Remind you of anyone? Obamas are much like the young Clintons

[ariesgem]

It is one of the oldest inspirational mantras American parents recite to their children: No matter who you are, no matter how humble your origins, you can grow up to be president. Small wonder, then, that Barack Obama's kindergarten teacher told reporters that about 40 years ago her 5-year-old charge said in an essay that he wanted to grow up to be president. Bravo for Barack!

And boos - plus more than a few guffaws - were heard when the humorless Clintonistas seized on Hillary's rival's childish idealism as proof positive that the Illinois senator has been scheming for most of his life to achieve the ultimate high national office.

Longtime lust for the Oval Office would seem to be the last thing Bill and Hill ought to be accusing someone else of having, however amusing it is that the pair, almost caricatures of self-absorbed baby boomers, are so eager to impute to others the same overweening ambition and sense of entitlement they clearly feel. And it's dispiritingly symbolic of the corrosive cynicism that seems to dominate politics today.

About the same time the Clintons' hired hands were mocking a kindergartner's dream, Michelle Obama, Barack's wife, was bringing her practiced message of optimism and hope to an overflow crowd who'd braved icy roads to make their way to an old renovated mill building in Peterborough.

For close to 45 minutes, without notes, the tall, slender mother of two spoke easily and passionately about her life and her husband's and of their hopes for their family and for their country. And through the whole talk she held her audience, from bright-eyed 7-year-old girls to old men with walkers, spellbound. When she was through, she got a standing ovation.

............................


Hillary was once where Michelle is now, working and advocating for her husband, even as the powers-that-be scoffed at their youth and idealism.

And the two couples are, superficially at least, remarkably similar. Bill and Barack were both largely shaped by devoted single mothers and nurturing grandparents. Hillary and Michelle were reared in more conventional two-parent families. Most important, all four were imbued with a fierce respect for education and self-improvement.

All had spectacularly good educations. Michelle is a graduate of Princeton, Hillary of Wellesley, Barack of Columbia and Bill of Georgetown. The four went on to law degrees from the crème de la crème of law schools - Harvard for Michelle and Barack, Yale for Bill and Hillary.

And, decades apart, the two couples began their careers not in Washington, scrambling up the entitlement ladder, but back in the hinterlands, devoting their political and educational skills at least partially to public service. Many years ago, Bill and Hillary Clinton spoke to what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." As are Barack and Michelle Obama today, they were the idealists, challenging the establishment.

Of course they succeeded wildly. Today the Clintons are the establishment. They lead lives of extraordinary power and privilege, cosseted by legions of acolytes. They have become creatures of caution. Hillary Clinton, who once joined her husband in brashly challenging the status quo, has run a campaign bereft of spontaneity, her every utterance seemingly poll driven and focus group tested.

After several decades of trench warfare, she seems -

despite the fact that overwhelming numbers of voters lament that today's poisonous political partisanship is tearing our national civic fabric asunder - disquietingly eager to continue the old battles. Her husband is loudly in her corner.

..........................

Now it's Barack and Michelle Obama who are speaking to those "better angels of our nature" and threatening to kick the Clintons into a well-earned retirement from running the world. And it's Hillary and Bill who are hell-bent on stopping their seemingly natural heirs.

Much has been made of the extraordinary choices Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton present to voters - one potentially the nation's first black president, the other its first woman chief executive.

But voters will confront another choice when they pick Democratic ballots on January 8: Do they opt for a past that they perhaps remember more rosily than realistically? Or do they choose the future with its uncertainty and promise? It's a question that, years ago, Bill and Hillary Clinton might well have posed themselves.

more: http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071216/OPINION/712160371/1028/OPINION02

[TwilightGardener]

1. Excellent read, thanks for posting.

[ariesgem]

7. You're welcome. Back in 92', I had the same excitement and admiration for Clinton/Gore

as I do with Obama today. I volunteered for the Clinton/Gore campaign working as a data entry operator at the local Dem headquarters. I still have my old Clinton/Gore campaign button - with them looking like youngsters.

I'm ready to limber up my 43 year-old fingers for Obama.

[Tactical Progressive]

2. What a load of dishonesty - just what you'd expect from Obamaland

The kindergate description I'm talking about, not the generic biographies, which seemed evenhanded.

But the facts of kindergate are simply these:

1) Obama lied about not having long-term presidential ambitions

2) Obama used that lie to smear Hillary

3) Hillary responded, with notable humor not humorlessly, of Obama's childhood plans

4) Obama, humorlessly, pretended that Hillary was attacking his kindergarten essay


IOW the facts are that Obama was the lying smear merchant, and camp Hillary were the wry responders.
Kind of exactly the opposite of the Obama spin, huh?

[maximusveritas]

4. This is from the Concord Monitor

so if it's Obama spin, then it looks like its won out over the Clinton spin in the eyes of the media.

[Tactical Progressive]

6. I don't really have a problem with the thrust of the article

The whole similarities thing, new becoming the old, what have you.
I don't agree with it, but it's one way of looking at things.

But the completely corrupt perspective on kindergate I won't let go unchecked.
Kindergate was Obama slime from start to finish.

[ClarkUSA]

9. "Kindergate was Obama slime from start to finish." But, but, but... Mark Penn said it was a joke!

That Kool-Aide must be mighty strong.

[Lucinda]

25. Yup.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Great find.

I've said all along, the similarities between the two camps is more striking than the differences. The one biggest difference is that the Obama camp is younger, more idealistic, while I find the Clinton camp to be more calculating and cynical.

As a boomer, I say the boomers have had their shot. Time to move to the post-boomer, if the choice comes down to one or the other.

[Tactical Progressive]

5. As a late boomer myself

I say the boomer generation is not going out represented by George W Bush and Dick Cheney.
No way in hell.

That generation had too much youthful impact to leave without the chance to effect change from the top.
Bill Clinton hog-tied by the rabid right for most of his eight years doesn't fulfill that necessity by a long shot.
Hillary and a Democratic Congress, with Publicans in a proper shambles, might.

Only someone who has no respect whatsoever for that generation would let that happen.

[ClarkUSA]

12. Bill and Hillary were not "hog-tied by the rabid right" for eight years

Hillary's miserable failure of a healthcare reform flopped when the presidency and both houses of Congress were in Democratic hands and
contributed to the 1994 midterm landslide that gave Republicans control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. And if
Bill hadn't porked Monica then Gore would have won easily. So anyone who has respect for the past would be well advised not to repeat it.

It's time to turn the page on the '90's. I'm the generation after the boomers and I say, MOVE OVER!

[Hippo_Tron]

14. In fairness to Bill, the Dem Congress between '93 and '95 was less disciplined than the current one

And that's really saying a lot. We haven't had a really effective Democratic Congress since the post-Watergate years.

It really sets a bad tone for your legislative agenda when the first thing you try to do is allow gays to serve openly in the military and it gets blocked by Sam Nunn.

[ClarkUSA]

15. Two-for-one Bill/Hillary screwed up royally which led to the 1994 GOP midterm landslide

That's the way I see it in a nutshell. Yeah, the Congress may have been unruly but man, the Clintons provided little in the way of true
political leadership and as you pointed out, their numskull legislative agenda created much ill will across both aisles and among Americans
which led to a dozen year Republican majority which has gutted the country.

[Hippo_Tron]

18. I agree that they screwed up, but it's hard to say how they could've done better

Clinton had to fight tooth and nail to get a watered down tax increase on the rich even though the Senate had 57 Democrats by the time. Gore had to break the tie. After 12 years of Reagan/Bush it was more than necessary and I can't fault him for doing that. The problem is that he spent most of his political capital on it which put him in a weaker position by the time the health care came around. Gays in the military weakened him as well but again it wouldn't have if Sam Nunn wasn't such an asshole.

Yea, in retrospect he probably should have started working on health care before NAFTA and the Assault Weapons Ban. But the tax increase is what really cost him and that was really Congress' fault, not his own. Because every member is so worried about his/her own re-election they fail to see the big picture that if their party controls the White House, the White House's political victories and defeats are what determines the national mood toward the party and either allows them to hold congress or paves the way for sweeps from the opposition like we saw in 1994.

[aquart]

20. So there was no Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Just bad Clintons?

If all your opinions have this much "depth," no wonder you're for the "rock star."

[MadBadger]

8. Except for the whole loving and honest husband.

[Tactical Progressive]

11. Yeah, it's a pretty huge stretch calling Obama honest.

I can't recall a Democrat less honest than Obama in a long, long time.

[ClarkUSA]

13. Yeah, Bill was much more honest when he claimed he was opposed to the Iraq war "from the beginning".

How about when he said in front of 250 million Americans, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" while waggling his lyin' finger?
Then there's the time BOTH he and Hillary lied about his involvement with Gennifer Flowers on 60 Minutes.

And Hillary was so honest when she said Obama's plan to raise the payroll ceiling would be a "trillion-dollar tax increase on THE MIDDLE CLASS" when
people making over $97,500 represent only the top 6%.

Your Bizarro world interpretation of honesty is pure Clintonian BS and Iowa likely caucus goers know it. That's why Obama is considered more then
twice as honest and trustworthy as your girl in Iowa. NH voters think so by a wide margin, too. The Clintons aren't fooling anybody but the most
stupid among us.

[ripple]

16. Long, long time?

Remember Bill's testimony before the Senate? Is that a long, long time? Surely you recall it...after all, it brought us 8 years of Bush. THAT is a long, long time.

[MadBadger]

21. How bout Joe Lieberman or Zel Miller

[Tactical Progressive]

29. Well, Zell is a

raving asshole, and Joe is a total thug about Iraq and other things.

I don't know that they are blatantly dishonest like Obama.

But I'm not going to defend them on general principles.

[aquart]

22. Link? Proof?

In what way is he dishonest? We know about the drugs from his own mouth. What do you "know" that I don't?

Or is this also, like ClarkUSA, your mere opinion?

[Tactical Progressive]

27. Well, I could give you proof like

How Obama says Hillary isn't experienced, which is pretty dishonest, but there is some measure of opinion there.

Or we could talk about how Obama, and keep in mind the above contention, says he is experienced in foreign relations, from when he was eight years old, which is pretty hard not to take as dishonest even if it really is his opinion.

Or we could look at Obama saying he hasn't been coveting the Presidency for a long time, in order to smear Hillary, A claim which was immediately proven false, and not by kindergarten essays.

Those are just in the last week or two.


But really, I was just responding to some gratuitous personal slime thrown at the Clintons. That OK?

[aquart]

24. Yeah. Let's be sure to blame the wife for that, shall we?

It's so...I was going to say 18th century but I've also found it in books translated from ancient Sanskrit. Let's call it a "traditional" viewpoint.

[MadBadger]

26. The thread is about the Clintons being like the Obamas

Its not just about Hillary. There is no evidence that Barack is anything but a caring and loving husband and father.

[Tactical Progressive]

28. Maybe, but then, we haven't spent $80 million

investigating Obama's sordid sex life for years, complete with corrupt judges, a billion dollars worth of media attention, a prosecutor willing to put his friends in prison until they tell him the stories that he wants to hear, and replete with others willing to put up near million-dollar sums of cash for women to accuse him of unwanted sexual advances perpetrated against them.

So how do we really know?

[BenDavid]

10. The difference is WJC knew when not to run and that was in 88

but Obama is hell bent on running and when he loses his fortunes will be greatly diminished and barry should have waited either till 12 or 16.

Ben David

[ClarkUSA]

17. Bill Clinton didn't run because he didn't have a chance in hell of winning in '88. Unlike Obama now

Just take a look at the early state polls in IA, NH, and SC... And no, Barack won't move to the back of the bus so Hillary can sit.

[BluegrassDem]

19. Wait your turn little uppity black boy

That BS! Why should he wait until 2016?? Black people have gotten fed up with 'wait until your time' crap. It's very elitist if not flat our racist to say such.

[aquart]

23. Absolutely.

Not unlike the sexist phrasing being used to describe Clinton, like "shrill".