Thursday, March 13, 2008
More on the dangers of the Clinton-Obama struggle
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
More on the dangers of the Obama-Clinton struggle
The Clinton - Obama battle may become the most pernicious blow to America's racial relations and the future of the Democratic Party
If Hillary Clinton pulls all stops with super delegates and wins, Black Obamans may see it as an ultimate racist act, destructive to national unity and Democratic Party. Civil disobedience and worse may result. Other Obamans may actually vote for McCain.
Conservative Radicals are pulling for Clinton victory in the remaining state primaries, urging their voters to cross-vote for Hillary - it is easier now when McCain has locked his candidacy. Then, in a McCain/Obama finale, the middle people who find Obama too leftist and might have gone for Hil will vote for McCain and give the Republicans another four years.
A most destructive Republican tactic is to feed the young Clinton-weary Obamans some Whitewater and Vince Foster material. Foster, a Clinton Arkansas friend and White House Counsel who handled the Clintons' Whitewater 1978 real estate investment review (their S&L banker McDougal was eventually sent to jail for misreporting taxable interest), a deeply depressed person, shot himself in the head in a Washington park. The Special Counsel appointed to investigate, Robert Fiske, cleared the Clintons. His successor Ken Starr, working after 1996, under a Republican Congress, dragged the investigation, clearing the Clintons three years later, with the final Whitewater clearance in January 2001.
What was behind the actions were the private investigations prompted by billionaire Pittsburgh oil and newspaper magnate Richard Mellon Scaife, and other wealthy Conservative influentials. Scaife spent several millions of dollars, hiring journalists to investigate and publish “revelations” of the Troopergate, Clinton's women and Whitewater, under such headings as the Arkansas Project, and in financing press services. One of his well-paid reporters, David Brock, eventually recanted and revealed the machinations.
Scaife is known to have financed his investigative reporter Christopher Ruddy and others to cast doubts about the suicide, in view of some limited facts - that Fosters' suicide note was held by the White House for 30 hours, that the bullet was missing, and more. Ruddy published a book about the suspicious Foster death (which was denounced as pushing spurious material even by Conservative critics, including Ann Coulter) and other anti-Clinton material. He was financed to start a major journal and websites, NewsMax, which continues its political revelations, presently amazingly quiet about their Foster/Whitewater bombshells. Interestingly, Scaife had financed a new Law School at Pepperdine University in the 1990s, and Special Counsel Ken Starr was asked by the university to head it, after completing his stretched-out public service. Starr decided not to accept the appointment, to avoid any implications. In 2004, when his report was well put to rest, he quietly became head of the Pepperdine Law School.
The Foster/Whitewater stories are coming back, and are whispered - not published - from some Obaman sources. The Republicans e-mail a Peggy Noonan story, portraying Hillary as an antediluvian force of nature, not to be stopped no matter what the public interest. As for the Democrats, anti-Clinton pieces by such writers as Frank Rich, Christopher Hitchens and Ariella Huntington are coming through the chain e-mail letter stream. They revive issues of greed, business as usual, and tell of renting the Lincoln bedroom by the night to donors, selling access, and the Chinese oil company lobbyist who bought his way into the White House 51 times and had a free pass to the employee lunchroom. Obama critics’ e-mail is rare and relatively mild, such as a Chicago reporter’s tale of the Senator’s six inactive years in the state legislature (he got there by invalidating his competitors’ petition signatures) under Republican leadership, with one hyperactive year under the sponsorship of the new Democratic leader, Emil Jones, Jr. The sex scandals of Obama's two US Senate competitors, the Democrat and then the Republican, cleared his way to Washington. (Curiously, this story came to me on the day Gov. Spitzer admitted to having sex with a prostitute.)
The sniping continues, and Democrats waver. In our 74th AD only one of four Democratic clubs, the Tilden people, produced a clear-cut endorsement, favoring Clinton. The best thing for survival of the Democratic Party and its victory in November would be more definitive votes for one contestant or the other even before April 22, and the loser’s acceptance of a Number Two post. It is incumbent upon the top Democratic leadership to get together towards this objective of unifying the party, and force the action, else indecision will lead to snowballing of problems and side tracks, such as a Florida and Michigan re-vote. Regrettably, one sees little alternative. This intensifying of mutual hatred without clarifying the issues should stop.
A little story. At a social event, two Pennsylvanians who know my views came to ask for whom to vote, claiming that the last four Presidential candidates they voted for had not fulfilled their promises. They liked Obama, but he had promised to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months, 10,000 troops a month, which they saw as naïve. We then agreed that he had also said that Americans would not completely withdraw until reliable promises of peace were in place, a waffling worthy of a seasoned politician. They were comforted to conclude that Obama the change prophet will not be a wild radical. That’s politics, folks.
More on the dangers of the Obama-Clinton struggle
The Clinton - Obama battle may become the most pernicious blow to America's racial relations and the future of the Democratic Party
If Hillary Clinton pulls all stops with super delegates and wins, Black Obamans may see it as an ultimate racist act, destructive to national unity and Democratic Party. Civil disobedience and worse may result. Other Obamans may actually vote for McCain.
Conservative Radicals are pulling for Clinton victory in the remaining state primaries, urging their voters to cross-vote for Hillary - it is easier now when McCain has locked his candidacy. Then, in a McCain/Obama finale, the middle people who find Obama too leftist and might have gone for Hil will vote for McCain and give the Republicans another four years.
A most destructive Republican tactic is to feed the young Clinton-weary Obamans some Whitewater and Vince Foster material. Foster, a Clinton Arkansas friend and White House Counsel who handled the Clintons' Whitewater 1978 real estate investment review (their S&L banker McDougal was eventually sent to jail for misreporting taxable interest), a deeply depressed person, shot himself in the head in a Washington park. The Special Counsel appointed to investigate, Robert Fiske, cleared the Clintons. His successor Ken Starr, working after 1996, under a Republican Congress, dragged the investigation, clearing the Clintons three years later, with the final Whitewater clearance in January 2001.
What was behind the actions were the private investigations prompted by billionaire Pittsburgh oil and newspaper magnate Richard Mellon Scaife, and other wealthy Conservative influentials. Scaife spent several millions of dollars, hiring journalists to investigate and publish “revelations” of the Troopergate, Clinton's women and Whitewater, under such headings as the Arkansas Project, and in financing press services. One of his well-paid reporters, David Brock, eventually recanted and revealed the machinations.
Scaife is known to have financed his investigative reporter Christopher Ruddy and others to cast doubts about the suicide, in view of some limited facts - that Fosters' suicide note was held by the White House for 30 hours, that the bullet was missing, and more. Ruddy published a book about the suspicious Foster death (which was denounced as pushing spurious material even by Conservative critics, including Ann Coulter) and other anti-Clinton material. He was financed to start a major journal and websites, NewsMax, which continues its political revelations, presently amazingly quiet about their Foster/Whitewater bombshells. Interestingly, Scaife had financed a new Law School at Pepperdine University in the 1990s, and Special Counsel Ken Starr was asked by the university to head it, after completing his stretched-out public service. Starr decided not to accept the appointment, to avoid any implications. In 2004, when his report was well put to rest, he quietly became head of the Pepperdine Law School.
The Foster/Whitewater stories are coming back, and are whispered - not published - from some Obaman sources. The Republicans e-mail a Peggy Noonan story, portraying Hillary as an antediluvian force of nature, not to be stopped no matter what the public interest. As for the Democrats, anti-Clinton pieces by such writers as Frank Rich, Christopher Hitchens and Ariella Huntington are coming through the chain e-mail letter stream. They revive issues of greed, business as usual, and tell of renting the Lincoln bedroom by the night to donors, selling access, and the Chinese oil company lobbyist who bought his way into the White House 51 times and had a free pass to the employee lunchroom. Obama critics’ e-mail is rare and relatively mild, such as a Chicago reporter’s tale of the Senator’s six inactive years in the state legislature (he got there by invalidating his competitors’ petition signatures) under Republican leadership, with one hyperactive year under the sponsorship of the new Democratic leader, Emil Jones, Jr. The sex scandals of Obama's two US Senate competitors, the Democrat and then the Republican, cleared his way to Washington. (Curiously, this story came to me on the day Gov. Spitzer admitted to having sex with a prostitute.)
The sniping continues, and Democrats waver. In our 74th AD only one of four Democratic clubs, the Tilden people, produced a clear-cut endorsement, favoring Clinton. The best thing for survival of the Democratic Party and its victory in November would be more definitive votes for one contestant or the other even before April 22, and the loser’s acceptance of a Number Two post. It is incumbent upon the top Democratic leadership to get together towards this objective of unifying the party, and force the action, else indecision will lead to snowballing of problems and side tracks, such as a Florida and Michigan re-vote. Regrettably, one sees little alternative. This intensifying of mutual hatred without clarifying the issues should stop.
A little story. At a social event, two Pennsylvanians who know my views came to ask for whom to vote, claiming that the last four Presidential candidates they voted for had not fulfilled their promises. They liked Obama, but he had promised to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months, 10,000 troops a month, which they saw as naïve. We then agreed that he had also said that Americans would not completely withdraw until reliable promises of peace were in place, a waffling worthy of a seasoned politician. They were comforted to conclude that Obama the change prophet will not be a wild radical. That’s politics, folks.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 6:18 AM 
