Suddenly, a moment of clarity:
People aren’t voting for Trump to be President-they’re choosing him as their avatar, who can do all the things they’d like to but can’t. So his qualifications or positions are just not relevant.
I suspect something similar is going on with Sanders and his fans: who wouldn’t want to be the the bold dreamer who can rise above mere politics to demand pure unadulterated justice (insert flaming sword here)?
And the persistent discontent with Hillary is, among other things, because she’s not an avatar: nobody wants to be that careful, nobody wants to be that flawed, nobody wants to be that real.
So the challenge for Hillary supporters (among whom I am proud to count myself) is to remind everyone that we’re selecting someone to do a difficult job, not to reflect back at us every fantasy we’ve ever had about ourselves. President Obama was the once-in-a-generation person who could do both; the last one before him was FDR. Usually it’s either/or: Kennedy inspired us, but we needed Johnson to get the Voting Rights Act passed. Â
Next time you hear about Hillary’s “negatives,” ask yourself whether she’s being measured on the right scale. She’s not Florence Nightingale or Lady Liberty or Sojourner Truth, but if we want someone who can actually do the work, she’s our man.
Actually, Clinton is quite like the real Florence Nightingale, a tough policy wonk from a privileged family. When she arrived in Istanbul with her team of volunteer nurses, she could (using her political connections) have got away with with just marching into the ghastly military hospital at Scutari. She insisted IIRC on waiting for an invitation from the Army medical service: without it, the operation would be a once-off, and Nightingale's aim was to change the system. Some of her nurses couldn't take sitting around while wounded soldiers were dying of neglect, and she had to send them home. The relatively high status of nurses in British medicine is down to her lobbying and writing and planning. The popular canonisation came in useful, but she didn't seek it.
Al Capone was real, too. He was your man, if you wanted a bank robbed. If you wanted one honestly administered? Not so much.
Hillary is certainly 'real', in that sense. We do know what to expect of her, and it's ugly.
If she gets elected, I don't want any complaints from you about what a joke FOIA has become, when you're supporting her despite the email scandal. In fact, I don't want any complaints at all, because you know what she is, and support her anyway.
You're going to OWN that administration, and I expect you to choke on it.
The reverse is, of course, true, and feel free to mock me mercilessly when I complain. I'm going to be voting for the lesser evil, and I'm not in denial about it.
Addendum: I do have to admit that hiring the most dangerous potential witness against you as your attorney so they can claim attorney client privilege IS clever. I'd never deny that she's a competent criminal.
I think the most ridiculous aspect of this post is that, even by the standards you lay out, Trump is clearly more dangerous than Clinton. Which candidate do you think will be worse on the FOIA? The one who had her own email server, or the one who is actually threatening the press in his stump speeches?
I don’t know what the guy who wrote this article was doing when everyone else was learning about testimonial privileges during evidence but he seems to have absorbed amazingly little actual black letter law. As the author (or, in fairness, you yourself) should have realized, the attorney-client privilege doesn’t bar attorneys from testifying against their clients because, of course, this is an article about Mills actually testifying and answering questions in a deposition. The attorney-client privilege is basically limited to (at most) what lawyers learn directly from their clients while representing them and some of what they learn indirectly during the course of that representation.
So, as is evident from the article itself, Cheryl Mills actually testified fully and completely about her knowledge of events predating her representation of Hillary. Mills asserted the privilege only for things she’d learned from Hillary after becoming her lawyer. So, clearly, the attorney client privilege didn’t preclude Mills testifying at the deposition about everything she saw, heard or in any way perceived before becoming Hillary’s lawyer.
What’s more, the attorney-client relationship doesn’t create a testimonial incapacity as the article falsely (and rather inconsistently) implies, meaning that if Mills discovered any actual evidence during her representation of Hillary, she would be required to turn it over to the FBI. If she was assisting Hillary in the commission of a crime the privilege doesn't apply, either. If Mills has to testify fully and completely about everything predating her representation and must turn over everything of an evidentiary nature that she discovers after agreeing to represent Hillary and cannot, in any way aid Hillary in committing a crime, how is Hillary’s hiring of Mills a clever procedural trick designed to thwart justice?
What’s seems much more likely is that John Binder was probably intoxicated to the point of incapacity in Evidence and consequently has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.
"I'm going to be voting for the lesser evil.." I'm so glad you have decided as a principled conservative to vote for Hillary Clinton in spite of her many failings and even crimes.
It's a no-brainer, really. Suppose every accusation and smear against Hillary and Bill Clinton is true: they enriched themselves corruptly in Arkansas, procured or connived at the murder of Vince Foster or drove him to suicide, they are in the tank to Goldman Sachs and Wall Street generally, she negligently allowed the deaths in Benghazi, ignored national security in cavalier use of a private email server, etc. Let us even suppose there is worse to come: say that the Clintons sold the names of every covert CIA agent in Iran to the secret police in exchange for a planeload of Afghan opium and a matching pair of 14-year old Somali sex slaves for Bill. Let us further stipulate that the next Clinton administration will be as corrupt as Harding's, with a complete holiday on enforcement of Dodd-Frank and other securities laws, Hillary selling policies in the Oval Office to the highest bidder, while Bill prowls the corridors of the White House in search of nubile interns and closets. It would be a disaster - but a disaster within the framework of the US Constitution. Republican government (small r) would survive to a better day.
The same could be said, from a liberal perspective, of the prospect of a Ted Cruz administration (with fanaticism rather than sleaze). But both pale in comparison to one led by Donald Trump: an adolescent bully not an adult, a hollow man with no fixed views or principles on whom his resentful followers project their fantasies of restored dignity and authority. Trump has no respect for law or the constitution, evidenced on torture, the national debt and attacks on a federal judge; hardly any knowledge of or indeed interest in the world; a man who recognizes no constraints on his actions but the countervailing power of others, which he is too obtuse to recognize. He lies routinely and systematically, even when it serves no purpose; he does not have the normal liar's regard for the truth. There are high risks that a Trump presidency would lead to nuclear war by miscalculation, or long-lasting damage to republican government through reckless abuse of power.
Venezuela dramatically shows the difference between government by an unprincipled demagogue, and by an unprincipled demagogue who has no idea what he's doing. When the choice is between Nero and Caligula, the sane man settles for Nero.
"who wouldn’t want to be the the bold dreamer who can rise above mere politics to demand pure unadulterated justice (insert flaming sword here)?"
You mean the guy who wants Americans to enjoy the social services enjoyed by everyone in Europe? THAT flaming dreamer?
Meanwhile, you are "proud" to vote for H.C. Why would you be proud to vote for her? Because she is a woman?
I am a supporter of Bernie who believes that it is possible to create a most just society that works reasonably well for most people, as opposed to one that works well for the elites but for no-one else. I appreciate that Hillary’s theme this time is one of reduced expectations. But I have never understood why that is a reason for most people to vote against someone who would genuinely try his best for the majority of Americans in favor of a candidate whose campaign slogan is that most people are screwed—they just need to suck it up and do as they are told.
As to whether Hillary can “get the job done,” the questions are which job and for whom. Hillary Clinton has surround herself with Wall Street wolves, lobbyists and assorted budding oligarchs. Their interests and vision of American society differ sharply from that of most Americans, to say the least. Yet, she has taken huge sums of money from these people who (until her husband’s presidency) were the traditional enemies of the Democratic Party.
And defending Hillary has required liberals to abandon positions of longstanding. We were for campaign reform and against politicians taking money from special interests; now we’re left defending “honest graft”. We were concerned about the overrepresentation of Wall Street interests in government and, even more so, about the revolving door between them; now, however, I read in the Washington Monthly where Bernie is being ridiculed for his “unfair prejudice” against Goldman Sachs. So my question is this: On who’s behalf will Hillary govern?
Will she favor the ordinary people who don't feature at all in her elite world or will she serve her benefactors who have made her rich beyond her wildest dreams?
By the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the “avatar” of the Democratic Party at the moment is a woman who is, essentially, a paid lobbyist for predatory lenders and fraudsters who exploit the poor. You are proposed that she be replaced not by an avatar representing a more equal society but by one who has been made rich by those same predatory lenders and fraudsters, plus Wall Street and corrupt lobbyists.
I really don’t understand why people who are ostensibly good liberals support Hillary so strongly. In particular, I have never seen a defense of Hillary that explained why we shouldn't consider her hopelessly corrupt. How is it that she can associate so closely with people whose policies are antithetical to most Democrats, take huge sums of money from people most Democrats would consider as corruptors and still be embraced as a “liberal”? I do not think it is Bernie's supporters who need a moment of clarity.
"I really don’t understand why people who are ostensibly good liberals support Hillary so strongly. "
That is clear. Try listening to them without judgment and without responding with long mansplainations and maybe you will come to understand. I am not saying at all that you will agree or that you should. But to not even understand is a failing on your part, not on theirs.
Keith,
Unless you’re saying that it’s inappropriate for a man to criticize Hillary and/or that her wonderfulness is so manifestly self-evident that it's impossible for anyone to argue in good faith against her being president, I really don’t understand your response.
The essence of my response is that the supposed virtue of being able "to get things done" that Kelly is touting depends entirely on which things get done. My agenda, which is to say the things I want done, cab be summarized as fighting economic inequality and building an economic recovery for the middle and working classes, significantly reducing the power of Wall Street, environmentalism, fighting against climate change and championing good government (particularly reducing corruption). To the extent that President Obama has been able to accomplish things against implacable opposition, I would like to see those things preserved and even expanded upon.
As has been pointed out in innumerable articles, Hillary has spent years surrounded by bankers, lobbyists and fixers who are adamantly opposed to my agenda. She has also taken both campaign contributions and personal gifts in the millions of dollars from such people.
I don't think it is "mansplaining" to question whether Hillary will resolve the inevitable conflicts between my agenda and her benefactors in favor the people who made her rich. By contrast, Bernie Sanders mostly shares my agenda. I don't doubt for one moment that he won't be able to accomplish a fraction of what Hillary could do but I'm pretty sure that I will like the little Bernie would do much better than the huge amount Hillary might accomplish on behalf of my enemies.
Well, you could look at the actions she took while she was a Senator and the policies she actually espouses. A part of what is going on is that you are defining "liberalism" to mean agreement upon a specific subset of all of the issues that the broad set of all liberals care about, thus enshrining your particular priorities as the only ones that matter. Clinton is more liberal than Sanders on gun control and immigration, and while Sanders' voting record on gender and race issues is fine, his public comments exhibit a continued cluelessness about them that can easily give some of us pause. That's a part of what Keith means by "mansplaining", and "whitesplaining" also applies; maybe it would be worth stopping and giving honest thought to why minorities have supported Clinton in the primaries rather than just writing them out of liberalism.
Even beyond all of that, some of us look at Clinton and see a candidate who is a fine liberal on a lot of economic issues. Sanders supporters have a tendency to conflate an incremental approach to achieving liberal goals with just not being liberal, and I disagree quite strongly with that.
I’m not trying to define liberalism. I am simply supporting the candidate who is best aligned with my particular vision of liberalism and my preferred direction for my political party. Hillary might once have been a fine liberal on a lot of economic issues but it's difficult to see someone who has taken that much money from opponents of reform and change as the standard bearer of those issues.
My objection to “incrementalism” is that it fetishizes the making of as little progress as possible instead of trying to make as much progress as possible. That makes “incrementalism” a terrific slogan for somebody like Hillary who is running to lead an ostensibly center-left party and wants to do something for the base of her party without running the risk of seriously antagonizing the people who made her rich.
The significant fact that Hillary’s supporters simply gloss over is that since leaving the Senate, she’s taken enormous amounts of cash from a host of business interests whom many of her supporters would otherwise consider to be corruptors; consequently it isn’t clear that her record in the Senate would be a reliable guide to how she would govern as president. The reality is that what the people who have made Hillary rich want is entirely incompatible with what I want.
I cannot accept that someone can take that much genuinely life changing money and not feel some sense of obligation to her benefactors.That’s why I am supporting a candidate in the primary who is better aligned with what I want and who has not taken millions of dollars in campaign contributions and gifts from my political opponents.
"My objection to “incrementalism” is that it fetishizes the making of as little progress as possible instead of trying to make as much progress as possible. "
No. It fetishizes actually making progress.
I don't agree. I think that the focus on Incrementalism serves to lower expectations of what can be accomplished so as to manage the conflict between what a large number of Hillary's supporters want and what the people who have made her rich want. Persuading her supporters that it is the mature thing to want only what your opponents are prepared to give you seems to me to be exactly making settling for less so that Hillary doesn't have to risk alienating her benefactors seems to be both a fetishization of minimal progress and a huge con.
"I don't agree."
So? WTF should we care what you think? We will do our best to get Clinton elected, and if successful, we'll celebrate the wins, mourn the losses, and occasionally curse the betrayals.
You can polish your picture of
NaderBernie, and talk about whatever.I’m not trying to define liberalism. I am simply supporting the candidate who is best aligned with my particular vision of liberalism and my preferred direction for my political party.
Bullshit. You also called out people who support Clinton as not really being liberals; "I really don’t understand why people who are ostensibly good liberals support Hillary so strongly." And when pressed, you cited "my agenda" as the basis for your lack of understanding, and laid out a very limited set of those things that the broader set of liberals think is important. So stop pretending that your point was just about why you are supporting Sanders; you were also trying to deny the label of "liberal" to those who disagree with you.
The reality is that what the people who have made Hillary rich want is entirely incompatible with what I want.
And again you demonstrate that you are defining liberalism far more narrowly than you should, and writing out people with different priorities. Because, unless you don't care about gay rights and a number of other social issues, what they want is not entirely incompatible with what you want. And that was even before they had to contemplate that the Republican nominee is Donald Trump.
I cannot accept that someone can take that much genuinely life changing money and not feel some sense of obligation to her benefactors.
Your limited comprehension is the issue here; some of the rest of it can look at history and accept it just fine.
I am speaking only for myself. I am not defining liberalism at all. Neither am I saying that no true liberal could possibly support Hillary. I responded to Kelly's argument that Hillary was better than Bernie because she could get things done by outlining my personal preferences about what I would like to get done and arguing that Hillary was much less like to make progress on achieving those goals because she was receiving millions of dollars from interests who are very much opposed to those goals.
As I understand your response, it is that we can make common cause with corruptors, polluters and looters on issues of gay rights and socials issues because those things don't reduce profits and therefore we should accept "incremental" change on economic issues, climate change and pollution. Essentially, that we should submit to the depredations of Wall Street provided that there's room for minorities in a corner office. But this seems like a false choice—I don't see why it's an either or proposition; Bernie has made it clear that he will fight for both social and economic justice.
I am also unclear about the meaning of your rather cryptic response to my point about Hillary's having taken millions of dollars from Wall Street, lobbyists and other unsavory types. Her history hardly seems relevant here since the basic question is whether she's leveraged that history to line her own pockets. Hillary has taken millions of dollars for herself and her family generally has been reported to have made near $100 million since she joined the Obama administration. What makes you think she won't have any sense of obligation or have in mind a future payday like her husband's once in office?
And, I would also remind you that from the moment she left the Senate, Hillary was considered the front-runner for the presidency. Would it be acceptable to you if other candidates followed Hillary lead and made a tour of business interests and picked up little envelopes before taking office? Are Democrats really going to be reduced to defending honest graft?
I am not defining liberalism at all.
You may even believe that, but your initial post very much tried to do so. You have yet to acknowledge that other people might have different priorities than you do and still be solid liberals. All you do is keep repeating that Clinton doesn't meet your test on your priorities. One of the frustrating things about a lot of Sanders supporters is that they argue that they are a part of, or represent, a marginalized part of society whose voice isn't heard, and yet they are incapable of listening to other such voices and engaging with them.
As I understand your response . . .
"Misunderstand" would be a better description. You really ought to try stepping out of your own head and discard your assumptions about what you think someone must mean. It leads you down all sorts of incorrect paths and causes you to read things that aren't there.
This clause ". . . we can make common cause with corruptors, polluters and looters on issues of gay rights and socials issues because those things don't reduce profits . . ." and this one ". . .therefore we should accept "incremental" change on economic issues, climate change and pollution," are not cause and effect. We can accept the money and support of those who think Donald Trump is a crazy lunatic or because they disagree with the GOP in general on social, and even some economic issues that you don't seem to care about, even though we disagree with them on other, core, economic issues. We can accept incremental change because we don't have a workable majority coalition for the full program we'd like, and because, absent 25% unemployment, that's how change happens in this country.
What makes you think she won't have any sense of obligation or have in mind a future payday like her husband's once in office?
Because I haven't seen any evidence that this is an issue. Frankly, I think Clinton's plan for regulating financial institutions is significantly better than Sanders, to the extent that his can be described as a policy rather than a set of vague aspirations. She seems to actually understand the issue rather than chasing after squirrels (Too Big To Fail and Glass-Steagal) that aren't the root of the problem. She goes after leverage, which is not only good in and of itself, but her implementation would likely lead the largest banks slimming down. That would even do a lot to deal with banks that are too large, but Sanders supporters don't seem to think any more highly of change that comes about through indirect methods than they do change that comes about through incremental methods.
Are Democrats really going to be reduced to defending honest graft?
As I said, I'm still waiting for evidence that what has gone on here is graft.
Neither am I saying that no true liberal could possibly support Hillary.
Except that you have, and you continue to do so. It's hard to read your last two paragraphs in any other way. Perhaps you should sit down and decide just what it is that you want to argue and come back when you can avoid contradicting yourself.
I think the differences between us have been made clear. Our differences would seem to mirror the split within the Democratic Party itself. If your goals are principal related to “social justice” or the promotion of rights for various racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, your support of Hillary is logical since she is unquestionably committed to the objectives you prize most highly. Also, her taking of money from Wall Street and lobbyists is understandably of little concern to you since those interests are generally committed to your cause so there’s no conflict of interest.
On the other hand, my priorities are economic equality, cleaning up the environment and fight climate change, reducing the power of Wall Street and fighting corruption. The people who have showered the Clinton Family with vast wealth are the very ones against whom my faction of the Democratic Party is fighting. Surely you can understand my concern that the very people against whom I want the next president to act against are the very ones that are financing her campaign and have made her family immensely wealthy. And, if the pattern of players from the first Clinton administration holds, there is the implicit promise of even greater riches for a “team player”.
Your response that Hillary hasn’t demonstrated any corruption since leaving the Senate is nonsensical. From the time that she started as Secretary of State until now, she’s been the leading candidate for the presidency but she obviously isn’t president yet. What she has done, however, is to spend the last seven or eight years loading up on cash (both campaign contributions and personal money) from people whose fate she will be instrumental in determining.
There’s simply no way to be sure but, the liberal position always was the reform position—no honest graft. Remember, she's been planning to run again for a long time. People whose futures would be devastated by a genuine reformer spent years giving her money. Millions of dollars. And she, obviously aware of the needs and interests of her benefactors, took the money. To me, that's the clearest possible conflict of interest. It's essentially advance bribery.
Your pointing to the superiority of her policy papers is meaningless. Everyone agrees she has great policy papers, the question is whether her heart is those wonderful reforms that cut directly against the interests of the very people who made her rich. I don’t believe her.
You present this as if there is a dichotomy, and we can only care about one agenda or the other, and that someone who prioritizes a social justice agenda obviously doesn't care that much about economic equality and the environment. That really isn't the case. You arrive at your intransigence by taking what you assume is Clinton's corruption, even though you don't have any evidence that it's going to have the effects on her policies the way you think, and then excoriate people for not making the same evidence-free assumptions that you do. Is it possible that Hillary Clinton will behave in exactly the way you predict? Sure. I'm just a lot less convinced of it than you are, and so it doesn't weigh as heavily in my decision making. You seem unwilling to accept that this isn't a certainty, just a risk, and it has to be weighed against all of the other risks inherent in electing an executive.
Aside from which, you still don't have my position at all correct. I actually do care a lot about economic management; it's probably my highest priority. But aside from our policy differences, I think that it's important to always keep in mind that there are those within the liberal coalition who differ with me about that, and not start running into comment sections blazing away that I have no comprehension as to how any good liberal could possibly support a candidate that I don't, and declaring that their candidate is a disaster on all of the things I care about, thus implicitly defining liberalism in a way that excludes them. You, apparently, do, though I'm willing to concede that it may not be intentional and you might just lack all self-awareness of how you're coming off.
As for me personally, faced with a choice between someone someone who demonstrates an understanding of how to deal with complex issues and a working knowledge of the political process while demonstrating that she can actually listen to people and respond to what they have said and someone whose heart is in the right places and gives a good speech but has seemed woefully out of his depth anytime real policy questions get asked, I'm going to pick the wonk every single time, even if she has taken a lot of money from various interests.
You don't trust Clinton. Fine. But I don't trust Bernie, even if I share a lot of his goals and think he means them sincerely. Every vibe I get off of him says that, were he to become president, he would be a bigger disaster than Jimmy Carter, with the same lack of ability to deal with Congress and no managerial competence. Far from advancing a progressive agenda, I think his election would be a major setback that we'd be digging ourselves out of for a decade.
I'm finally understanding "The revolution devours its own."; The devouring starts when victory is in sight, not after it's achieved!
Well, enjoy your meal. I was on the menu from the start, it's good to have company.
We're liberals. We don't need a revolution to engage in squabbling factiousness; it's what we do. This is our heritage, one of our core competencies.
I think this is the crux of our disagreement. You neither trust nor like Sanders, apparently in large measure because he isn’t a policy wonk or Kelly’s person who can get things done. You assume Hillary is speaking honestly about policies and her willingness to, for example, reduce the power of the big banks wouldn’t be tempered by a sense of obligation to the bankers who have made her rich or by thought of even more lucrative paydays to come.
Speaking for myself, I think being a wonk is highly overvalued. Bernie isn’t a micromanager like Carter and even the most exalted of wonks are a dime-a-dozen. In terms of his economic agenda, it embodies everything that I want and, presumably, you do, too. His political indebtedness is towards the middle and working class people who funded his campaign and there’s nothing in his background to suggest that he seems the presidency as an opportunity to achieve great wealth.
Hillary (who I supported in 2008) clearly has a superior grasp of the issues. She is undeniably a true policy wonk. And she has great position papers on her website. But why do you believe someone who has taken so much money in campaign contributions and personal gifts from people who will be badly harmed if her purported policies are ever implemented?
Which is why, freely conceding Hillary’s wonkiness, I still don’t understand why you are happy with her having taken huge sums of cash from people who are adamantly opposed to everything you says you want her to accomplish. Aside from your obviously visceral dislike of Bernie, wouldn’t it make more sense to have a president who is not a wonk but who is also wholeheartedly in favor of your agenda and will work tirelessly to bring it about?
Bernie isn’t a micromanager like Carter and even the most exalted of wonks are a dime-a-dozen.
Then why doesn't he employ any of them? Sanders not only isn't a policy wonk (and I think your belief that it doesn't matter is misplaced; how does an executive make decisions from conflicting advice if he doesn't have policy grounding?), he doesn't surround himself with them, either. Given four slots on the convention's platform committee, he didn't send anyone with policy expertise on his core economic beliefs. He did find room for the loathsome Cornel West, though, so there is that.
But why do you believe someone who has taken so much money in campaign contributions and personal gifts from people who will be badly harmed if her purported policies are ever implemented?
Because I haven't seen any evidence that it will. She has a long history of being a good liberal. That gives her the benefit of the doubt until there is something to demonstrate otherwise. Your question isn't any more a slam dunk than one going the opposite way: "Why do you believe someone who has spent so many years fighting for liberal causes and championing valuable policies someone would turn their back on that entire legacy?" My loaded question has the added benefit that I can point to real actions on her part to support it rather than relying entirely on speculation without actually knowing the person in question.
. . . I still don’t understand why you are happy with her having taken huge sums of cash from people who are adamantly opposed to everything you says you want her to accomplish.
I never said I was happy about it. All things considered, I wish she hadn't. However, absent any evidence to support the claims you make, I consider it a pretty minor sin. It certainly isn't enough to outweigh all of the things for which I prefer Clinton.
Aside from your obviously visceral dislike of Bernie, wouldn’t it make more sense to have a president who is not a wonk but who is also wholeheartedly in favor of your agenda and will work tirelessly to bring it about?
No. Because I'm pretty sure that, despite his heartedness and lack of fatigue, Bernie Sanders would screw up the job of being president and do damage to the causes I support. It's not just personal dislike, though there is some of that. Watching him promote plans in which the numbers are positively Republicanesque in their refusal to add up (such as promoting a health care plan that claims it will save more in prescription drug costs than America actually spends on prescription drugs), and in which he demonstrates that he clearly doesn't understand the basics of policy (such as simultaneously touting Medicare For All while claiming his plan would mean no copays or deductibles) has convinced me that he not only isn't a wonk, but that he actively disdains learning about policy.
One thing George W. Bush convinced me of is that electing someone who is actively ignorant about how things work means courting disaster. It's not just that I disagreed with his goals; even on his own terms, his inability to manage information led to disasters . I don't want to go down that road. Hopefully, the left wing of the Democratic Party will kick up someone who I trust to be basically competent next time.
Mitch: "I am speaking only for myself. I am not defining liberalism at all. "
J_Michael_Neal: "Bullshit. You also called out people who support Clinton as not really being liberals; "I really don’t understand why people who are ostensibly good liberals support Hillary so strongly." "
Mitch, we can see your lies; they are rather plain and out in the open.
If I could vote for Hillary's c.v., I would. I remain very concerned about the judgment she's shown whenever she's been tested. I think it's likely we'll find out, but I remain intensely worried about the kind of decisions she'd make in an office with a tremendous amount of power.
"I remain very concerned about the judgment she's shown whenever she's been tested. "
Find me one politician who's even a prospect for major office who's been through the sh*t that she has been.