Oh Hillary…
(*Note: This post was originally written around a week ago and I just got around to finishing and posting it, sorry for the tardiness of the subject, but I felt it still needed to be posted.)
“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”
As if this election couldn’t be more meticulously monitored based on ethnicity, Hillary Clinton makes this winner of a statement. Of course, I’m more likely to attribute this to a case of “lack of head on tight”, however the fact remains, she related being hard-working to being white. I’m not sure what’s worse: the fact that Hillary, despite her best intentions, drew a strong parallel between which race is the most “hardworking”, or the fact that John McCain is touting the foreign policy card but continues to confuse Sunni and Shi’a. (For those who are not familiar, McCain stated that Al Qaeda was a Shi’a group.)
Will this hurt Hillary in the long run? Probably not. I think if anything sealed her fate, it was the extremely narrow margin with which she won in Indiana this week. If anything, it’ll just be another quote added to one of those nifty little tear-off calendars with a new stupid quote made by a politician each day.
All the same, she shouldn’t just expect to be able to shrug it off her statement by saying “these are the people you need to win”. Au contraire, if the news networks have proven anything in their obsession with race and exit polling, it’s that more than just one group counts, stupid. Both Latino and Black Americans are going to have a lot of impact on this election.
Of course, to add a more current note to this post, let’s have a looksie at what some of our favorite conservatives have had to say lately:
“That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He’s getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor.” – Mike Fuckabee, referring to a loud noise backstage as he presented at the NRA convention on Friday.
^^ Yes, because considering the history of political assassinations as far back as, you know, THE BEGINNING OF TIME, this was a REALLY great statement. Calling Mike Huckabee a “douche” doesn’t even begin to cover it… For the rest of my life, Mike Huckabee shall be referred to as receptalacum testis, you know, to exemplify the ornate and diverse language and ideas he has tried to impart.
“As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared, ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this may have been avoided’. We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.” – President Bush, in reference to the Democrat’s stance on the Iraq war.
Right… because being best friends with Saudi Arabia and allowing Prince Bandar in the White House on September 12th, 2001 after their country funded 9/11… that is so completely not appeasement. Folks, I’m beginning to think it’s time that every citizen of this fine nation should mail President Bush a dictionary. Maybe his speech writers, too.
4,000
Today it has been reported that another four US soldiers were killed last night (Sunday) in a roadside bomb, which brings the number of US casualties in Iraq to 4,000. These are 4,000 children who will never come home to their parents, and many of them had children of their own they won’t get to watch grow up. 4,000 people we will never see walking down the street, or even doing something as simple as making a trip to the grocery store. 4,000 people who made the ultimate sacrifice, and 4,000 families whose lives will never be the same again.
Let us not push these men and women to the backs of our minds, as war casualties often are. If the news outlets are tomorrow reporting on celebrity gossip – turn it off, and instead, take a moment to remember the brave people who have given their lives, and the brave people who are still in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As for now, I’d like to give the floor to some of you: What do you think about war casualties? Can they ever be worth it? I look forward to reading your thoughts.
Laura
