So, I guess you're surprised

Michael Maiello — Sun, 15 May 2016 00:58:21 +0000

In reply to Making the right moves - Clinton takes steps to the White House

So, I guess you're surprised that Hillary is taking the right steps because, deep down, you don't think she wants to do things like remake the Fed, raise capital gains taxes (by changing the timing rules) or give Elizabeth Warren a voice in government as either Veep, cabinet member or valued Senate ally.

This is funny to me, because I think she's more liberal than Bill and plenty liberal as a person and though she is too ambitious to really like the challenge Bernie gave her, my prediction is that when she is president, his elevated profile as a result of giving her a good and honest race will make him a strong and effective ally when she needs it the most.

I think you know how much I respect Bernie (I said as much on your radio show) and I'm happy to report to you that, as promised, I gave him my vote in the NY primary (and I voted for his delegates, too, an odd choice they let you make here) but I believe, as I always have, that this is all for the good. A strong challenge removed the notion that Clinton was coronated and an honest challenge made her think and make some of what you call the "right steps" leftward.

She's an actual progressive.

But you will always have issues with her on foreign policy and I understand why, because I've also had these issues. She's an interventionist. I get annoyed when you say neocon because, to me, motives matter. Her motives are to prevent humanitarian atrocities such as genocide. She learned her statecraft watching Rwanda unfold in the 90s. She is not the only Obama foreign policy adviser so influenced. Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, Anne Marie Slaughter... They all took Rwanda (and later the conflict in what was Yugoslavia) as reasons why my personal preference for armchair pacifism doesn't work in a brutal world. Years ago, I wrote here and in a column for the now defunct "The Daily" why our intervention in Libya was a disaster leading us into a quagmire like Iraq and I was... wrong, wrong, wrong. People hate on Christopher Hitchens for supporting the Iraq war but he was more liberal than you or I up until his very end, he just couldn't stomach Saddam hurting his own people any longer. It's understandable, even if you or I might have had a better sense of what American military power can actually accomplish than even Hitchens did.

My point is... there are lefty reasons to go to war. Some day, ask Hemingway or Dorothy Parker about Franco and they'll tell you. The neocons were out for American hegemony. The liberal interventionists want to save lives and prevent war crimes. They sometimes reach the same ends and share the same disasters, but motives matter and they differentiate actors.

I know you'll vote for Hillary in the general, but I hope you don't have to pinch your nose so hard that you wind up with gin blossoms. It's really not necessary. She's better than you think. It's time to start enjoying that. And, bright side -- I think Bernie will enjoy it, too. Bookmark this post. A year and then another into Hillary Clinton's first term, let's talk about how she and Bernie have worked together to accomplish things we want. I believe we'll have a lot to talk about.

I am still for Al Franken.

Richard Day — Sat, 14 May 2016 23:57:15 +0000

In reply to Making the right moves - Clinton takes steps to the White House

I am still for Al Franken.

But two women would make bigger history I guess.

Workin on the night moves

I support many of these

ocean-kat — Sat, 14 May 2016 19:32:01 +0000

In reply to Making the right moves - Clinton takes steps to the White House

I support many of these policy ideas from Hillary. Some are long term goals of the democratic party that centrist and conservative dems have stymied. The medicare buy in was proposed by Bill Clinton in 1988

this idea was floated way back in Bill Clinton's 1998 State of the Union address, in which he said that "millions of Americans between the ages of 55 and 65 have lost their health insurance … after a lifetime of work, they are left with nowhere to turn. So I ask the Congress, let these hardworking Americans buy into the Medicare system."

dagblog - Comments for "Making the right moves - Clinton takes steps to the White House"

So, I guess you're surprised

I am still for Al Franken.

I support many of these