April 23, 2008

Once Upon a Radical

Hatched by Dave Ross

Although I am rather appalled to find myself agreeing with Tom Hayden about anything, I was actually able to make it to the end of “Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream” without gnawing my arm off.

I’m attracted to any title that couples Hillary with “scream,” or screech, but to my disappointment, the article was not about “that voice” or the ability of the former first lady to make a fingernail across a chalkboard seem soothing by comparison. If you are familiar with Edvard Munch’s painting “the Scream,” you may have some idea of how I react whenever this woman is on television.

Seeing her every night on the news since December has reinforced just what a disaster it would be hearing her every night of the year for an entire “term.” [Dafydd adds: "Sentence" would be the better word, as least as far as the American people are concerned.] You think George Bush’s smirk has gotten grating (it has!)? This has the makings of suicide by Michael Bolton. Listen to Hillary long enough and your head explodes. Or you become a member of the Village of the Damned.

But I degress. Fact is, I began this column with a digression, so I’m going to force myself back on the road and consider Hayden’s column.

Tom Hayden, for those of you who think you might have heard of him, is an original, unreconstructed, unrepetent 60s radical. The kind that was quite seriously trying to pull down the republic by violent revolution during the Vietnam War. He was a member of the Chicago Seven, and was put on trial with the likes of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin for conspiracy to incite riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention. He helped found the Students for a Democratic Society, also a radical group. He later acquired respectability of a sort by becoming a California state senator and marrying, for a time, Jane Fonda.

His point, and he does have one (as do I, somewhere), is that he knows radicals. And he knows that Hillary Clinton used to be one. Which is why he finds it so frustrating that Hillary and her surrogates attack Barack Obama (the messiah, the all merciful, blessed be his name!) because of past associations with radicals.

It’s actually pretty enlightening to be reminded that in the 60s Hillary was part of this movement, although she never achieved any kind of notoriety over it to the extent that Hayden did. Obama, of course, was a little boy while all this was going on.

As Hayden points out:

She was in Chicago for three nights during the 1968 street confrontations. She chaired the 1970 Yale law school meeting where students voted to join a national student strike again an "unconscionable expansion of a war that should never have been waged." She was involved in the New Haven defense of Bobby Seale during his murder trial in 1970, as the lead scheduler of student monitors. She surely agreed with Yale president Kingman Brewster that a black revolutionary couldn't get a fair trial in America. She wrote that abused children were citizens with the same rights as their parents.

All of this reinforces the hypocrisy of the Clintons, who will repeat lies without batting an eye, lies that even the majority of people listening to them know are lies, yet which they must figure some people will buy as the truth.

Barack will be a bad president, of that I have no doubt. But the Clintons are a breed of cat that only infrequently surfaces in American politics, the Aaron Burrs and the Alexander Hamiltons, the Richard Nixons, politicians with the scruples and ambition of the Borgias and the intestinal fortitude to do anything to win.

Hatched by Dave Ross on this day, April 23, 2008, at the time of 8:48 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

Lots of people were radicals in the 60's; some of them later acquired sense. Few joined the Weather Underground, and blew up lots of stuff. Lots of radicals from then repented, as Hillary seems to have. The problem with Senator Obama's friends is that they were members of the Weathermen and they clearly have not repented. They still hate America.

FWIW, Alexander Hamilton is misdescribed in your last sentence.

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 24, 2008 4:13 AM

The following hissed in response by: David M

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 04/24/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

The above hissed in response by: David M [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 24, 2008 8:38 AM

The following hissed in response by: BarbaraS

The problem with Clinton is that her tactics have changed but not her goals. She is a liar but then so is Obama. Hope and change from a Chcago politician? Chicago politicians are the dirtiest infighters in the country. Both Clinton and Obama carry such baggage that makes neither of them unelectable. Or rather should not be elected. Who knows who the uniformed people of this country will elect.

The above hissed in response by: BarbaraS [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 24, 2008 10:06 AM

The following hissed in response by: Geoman

What bugs me about the Clintons is the same thing that bugs me about Ayers and Hayden - a) they were never punished for their youthful asshattery b) They were in fact greatly rewarded for their youthful asshattery, c) They continue their no longer youthful asshattery; d) They have happily accepted the awards and honors foolishly thrown their way and have become part of the establishment.

Clinton lies? So does Ayers when he moves into a suburban home in Chicago. So does Hayden when he marries Jane Fonda and becomes a state senator. Heck, so does Reverend Wright who damns the U.S., then drives to his mansion in the suburbs.

The spectacle of the rich, powerful, elites damming capitalism, America, and the wealthy always makes me ill.

The above hissed in response by: Geoman [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 24, 2008 10:20 AM

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