I have made my peace with Hillary Clinton, which was no easy task after the way she helped prime John McCain's pump, but her die hard supporters are nothing more than a bunch of sand kicking cry babies at this point. (Although not this one, thank dog.)
Hillary plans to release her delegates, but then there is Bubba and his famously hurt feelings, as well as John McCain's sophmoric chicken pranking.
The former president may well give the last high-profile speech of his checkered career tomorrow, and as Booman points out, all the talk of his grievances may have the perverse effect of raising the expectations bar.
It will for me, as in really high.
I for one will be bitterly disappointed if the greatest politician of my lifetime -- which is not to say that he was the greatest prezdent, which he wasn't -- doesn't go out in a blaze of glory and on a positive note that includes making it clear that he will bust his bruised butt for Barack Obama.
As Bob Stein notes and I well recall, the passions of 1968, the last truly strife-ridden Democratic National Convention, were political and all about an increasingly unpopular war. In 2008 they are personal and the first woman to make a serious run for the White House getting shafted.
I have no interest in kicking any sand of my own. Hillary Clinton lost fair and square with, as it turns out, an ample assist from her husband and others close to her. And in no small irony, her campaign and Obama's will make it easier for a woman to run and win in the future.
The big task now is not settling grudges. It is ending the Republican nightmare in Washington.
Photograph by Paul J. Richards/AFP-Getty Images
Since we're both too young to have caught the New Deal in prime time, Clinton may well be the best (and thoroughly flawed) president in the post-war period. Kennedy took some mighty risks in a dangerous time, Johnson came undone in Asia and Carter, a serial de-regulator, set the table for the heavy manners of Reaganomics.
ReplyDeleteI certainly don't disagree.
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