Among so much about American politics that can impress or depress a friendly Brit transatlantic observer, there's nothing more astonishing than this: Why on Earth should Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton be the front-runner for the presidency?
She has now pulled well ahead of Sen. Barack Obama, both in polls and in fundraising. If the Democrats can't win next year, they should give up for good, so she must be considered the clear favorite for the White House. But in all seriousness: What has she ever done to deserve this eminence? How could a country that prides itself on its spirit of equality and opportunity possibly be led by someone whose ascent owes more to her marriage than to her merits?
We all, nations as well as individuals, have difficulty seeing ourselves as others see us. In this case, I doubt that Americans realize how extraordinary their country appears from the outside. In Europe, the supposed home of class privilege and heritable status, we have abandoned the hereditary principle (apart from the rather useful institution of constitutional monarchy), and the days are gone when Pitt the Elder was prime minister and then Pitt the Younger. But Americans find nothing untoward in Bush the Elder being followed by Bush the Younger.
At a time when Americans seem to contemplate with equanimity up to 28 solid years of uninterrupted Bush-Clinton rule, please note that there are almost no political dynasties left in British politics, at least on the Tory side. Admittedly, Hilary Benn, the environmental secretary, is the fourth generation of his family to sit in Parliament and the third to serve in a Labor Party cabinet. But England otherwise has nothing now to match the noble houses of Kennedy, Gore and Bush.
And in no other advanced democracy today could someone with Clinton's resume even be considered a candidate for national leadership. It's true that wives do sometimes inherit political reins from their husbands, but usually in recovering dictatorships in Latin America such as Argentina, where Sen. Cristina Fernendez de Kirchner may succeed President Nestor Kirchner, or Third World countries such as Sri Lanka or the Philippines -- and in those cases often when the husbands have been assassinated. Such things also happened (apart from the assassination) in the early days of women's entry into British politics. The first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons was Lady Astor, by birth Nancy Langhorne of Danville, Va., who inherited her husband's seat in 1919 when he inherited his peerage, but we haven't seen a case like that for many years.
In one democracy after another, women have been enfranchised, entered politics and risen to the top. The United States lags far behind in every way. A record number of women now serve in Congress, which only makes the figures -- 71 of 435 House members and 16 of 100 senators -- all the more unimpressive. Compare those statistics with Norway's, where 37 percent of lawmakers are women. In Sweden, it's 45 percent.
More to the point, women who make political careers in other democracies do it their way, which usually means the hard way. Not many people had fewer advantages in life -- by birth or marriage or anything else -- than Golda Meir, born in poverty in Russia and taken to the United States as a girl before she settled in Palestine. She was one of only two women among the 24 people who signed Israel's declaration of independence in 1948. After serving under David Ben-Gurion as foreign minister, she became prime minister in 1969 -- stepping into a man's shoes, it's true, but those of her predecessor, Levi Eshkol, who died unexpectedly in office.
Four years later, Meir showed that a woman could lead her country in war as well as peace, an example that Margaret Thatcher would follow. Thatcher made her way from a lower-middle-class home to Oxford at a time when there were few women there from any background. She then had not one but two careers, as a barrister and as an industrial chemist. (One of the gravest charges against her is that she helped invent a noxious concoction called "Mr. Whippy" squirtable ice cream.) After the traditional blooding of British politics -- fighting and losing a parliamentary election -- she entered Parliament in 1959 and served there for more than 30 years, working her way up as a Conservative backbencher, junior minister and then cabinet minister, speaking, debating, listening (yes, even Thatcher sometimes listened), pounding the streets at election time and attending dreary meetings in her constituency.
She not only had no advantages, but she was at a disadvantage in what was still very much a chaps' party -- dominated by men who had attended the same schools, served in the same regiments and belonged to the same clubs. But she ignored all that. In 1975, she was the only Tory with the guts to challenge Edward Heath for the party leadership, and in 1979 she led her party to victory in the first of three general elections.
To be sure, some women in politics have been less successful than others. France's first female prime minister was Edith Cresson, who lasted less than a year in office, and the first Canadian was poor Kim Campbell, who held the job for less than six months before leading her party to catastrophic electoral defeat. But Helen Clark in New Zealand and Angela Merkel in Germany have fought the political fight on equal terms, neither expecting nor receiving any favors because of their sex.
What a contrast Hillary Clinton presents! Everyone recognizes the nepotism or favoritism she has enjoyed: New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has written that without her marriage, Clinton might be a candidate for president of Vassar, but not of the United States. And yet the truly astonishing nature of her career still doesn't seem to have impinged on Americans.
Seven years ago, she turned up in New York, a state with which she had a somewhat tenuous connection, expecting to be made senator by acclamation (particularly once Rudy Giuliani decided not to run against her). Until that point, she had never won or even sought any elective office, not in the House or in a state legislature. Nor had she held any executive-branch position. The only political task with which she had ever been entrusted was her husband's health-care reforms, and she made a complete hash of that.
No doubt she has been a diligent senator, even if the cutting words of the New Republic's Leon Wieseltier about "the most plodding and expedient politician in America" ring painfully true, and no doubt her main Democratic rivals have only quite modest experience themselves: Obama's stint in the Illinois state legislature before entering the U.S. Senate in 2005, John Edwards's one term in the Senate. But both men are unquestionably self-made, and no one can say that they are where they are because of any kin or spouse. I guess Fred would fit in that category, too.
Predictably enough, Sen. Clinton's husband has tried to defend her with his quicksilver tongue, speaking recently on BBC Radio here, where he's plugging his new book, and on television back home. Dynasties mean the kings of France, Bill Clinton told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," whereas Hillary has had "a totally different career path" from his, "from a different political base" to a different "set of expertise areas."
"And I think the real question here is not whether she's establishing a dynasty," he went on. "I don't like it whenever anybody gets something they're not entitled to just because of their families. But in this case, I honestly believe . . . she's the best suited, best qualified nonincumbent I've had a chance to vote for." (Really? Better qualified, in terms of experience, than Hubert Humphrey or Jimmy Carter or Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis?) "So I just don't want to see her eliminated because she's my wife," the former president added. The gentleman doth protest too much on behalf of his lady, methinks: This is the best Clintonian evasive style. No one for a second thinks Sen. Clinton's marital status should be held against her. The question is whether she has any other serious claim to high office.
By way of what English barristers call a bad point, the former president mentioned that, after Robert F. Kennedy had served as his brother's attorney general, Congress made it illegal for a president's family member to be in the Cabinet. "I actually agree with that," Clinton said. "I think it would be a mistake for Hillary to give me a line policy-making job." So was it a mistake for him to have given her the health-care job?
All in all, "Democracy in America," not to mention equality or feminism in America, can sometimes look very odd from the outside. We've seen Jean Kennedy Smith made ambassador to Dublin (and a disastrous one) because she was famous for being a sister, then Pamela Digby Harriman made ambassador to Paris (and rather a good one) because she was famous for being a socialite.
Now Hillary Rodham Clinton has become a potential president because she is famous for being a wife (and a wronged wife at that). Europe has long since accepted the great 19th-century liberal principle of "the career open to the talents." In the 21st century, isn't it time that the republic founded on the proposition that all men are created equal -- and women, too, one hopes -- also caught up with it?
Geoffrey Wheatcroft's books include "The Controversy of Zion," "The Strange Death of Tory England" and, most recently, "Yo, Blair!"
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/07/2007 07:44 ||
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#1
Maybe because of the same mental/behavioral pox on the human species that made itself so much a spectacle over 'Princess' Diana. In the world where republics and democracies are the fountain of wealth, technology, and human liberty, there is still a longing, within the population of arrested adolescent development, for childish fairy tales. You can't have 'Princesses' in the US. You can, potentially, have Ms. President. [Ignoring the high probability based upon the record, that Mr. Wilson was doing the signing and running the executive, though as minimally as possible, after President Wilson's stroke. Therefore, she was our first American female President.] It's a suspension of one's responsibilities as a thinking citizen in a republic to put 'childhood fantasy' above democratic duties. Yet we all know fellow travelers who will vote solely upon gender, color, race or creed. Why would anyone be surprised here? It pandering to all those children of the 60s who've never grown up. Big Sister!, coming to a screen near you. And, yes, that is Mr. Orwell spinning in his grave.
I still think it's Karl Rove, who's doing it to make the Dems look bad.
P.S. Dick Morris, who has worked for her, predicts she will be the worst President in US History.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
10/07/2007 13:21 Comments ||
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#8
"Who Made Hillary Queen?"
She did. And don't you dare dispute her!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/07/2007 15:22 Comments ||
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#9
Brits know so little about our politics. About four years ago the Press (and polls) were about to crown Howard Dean the next President. I tried calling President Dean but got no answer. If I rememebt coreectly at teh time Kerry was reffered to as a "Second-Tier" candidate.
From Badger6 at Badgers Forward
I have read "journalism is the first draft of history." As far as this war has gone I would tend to disagree with that, if anything has been the first draft of history it has been the Milblogs. (Yes, I understand that on a Milblog that probably sounds self-serving.)
The Washington Post though has proved an exception to that rule with the series "Left of Boom: The Struggle to Defeat the Roadside Bomb."
Written by Rick Atkinson author of the Liberation Trilogy, he does an excellent job of charting the history of the roadside bomb and our efforts to combat it.
We worked at just Left of Boom or at Boom. These reports are mostly about the effort above the tacticall level; addressing the strategic and operational problems to help us address them on a tactical level. These reports explain the origin of many of the practices and systems we saw. Much of it makes much more sense now.
This is top notch reporting and a true first draft of history. I highly recommend it to you.
His post provides links to the four part series at the WaPo.
#1
Sadly, a self-inflicted "struggle." If our troops are fired upon or IED'd while going through a village or neighborhood, the military (not US State or CIA) should immediately confer withe local elder or mayor over tea. The conversation should go something like this:
Mr. (mayor, tribal elder, shiek, etc), we have recently noted a terrible increase in (IED, VBIED, Snipers, drive-by shootings, etc) as our troops transit your district. These attacks costs valuable American lives and inhibit our ability to bring peace, stability, and representative democracy to your (neighborhood, village, city, etc). We would ask that YOU see to it that these attacks are stopped within 24 hours. We do not care how you accomplish this task. If you fail, or the attacks resume at anytime in the future, we will immediately erase your (neighborhood, village, city, people, animals and you Sir) from the pages of Iraqi history for ever. Sir, our USAF Ground Liaision Officer (GLO) will now play for you a short, action packed, kinetic effects video on his laptop of precisely what we plan to do if you fail in your efforts....... Did you enjoy the video Sir, Excellent! Do you fully understand or intent Sir? Excellent! Please remember, you and I and our GLO will never meet like this again. Now, go forward and do good!
After the first or second village, town or neighborhood was vaporized, this IED/VBIED would come to a screaching halt.
I posted part 1 last Sunday as a typical WaPo hit piece.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/07/2007 7:15 Comments ||
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#3
Unfortunately, counterIED capabilities may in the future be necessary in places where we don't want to raze towns and villages.
Like within the US, as a result of a growing alignment of convenience between Islamicists, leftist guerilla movements, drug rings and the more organized transnational gangs like MS-13. Approaches to data mining, social network analysis, signals management and embedded electronics which have been/are being developed for IED detection and defeat in Iraq will see service elsewhere as well.
#4
Not to be argumentative Lotp, but how many 19 year olds must we lose while the "network analysis" and cyber warfare geeks develop solutions? Solutions by the way, that are countered by cyber geeks in Russia, China, Syria, and Iran.
In my opinion....."net analysis" of the IED/VBIED threat is something akin to the "Network analysis" of pickpockets in Rome.
#5
Besoeker, I wasn't arguing about the need. Apologies if it sounded that way. I was appalled when we pulled out of Fallujah the first time and the consequences of that proved about as bad as I feared, emboldening attacks and allowing the insurgents and jihadis to ramp up deadly activities against us and against Iraqi civilians.
I do doubt, however, that the Roman strategy was ever feasible for us. It would have brought the Bush administration down overnight I think. So we're slogging the incremental way and it is painful.
We don't have any 19 yr olds buried where I work, but there are some 22-24 yr olds freshly laid to rest with honor and our gratitude. I knew one or two of them personally.
Network analysis and in particular the data mining efforts that JIEDDO has sponsored is just starting to get fielded IIUC. They aren't a panacea but as I said, I think we'll be refining these for use in many more places than Mesopotamia before this long war is over.
#6
What is really needed, of course, is for the American public to understand the broader challenges and threats we face and to show resolve to defeat them.
But what we face is complex and ambiguous. It is IMO a lot more than insurgents/jihadis in Iraq. It's more than Islamicism as a whole. It's the erosion of a 400 year old system of national governments as the focus of economic, political and military activity.
We can't deal with that underlying challenge all at once, not least because it isn't one concrete thing or enemy. So we deal with Saddam and Afghanistan, which inevitably sends out waves of consequences in Europe and Latin America, which ties into the issue of immigration and border control, which is linked to economic issues posed by technologies which make every economy globalized whether we like it or not ....
It worries me a lot that we are not, as a nation, taking these larger issues seriously.
#7
It's the erosion of a 400 year old system of national governments as the focus of economic, political and military activity.
As the comments in the discussion of the pearls of wisdom from the Archdruid of Canterbury show it is also the erosion of a 400 year old system of religious schism whose tensions have actually proven profitable while it lasted.
When I was young I often wondered how the Greeks could have let such a great culture die. And now I know. Worst of all, it's my fault.
#8
"It worries me a lot that we are not, as a nation, taking these larger issues seriously." - lotp
That's because we're more focused on Ms. Spears' latest drunken escapade, Global Warming, extending healthcare coverage to families with incomes 300% above the established poverty rate, and whether Sen. Obama should wear a flag lapel pin. Unfortunately, our "awareness" level historically rises with the degree and severity of the "wake-up" call. Example, Pearl Harbor shook the isolationist strain out of most Americans' system - John T. Flynn and similar kooks excepted - and 9-11 disabused us of the notion that terrorism could be fought solely as a law enforcement issue.
Probably sometime around 2020, we will lose a city. Whether it is to Islamo-Fascists or some as yet unforeseen "anti-Globalization" nihilist group is largely academic. The bottom line is that the integration of advanced science, technological developments, and modern weaponry now makes it possible for micro-malcontents to inflict macro-destruction. Seems that every event in one area now impacts tne entire world, often a generation down the line. Not sure there's any effective way to confront this other than the present course which is an old one: If we want peace, we had better be prepared for war.
#9
Suicide attacks were approaching three each week, according to State Department and United Nations figures, from three in all of 2004 and 17 in 2005. Often recruited in Pakistani madrassas and frequently driving a Toyota Corolla painted to look like a taxi, the typical bomber was male, 15 to 35 years old, "clean-shaven . . . nervous, restless, eyes fixed, glazed, avoids eye contact," according to a U.S. military description. Hair samples from dead bombers showed that many were drugged with sedatives.
The Spider Mod 1 radio-controlled bomb trigger first seen in 2002 continued to appear, but evolutions had reached the Spider Mod 5. Those, too, came from Pakistan, U.S. intelligence believed, often with the radio frequency and firing code written on the case by the bombmaker for the emplacer's benefit. The Acorn jammer initially sent to Afghanistan in 2002 still worked against the Spiders, but additional jammers would be needed against other devices detonated by radio waves.
Turning on the lights and killing the roaches in the middle of the kitchen floor won't eradicate them. You need to get them where they breed.. behind the baseboard, in the crevices.
As long as the Saudi financiers and the ISI trainers live, the problem will persist. There is a never ending supply of jihadis. The head has to be cut off.
Posted by: john frum ||
10/07/2007 12:02 Comments ||
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Baitullah Mehsud, who pretends to run a Taliban government in South Waziristan but is actually a warlord serving Al Qaeda, has executed three soldiers of the Pakistan army and has vowed to kill more of the 250 he took hostage in September in South Waziristan. The corpses were found with a letter pinned to them saying, We will gift three bodies every day. Mehsud has more troops in his custody, including eight officers who might be likewise executed in the days to come.
The Pakistan army is fighting a very difficult battle in Waziristan. It is difficult not only because of the terrain and the hostile tribes involved, but because it is backed by dwindling political support in the country. Apart from Ms Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), political leaders have avoided a verbal confrontation with Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Tribal Areas. Their line of argument is that trouble among the tribes is linked to Pakistans strategic slavery of the United States, and that trouble will cease once Islamabads link with Washington is broken.
Not surprisingly, Baitullah Mehsud has threatened suicide attacks against Ms Bhutto, the PPP chairperson, and said that his suicide-bombers are waiting in the wings to welcome her when she returns to Pakistan. He said: We dont accept President General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto because they only protect the US interest and see things through its glasses. Theyre only acceptable if they wear Pakistani glasses. He is said to have 35,000 armed men under him and, if he is a Pushtun and an Al Qaeda lieutenant, he will not settle for anything less than capitulation from Islamabad.
Most people opposed to the PPP look at Ms Bhutto as a protégée of the United States. Typically in Pakistani politics, public debates are inclined to take no account of the temperament of a political party. This fudging of the ideological distinction is so widespread that many PPP rank and file in Punjab want their leader to switch off the liberal character of the party and focus on the illegitimacy of General Musharraf. Yet, if you look at the PPPs voting pattern on human rights bills in parliament, its liberal credentials seem to outshine the reluctant PMLQs performance. Even during its participation at the APDM summit, it accepted reversion to the 1999 version of the Constitution only if the womens reserved seats and joint electorates were retained.
Is Ms Bhuttos stance fashioned under American diktat and under pressure from General Musharraf who will save her from going to prison if she supports him? Most commentators in a highly emotive Pakistani environment will simplify the argument by saying she is being led by the nose by US President Bush who wants to save his client in power, General Musharraf, from going under. In this perspective, Ms Bhutto is supposed to have spoken out about the threat of Talibanisation and Al Qaeda, and supported General Musharrafs action against Lal Masjid, only to earn the pleasure of the United States. But the truth is otherwise.
The history of Ms Bhuttos relationship with Al Qaeda is not new. She has written about it in her book and it is known outside Pakistan that she was an early target of Al Qaeda simply because, being a woman leader, she violated the Islamic edict subscribed to by Al Qaeda. Indeed, she revealed some years ago that Osama Bin Laden contributed $10 million to the IJI campaign against her. One should also recall that it was during the Afghan jihad and, through it, the rise of Al Qaeda and its creed, that Pakistani clergy reached the dubious consensus that a woman could neither be leader of Muslim men nor a Muslim countrys prime minister. Ms Bhutto was therefore not wrong in assuming that her party as a liberal force in Pakistan did not stand a chance in the midst of this point of view. America or no America, her enemy number one was Al Qaeda and, linked to it, terrorism in general.
Baitullah Mehsud and many in Pakistan are perhaps greatly put off by the fact that she has played her cards deftly with President Musharraf, who will now need support from liberal quarters if he has to prevent the Pakistan army from retreating from its job of re-establishing the writ of the state in the Tribal Areas. The PMLQ is not willing to go beyond a certain level of pragmatism to support a campaign against anything that smells of religion. The PPP had the option of joining the rightwing religious consensus in the opposition and then hope to survive after the triumph of Talibanisation. But Ms Bhutto did not take that option and finessed most of the national and international power-brokers into backing her strategy. Therefore, the frightened and confused Pakistani liberal should take heart from her success; so should the myriad PPP rank and file who do not understand the real political contest in Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
How can you have national politics without having a nation?
#2
PRAVDA > Muslims in Iraq [Sunnis] are now most likely to view Osama as a False Prophet; and AQ as Criminal killers bent only on Shia Power, NOT pan-Muslim unity, hence have been turning 'em in to local authorities. * Article - MAINSTREAM MUSLIMS WANNA LIVE IN THE 21st CENTURY, NOT THE 7TH. READ - AQ HAD BETTER D *** NG HAVE GOOD REASONS WHY NOT THE 21st CENTURY!
When the general secretary of the clerical MMA, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, wants to talk tough to the president of the MMA, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, he gets his partys secretary general, Maulana Ghafoor Haideri, to hold forth. In his latest barrage, Maulana Haideri has called Qazi Sahib the Gorbachev of Pakistani politics who is ready to sacrifice his alliance to serve the ends of his revolutionary ideas. The issue was of course the resignations of Fazls JUI from the NWFP assembly which is under challenge from a vote of no-confidence and cannot be dissolved. The JUI was never keen on resigning and losing its strong position in the NWFP and Balochistan. When forced to do so in Quetta, it decided to dig in its heels in Peshawar.
Strangely, Maulana Fazlur Rehman always appears to be a better politician. He was asked to dissolve the Peshawar assembly while the Supreme Court was seized of the matter of President Musharrafs re-election. His repartee was: what if the Court found against Musharraf? No one answered. Now he says that the JUI should fight the no-confidence call because it cant dissolve the assembly. He is right: resigning will not prevent General Musharraf from being re-elected. On the contrary, as Chaudhry Shujaat has suggested, the PMLQ might stretch out its hand to the JUI and prop up its government without the JI et al.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/07/2007 00:00 ||
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These are forms of artistic expression, but all of this serves to convey the truth
"No matter how much of it we have to stage fake." Truth as an art form, what a novel concept.
We never forget our higher journalistic principles to which we are committed of relating the truth and nothing but the truth.
"Unless those 'higher journalistic principles' interfere with our anti-Semitic bias. Then, like the live grenade, we drop them tres vite."
When a journalist is preparing a report, should he consider the dishonest use that could be made later by extremist groups? Such a demand would be an inacceptable censure at the source.
Only if that "dishonest use" goes counter to the journalist's own beliefs. No such conflict of interest occurred in this case. Perish the thought that this fabricating bastard indulge in any "inacceptable" self-censure. Why, that way, of the out-leaking truth, il y a un danger grave!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
When the general secretary of the clerical MMA, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, wants to talk tough to the president of the MMA, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, he gets his partys secretary general, Maulana Ghafoor Haideri, to hold forth. In his latest barrage, Maulana Haideri has called Qazi Sahib the Gorbachev of Pakistani politics who is ready to sacrifice his alliance to serve the ends of his revolutionary ideas. The issue was of course the resignations of Fazls JUI from the NWFP assembly which is under challenge from a vote of no-confidence and cannot be dissolved. The JUI was never keen on resigning and losing its strong position in the NWFP and Balochistan. When forced to do so in Quetta, it decided to dig in its heels in Peshawar.
