Tigermike 3,055 Posted June 9, 2008 Share Posted June 9, 2008 June 9, 2008 POLITICS: Ding Dong Republicans and conservatives should not let go entirely the departure of Hillary Clinton from the national stage, possibly permanently as anything but a Senator, without some expression of joy. Many of us came to a grudging respect of Hillary during the Democratic primaries, for her sheer tenacity and willingness to ruthlessly exploit Obama's most obvious vulnerabilities. But she remains a loathesome figure for so many reasons, and as Peggy Noonan reminds us, it is a good thing to at long last put the Clintons behind us. It is, more broadly, a good thing simply to move on, whether you like them or not, from the Clintons and the Bushes, simply because so much of political discourse gets locked into justifying or besmirching the past. Of course, we still fight about Reagan's legacy, or FDR's, for that matter, but not with the same intensity now that the protagonists are no longer personally at issue in the next election. Yes, there's a downside to turning back on the dynasties. Hillary might well have been the stronger general election candidate than Obama, and certainly the more experienced one. The GOP primaries suffered from the visible absence of Jeb Bush, who absent his family ties to the current president would almost certainly have been the natural frontrunner, after 8 years as the successful, popular, conservative, and articulate governor of a major 'swing' state that he has largely transformed into a dependably solid GOP stronghold, and even after repeatedly demonstrating his expertise in the specific area where his brother took the greatest hit to his reputation (hurricane-response management). But while I think Noonan consistently overplays her antipathy to Bush and understates the radically ideological nature of the Obama campaign (like so many observers, she seems more interested in Obama as a symbol than as a human being campaigning to do an important job and enact specific policies), I have to agree with her that saying goodbye to all that has to be a healthy thing for the country, at least for now. http://baseballcrank.com/archives2/2008/06...tics_ding_d.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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