Big fan of Bobby Kennedy here, make no mistake, but in his most recent post,"Hillary Haters and the Roosevelts," in which he endorses Hillary Clinton, he makes an intriguing, if dubious, analogy between Hillary and Bill Clinton and another noteworthy presidential couple--Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, but the comparison falls flat when one takes a closer look.
Principally, a few compelling questions emerge: 1) is he suggesting that Hillary is like FDR, or Eleanor? Clearly, it's not FDR, but if it is Eleanor, then it must be remembered that Mrs. Roosevelt never ran for office. 2) there's the suggestion of "two for the price of one," namely, that by electing Hillary we'll get another 4 to 8 years of Bill. The underlying assumption there is that Bill and Hillary agree on most important issues, which is an assumption which deserves a vocal challenge. I suspect the Clintons disagree on a few noteworthy issues like war, and the distribution of wealth. 3) the coup de grace assertion that Mme. Clinton would like to work for the little guy, divest corporations of power and share the wealth is belied by the fact that she boasts of standing up to the HMOs, and pharmaceutical companies, on the one hand, and puts her other hand in their pocket,
What's more, when Hillary said, in last night's debate, that she wants to make health care "more affordable for Americans she demonstrates that she still doesn't get that many uninsured Americans have to choose between filling their refrigerators or their prescriptions, and lastly, with FDR, one sensed a passion for economic justice, as well as an unflagging desire to create jobs. When Clinton talks about how wealth is in the hands of the upper one percentile, and how she's going to change that, we need to hear passion instead of what what sounds like campaign rhetoric. When John Fitzgerald Kennedy spoke about segregation, and civil liberties, it rang true, and never sounded like a pitch for power. We expect nothing less from any candidate who wants our vote.
Mr. Kennedy is right insofar as this country could do a whole lot worse than having Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office. We could have a president who thinks AIDS patients should be quarantined, one who wants to reverse legislation banning handguns in our nation's capital, or turn a woman's right to choose over to the states to decide instead. But, as Shakespeare said, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." One would hope that if she should find herself being the lucky recipient of all the power she currently craves, Mrs. Clinton would show the same hunger for human rights, economic justice, and statesmanship as her predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, showed, as well as the humility, and unpretentiousness of his spouse..
Finally, whether one is electable or not isn't a matter of strategy, but credibility. Why replace one president we don't believe with another. Those who speak truth to power speak from the heart. Everything else is just party talk.
Advertisement
Advertisement