What About Bill?

 Opinion | thepilot.com

So, every day, it looks more and more like Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee for the presidency.

Even though I’m a big supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I have to say that I will definitely vote for Secretary Clinton if the alternatives are Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. Let’s face it, I would vote for a cross-eyed orangutan before I’d vote for Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. In the long run, the orangutan would cause less damage.

Judging from the polls, it seems like a lot of people agree with me. If the Republican Party truly charges over the cliff by nominating Trump, the White House is Hillary Clinton’s to lose.

So, having reached grudging acceptance of the distinct possibility of a second Clinton presidency, it’s time to address the elephant in the room. By which I mean, what are we going to do about Bill?

We’ve never had this question to deal with before. Not only would Bill Clinton be the first male presidential spouse to occupy the White House, but he’d also be the first ex-president to hold that position. I mean, my God, “that position” doesn’t even have a name. What do we call him? “First Gentleman”? Would we borrow a phrase from our British cousins and call him the “Presidential Consort”?

Too bad we don’t have a title she could grant him, like “Duke of Chappauqua” or something.

And how do you address him face to face? He still has the courtesy title of “Mr. President,” but can you imagine calling him that in front of Madame President? Awwwk-waaard …

What exactly are his duties going to be, anyway? You certainly don’t want him moping around the Oval Office, reminiscing about old times. “Hey, honey, remember when I sat there and ordered the bombing of Kosovo? Wasn’t that awesome?” … “Bill, I’m working here, can you go play golf or something?”

Sure, he’d be great at promoting causes, as First Ladies have been accustomed to doing in the 20th and 21st centuries. But can you see him hosting teas and social functions? The mind reels.

Fortunately, I have a solution.

See, there’s a lot of speculation as to who Secretary Hillary Clinton should pick as her running mate. Some have suggested unifying the party by nominating Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in the interests of wedding the party’s actual liberal wing with its centrist Republican Lite establishment.

I, however, do not believe that either of those firebrands will be able to do the all-important (to a campaign) job of sucking it up, putting aside their disagreements with the top of the ticket, and keeping their mouths shut. Plus, we need those two back in a Democratic-controlled Senate (also an increasingly likely possibility), sounding off for actual progressive values.

So Hillary Clinton, who’s done so many unprecedented things already, should take a bold step and nominate none other than her husband, the Big Dog his ownself, William Jefferson Clinton, as her running mate.

Wait, wait, hear me out here. First off, he’s not ineligible to be president if something, God forbid, should happen to Hillary. The 22nd Amendment only says that “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.” There’s nothing in there that says a former president can’t succeed a deceased or incapacitated president if he’s veep at the time.

Second, you can’t deny that the guy’s a heck of a campaigner.

His speeches in support of Barack Obama at the 2008 and 2012 Democratic conventions helped clinch the case for Obama. And let’s face it: A lot more people actually like Bill than Hillary. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Plus, it’ll give Bill something important to do and keep him out of Hillary’s hair. In between jetting off to foreign capitals and promoting our interests, Bill can turn the Naval Observatory (the traditional vice-presidential residence) into his own “man cave,” hanging out with Joe Biden and Al Franken, drinking Scotch, smoking cigars, and watching football and action movies on the 100 inch big screen TV. Late at night, they can sneak over to the actual observatory and play with the telescopes, because that would be awesome.

Crazy, you say? The way this campaign is going, Hillary Clinton picking her husband as her VP choice might not even make the top five on the “crazy stuff that happened” list.

It's Happening Again...

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

I tell you, this stupid “Emailgate” scandal may finally be the thing that drives me into the Hillary Clinton camp. As I’ve written several times, I’m not a huge fan of Mrs. Clinton, because she’s always come across to me as Republican Lite: all the corporate harlotry and knee-jerk hawkishness, but without the deranged raving about “legitimate rape,” gay marriage leading to bestiality, and Ebola-carrying Mexican immigrants with “thighs like cantaloupes” from toting huge bags of drugs.

All that said, I’ve frequently found myself, almost in spite of myself, rising to defend Hillary Clinton because of the sheer ridiculousness of the attacks on her from the right-wing propaganda complex, aka the national political media.

Last time she ran for president, we had the usual Very Serious Right Wing Pundits ruminating on whether Hillary was showing too much cleavage and whether or not she left a tip at a Midwestern “loose-meat” diner (whether she did or not, the Very Serious Right Wing Pundits didn’t like it).

Then, when she was secretary of state, those same Very Serious Pundits asked very seriously if she might be faking a blood clot to avoid testimony about the Benghazi murders — testimony she gave when she recovered (and which the Very Serious Pundits then mangled and misrepresented in shameful and dishonest fashion).

Now we’re supposed to get all aghast over the fact that — hang on to your hats, folks — when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a personal email account! From a server in her own home! OMG (as the youths on the Interwebs say), she may very well have violated the Federal Records Act of 1950! Or regulations from the National Archives! Or something!

Never mind the fact that the change in the FRA to include “electronic communications” was signed in November 2014, after Clinton had already left, on Feb. 1, 2013. Never mind the fact that new regulations from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) regarding personal email use by government officials didn’t go out until September of that year.

Never mind the fact that Colin Powell used a personal email account when he was secretary of state because, like most government email systems, the “official” one was years behind the times and frustrating to use (according to interviews with General Powell).

Never mind that two months ago (before this phony “scandal” even broke), Clinton aides turned over 55,000 pages of work-related emails to the State Department for archiving.

Never mind that, after the State Department reviews them to make sure there’s no classified material, the emails in their possession will be posted online.

No, this is all just more evidence that “proves” the prevailing narrative of how “secretive” and “non-transparent” the Clintons are, and how they feel they’re “above the rules.” Because nothing says “secretive” like turning over 55,000 pages of your email to be posted online, and nothing says “I feel like I’m above the rules” like violating a rule that wasn’t in place when you were in office.

But surely there’s something juicy in the “personal” stuff she didn’t turn over. There’s undoubtedly a smoking gun about Benghazi in the emails between Hillary and the caterer for her daughter’s wedding. (“We decided to go with the white roses for the centerpieces, and BTW, I totally knew about the attack days in advance and did nothing because I hate America and wanted the ambassador to die. BWAHAHAHAHA. Hugs, HRC.”)

Is it irresponsible to speculate? As right-wing pundit Peggy Noonan once said about a particularly ludicrous rumor involving President Bill Clinton, it would be irresponsible not to. That, after all, is the standard used by our so-called liberal media for all things Clinton.

Our national political reportage has become an outright disgrace. Those outlets that aren’t blatant mouthpieces for the far right have become like particularly stupid hound dogs, dutifully chasing whatever manufactured “scandal of the week” gets ginned up by Drudge and Faux News, until actual analysis causes it to fall apart and they’re left chasing their tails in confusion. At least until next time, when the same moronic canines go baying off into the same woods because some right-wing blogger who’s off his meds points and yells, “Rabbit!”

In 1992, I got off the fence, put aside my misgivings about Bill Clinton, and threw my support behind him in large part because of the meanness, general blockheadedness, and pettiness of the forces arrayed against him.

I may have had my doubts, but I’d seen the Republican National Convention, and I knew I wanted nothing to do with those people, because they were bat-spit crazy. In 2015, it seems that history is repeating itself across the national media stage.

So I guess what I’m saying is that, once again, I’ve finally joined Team Clinton. Good job.

Here Comes JEB!

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Recently, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (or JEB! as his campaigns have referred to him) announced that he would form a “Leadership PAC” in January to “actively explore the possibility” of running for president.

After the announcement of the Leadership PAC, JEB! also announced that he was resigning from every private and nonprofit board of directors he sits on, according to stories in Politico and The Washington Monthly. Severing himself from all those corporate ties (which took effect on the last day of 2014) gives him a chance to characterize any slimy or damaging corporate connections as “long in the past” by 2016.

This may seem a curious attitude from the party who will be trying frantically to hang the 1990s-era indiscretions of Bill Clinton around his wife’s neck, but then, no one demands consistency from Republicans. Certainly not the national media.

In politician-speak, all of this means: “I’m totally running, but to announce this early would seem crass.” After all, the last thing someone running for the most powerful job in the Free World wants to appear is ambitious.

While I’ll probably never agree with JEB! on a lot of issues, I’ll give him credit for being at least reasonable on things like immigration reform and Common Core. He’s also miles ahead of many members of this party on the environment, according to statements I’ve read from both Democrats and Republicans from Florida. In fact, JEB! Is now a candidate for my small list of sane Republicans.

That’s going to be a problem for him.

See, there are two things that really grind the gears of the far right: (1) any proposal for immigration reform more realistic than “put a giant electric fence on the border and ship every single illegal immigrant home tomorrow, including the toddlers”; and (2) Common Core, a system of national education standards that they don’t really know anything about, but which Fox News has assured them is the thin end of the wedge for Islamofascistcommiesocialism.

JEB!, however, has stated that illegal immigrants “broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love.” Oh, the heresy! He went on to say, “It shouldn’t rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families.”

This is guaranteed not to sit well for those for whom “riled up” is their default state, especially when it comes to Those People.

As for Common Core, it’s been decried by other Republicans such as Jim DeMint, former senator and Heritage Foundation president, who says the standards “substitute an unaccountable federal bureaucracy for state, local and parental decision-making in education.” It has also been condemned by presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum. But JEB! has vowed to keep pushing it, calling the standards “good for the country.”

So by 2016, JEB! will have two choices. He can stick to his guns on immigration reform and Common Core and lose primary after primary to one or the other of the jokers who’ll keep popping out of the Republican Clown Car to be the front-runner for 15 minutes before imploding in a cloud of racism, misogyny, or bat-spit craziness. Or he can pull a Romney and try to run from things he once championed, to convince the raging right he’s one of them, and then lose the general because neither side trusts him.

So far, JEB! has shown an admirable tendency to take the first option. He’s even said he’s willing “to lose the primary in order to win the general.” How he hopes to win the general election without getting enough primary and caucus votes to get the nomination has not, however, been disclosed by his campaign. It’s probably some kind of top secret “strategery.”

Or possibly, the wingnuts will be able to choke back their bile over immigration and Common Core and embrace JEB! as the one most likely to beat Hillary Clinton. After all, as governor of Florida, he did do some things they love. He cut taxes, of course. He signed the Stand Your Ground law, which effectively legalized the killing of young black men if you could convince a jury you were scared enough of their hoodies and Mighty Black Fists of Doom. He ended affirmative action in state college admissions.

The Teahadists love that sort of thing and, if they can find it in their hearts to compromise, just a leeetle bit, on a couple of issues …

Wait. What I’m I saying? They’ll never do that. JEB! is toast.

Want to Refute The Idea That There's a "War On Women"?

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Once again, I am bemused to find myself rising to the defense of Hillary Clinton, not because I’m particularly thrilled about her, but because some of her attackers have made themselves so ridiculous.
It seems that the Republican Party, rent by its own internal civil war, unable to stop themselves from babbling about ideas that alienate women, Latinos and young people, and with their own strongest candidate imploding before the primaries even start, has decided that it’s a winning strategy to tear down Hillary by talking about her husband, former president and White House horndog Bill Clinton.

Kentucky senator and supposed presidential aspirant Rand Paul got the ball rolling when he responded to accusations of a Republican “War on Women” by pointing the finger at the former president.

“One of the work place laws and rules that I think are good is that bosses shouldn’t prey on young interns in their office,” he said. “I think really the media seems to have given President Clinton a pass on this. He took advantage of a girl that was 20 years old and an intern in his office.”

A pass? Apparently the Honorable Gentleman from Kentucky was in some kind of coma in the late ’90s. You couldn’t turn on the TV without hearing a solemn discussion of when the president got his freak on, where he did it, and what it all meant. Sen. Paul apparently never had to leap to the remote to cut the news off when small children were in the room and the evening news anchors started discussing oral sex.

Paul went on: “Now, it’s not Hillary’s fault. But it is a factor in judging Bill Clinton in history.” So if it’s not the candidate’s fault, why bring it up? A bit disingenuous, no?

Clearly, Sen. Paul has decided that the best way to reach out to young voters is to talk about something that happened when they were infants, and the best way to address a female candidate’s record is by talking about her husband’s infidelity before the turn of this century.

A few days later, RNC Chairman Reince Preibus cited what he called a “truckload of opposition research on Hillary Clinton” to indicate his own willingness to party like it’s 1998. “Some things may be old,” he said, “and some things might be new. But I think everything is at stake when you’re talking about the leader of the free world.”

In an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Preibus described the release of old documents held by a close friend of Clinton’s at the time of the Lewinsky scandal as “significant.” Perhaps the candidate’s theme song for 2016 should be Jethro Tull’s “Living In the Past.”

As I’ve said before in these pages, I’ve never been that huge a Clinton fan. She’s one of those Democrats that I’ve described as Republican Lite. She always seems to go for the safe choice, rather than the bold one. And when it came time in 2008 to pick a campaign song, she picked an awful Céline Dion number over the Temptations.

But then I look at the alternatives in the Republican Party, and I see the biggest bunch of retreads, has-beens, whackaloons, and grifters it’s ever been my misfortune to behold. And they keep flogging the same losing message: “Be afraid! Those People are coming to take your stuff!” — with “Those People” (aka “the 47 percent”) being variously defined as women, immigrants, minorities, gays, the unemployed, and pretty much anyone who’s not rich, white, male, and angry.

Here’s the thing. The way to stop people from thinking your party’s waging a “War on Women” is not to go “Nuh-uh! YOU are! Your candidate’s husband messed around on her with a younger woman 20 years ago!”

The way to stop people thinking you’re waging a “War on Women” is to stop attacking them. Stop trying to take away their reproductive freedom. Stop babbling about concepts like “legitimate rape” and saying pregnancy resulting from rape is “what God intended to happen.” Stop demanding that women face invasive and unnecessary ultrasounds to get an abortion. Stop calling young women “sluts” because they want the insurance they pay or work for to cover contraception, the same way men’s insurance covers ED drugs.

Stop repealing or trying to repeal equal pay provisions, as Republican hero Scott Walker did in Wisconsin. Stop attacking a female politician because her husband fooled around on her. And stop supporting, defending, and coddling those who do.

The Thin Red Line

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These days, it seems like the only thing more incoherent than President Obama’s policy on Syria is the response of congressional Republicans to it.

Last year, as you may remember, the president announced that the use of chemical weapons by the Bashar al-Assad regime against the Syrian rebel forces would cross a “red line.”

Strong words, those, and, like most such tough talk about “red lines,” ill-advised. Because once it appears that there was evidence of rebels being killed or injured by sarin gas, suddenly they’re all, “Well, wait, let’s not be too hasty.” According to the president, “we don’t know what happened, or who did what to who.”


Not that I think haste is a good thing, mind you, especially when we’re talking about possible U.S. military intervention. But in drawing a “red line” and talking about “game changers,” Obama fell into one of the traps that always make me shake my head at the way some Democrats act whenever foreign or military policy comes up: They feel like they need to look tough so the Republicans don’t call them “weak on security,” so they forget to think before they speak.

The mistake is not being cautious now; the mistake was talking about “red lines” in the first place in any situation where our direct national security is not involved. Because here’s the thing: Trying to talk tough because you’re afraid the GOP is going to call you weak is a sucker’s game. They’re going to call a Democratic president weak whatever he does — unless it’s a strong military response, in which case they’ll call him reckless. I mean, have they learned nothing from the Clinton years?

I remember 1991, when there was a military coup in which Gen. Raoul Cédras ousted the elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The U.S. tried to get Cédras to step aside. He didn’t. The Clinton administration tried various scenarios, every one of which was slammed by congressional Republicans.

We tried economic sanctions. Republican response: “You can’t use sanctions! Those only hurt the Haitian people!”

We tried diplomatic pressure. Republican response: “Diplomatic pressure’s not going to work! This president is weak!”

When the idea of invasion came up, the Republican response was: “Invade?! You can’t invade! This isn’t worth losing American lives!”

So what did they want the president to do? “He should … uh … show leadership! Yeah, that sounds good. Leadership!”

This went on until 1994, when President Clinton did put the 82nd Airborne on planes and send them Haiti-wards while simultaneously sending Jimmy Carter, Colin Powell and Sen. Sam Nunn to let Cédras know it was his last chance. Cédras caved and left — after which Rush Limbaugh declared that Clinton had sent the troops into combat with only 14 rounds of ammo apiece. (That report was beautifully smacked down, on air, by a spokesman for the 82nd, who tore Rush a new one. Best 15 minutes of radio I ever heard.)

Depressingly, then as now, the only principle that the congressional Republicans seem to embrace is, “Everything the Democratic president does, proposes, or might possibly consider is wrong.”

We shouldn’t arm the rebels, insists Sen. Lindsey Graham, unless we can make sure the arms go to the “right people.” Yeah. That’ll work. We did so well with that in Afghanistan.

Well, how about putting in American troops? Both Graham and John McCain are “completely opposed to putting boots on the ground.” McCain and Graham have both expressed some support of a “no-fly zone” over Syria to keep the Syrian air force off the rebels’ backs, but let the first plane get shot down by a Syrian missile, with an American pilot killed or captured, and see how quickly they sing a different tune.
It must be powerfully tempting for the president, as chief executive of the last superpower, to draw “red lines” for other countries. It’s practically a conditioned reflex for the opposition party to, well, oppose. But neither one seems to have thought beyond that.

President Obama apparently had no idea what to do when his “red line” was crossed. But, apparently, neither does the GOP.