her and the historic feat she hopes to accomplish. At no point have I honestly succumbed to the notion that Hillary Clinton would make a bad president.

Until now.

I now believe that Hillary Clinton should withdraw from the race for the White House not because she stands defiantly, some say futilely, in the way of the Obama phenomenon which so many think represents the most noble way forward for the Democratic party. I believe that she should withdraw because no one who even offhandedly implies that the last, best hope for his or her candidacy might involve the ultimate snuffing-out not only of an opponent but of the dream that he represents has no place being the leader of the free world. Not now, especially. Not after all this country has been through over the past eight years. Anyone dumb enough to not understand how invoking the assassination of Bobby Kennedy would be interpreted during this particular campaign -- or barbaric enough to, in fact, understand exactly how it would be interpreted -- is not fit to become the President of the United States.

And so, once again -- it is time for her to go.

The sad irony that in my eyes -- the eyes of someone for whom the Clintons once represented a stand against politics-as-usual -- Hillary Clinton has become the very thing she purported to stand against so many years ago certainly isn't lost on me. The fact that the Clintons' notorious narcissism and sense of entitlement has reached such a level of insurmountability that Mrs. Clinton can assail not simply her opponent but the Kennedy-esque legacy of hope she believes he represents is repugnant in ways I'm not sure I can properly express. I knew Hillary Clinton could be a political monster when she deemed it necessary; I had no idea she could allow herself to become Grendel -- forfeiting her principles so handily that those of us who once believed in her and her husband's future for the country are now left to wonder whether there were ever principles there at all.

It is time for her to go.

Last Tuesday night, during the final showdown on American Idol, David Cook -- a 25-year-old bartender from just outside Kansas City -- sang a stunning version of a song that was released in 1995, coincidentally when I was 25: Collective Soul's The World I Know. As I watched, I was reminded of that time when I had faith in the Clintons and their vision for America. I listened to Cook sing, "Has our conscience shown? Has the sweet breeze blown? Has all kindness gone? Hope still lingers on," and I just shook my head, feeling more than a painful twinge of nostalgia -- remembering the world I used to know, and would very much like to know again.

I honestly can't say whether Barack Obama is the best hope for this country, even though he inspires the new generation the way the Clintons once inspired me. Regardless, I know this: Hillary Clinton absolutely is not. She doesn't even believe in hope anymore.

It is time for her to go.