A few weeks ago a man, during an appearance by Hilary Clinton in Iowa, decided that showing up and yelling "Iron My Shirts!" would be an appropriate behavior. Hilary, to her credit, laughed it off. However, Christie Blatchford, in the Globe and Mail wrote about it with a new perspective, that I am going to paraphrase and use as a source.
Imagine this for a second: Barak Obama on stage in Michigan during a primary appearance, doing his stump speech about Hope. In the back of the hall someone yells: "Stick to basketball!" After the beating is stopped by the police, the remains of the shouter are given to the next of kin and the media starts a long discussion of the meaning of what was yelled and how the crowd reacted.
Continuing along Blatchford’s thinking, Hilary is going to lose because of her gender: If she’s tough, she’s got no feelings: An Ice Queen. If she shows her feelings, then she’s weak, or overly emotional and not suitable to answer the red phone when the time comes.
Some factoids for you: 51% of the population are female. The vast majority of us were born of females, Dick Cheney being an exception. (I want to see some kind of legal Certificate of Live Birth for Cheney and Keith Richards for that matter)
The only difference between males and females of this species, aside from the obvious parts-number discrepancies on the build list, are exactly none. The rest is social conditioning and our propensity for letting the media make up our minds about things.
The media punditry, of course, are all a-twitter about Hilary’s moment of emotional candour regarding the difficulty of campaigning for the Big Chair. The whispered commentary being someone ’emotional’ is unsuitable for office, with access to the Big Red Button.
Which means a pathological liar like Nixon was appropriate for office?
Which means a barely literate, drunkard, frat-boy and known draft dodger was the right choice?
The American media was all bent that JFK was a Catholic. Who cares if JFK was a Catholic, or today, Mitt Romney, a Mormon? It doesn’t matter. John McCain is half deaf and probably has PTSD from his Viet Nam era captivity, but he’s running well for the office, in a doomed campaign. Mike Huckabee is this hour’s flavour who will become Mike Who? shortly. Then there is Barak Obama and John Edwards. John Edwards can’t do it. Barak Obama might.
Here’s the way it should play out. Not the way it will, but the way it should:
Hilary should win the Democratic nomination. Then, in a sudden outbreak of common sense, should ask Barak Obama to be her running mate. The two will crush anyone the Republicans could put up, short of Jesus coming back and running on a Republican ticket with the exhumed remains of Herbert Hoover.
Hilary will get her two terms then another two terms for Barak Obama, as long as he doesn’t go native and become utterly corrupted by Washington. If he’s smart, he’ll spend the time learning the ropes and building his profile slowly and competently. Hilary will make the hard decisions needed in the next eight years and Obama will kick off another eight years of gradual economic recovery.
All of this based on what should happen. Not what is going to happen. At least until the American Voter tells the American Media to take a flying leap and actually votes for a woman, who despite your feelings regarding her, is actually the right person for the job.
Yes, I said Hilary is the right person for the job. I don’t like it either, but Obama doesn’t have quite enough expertise yet. Hilary does. The Republicans have all jumped off the boat, knowing the economy under the watch of President JoJo The Idiot Boy has tanked.
Done right, Hilary and Barak, can reign in the Military Industrial Complex that is selling America by the pound and transferring as many jobs as possible offshore in the name of ‘shareholder value’. The Old White Men have nearly gutted the country.
Done wrong, whoever gets the Big Chair, will be the supervisor of the economic and social meltdown of America.
RoadDave 