November 11, 2007

"There are some who will say they don’t know where I stand. I think you know better than that."

"I stand where I have stood for 35 years. I stand with you. And with your children. And with every American who needs a fighter in their corner for a better life."

That's Hillary Clinton's answer to people who say that she's keeping her positions amorphous so no one can find anything to attack. Now, she's chiding us — "I think you know better than that" — because we haven't paid enough attention.

That reminds me of John Kerry saying "You're not listening" to a man who wanted to know his position on the war — the one thing Kerry said that I pinpointed as what turned me against him.

And what are we supposed to already know about Hillary? Absurdly, there isn't the slightest content to her statement. She stands with us — with me, with childen, and with everyone. Is that a place? With us. Sure! If you want to know where she is, you only have to ascertain where we are. So take some polls and find out.

33 comments:

Ron said...

You mean there's no place I can go where she doesn't stand with me? Stalkers logic!

""Is it true that God is everywhere?"", a little girl asked her mother. "I think that's positively indecent!"

AllenS said...

"I stand where I have stood for 35 years. I stand with you. And with your children."

That's good enough for me. I'll bet that if Hillary! had been president when I was a kid, that pony would have been underneath the Christmas tree.

Ron said...

I'll bet the day she's sworn in, chickens will magically appear in pots across the land...

Anonymous said...

If she's been in the same place for 35 years, and standing with us all the while, we must have been in the same place for 35 years too. 35 years ago we were giving Nixon a landslide victory over McGovern. And Hillary was standing right there with us!

Cedarford said...

So she stands with Althouse, she stands with me, she stands with Bush, she stands with Dust Bunny, DTL, Freder, and every Marine...but most of all, she stands with all children. The Children! The children, dammit!

Yeesh!

Only a Queen...if only a Lizard Queen...claims she stands with all her subjects. From the nobility, to the proletariat, to the brown skinned subjects overseas under her cannons, and her Love..

As Zrimsek astutely notes, where Hillary! stood 35 years ago was as a committed activist Lefty working on the McGovern campaign. (Though her activism, inc working with Hard Left figures, goes back to 1968.)

Her attitude turns me off. Not just the deflection of the questions, but the presumption that she is So Important as a Yalie, consort of Bill, and a Senator of 7 years that we all have an obligation to "educate ourselves" about her by consuming the fodder her Spin Team lays out.

That is, if we truly care for all Americans she stands with...and especially the children. The children! So stop asking stupid questions on issues. A Queen as widely known as her for the last 35 years needs little in the way of explaination.

(Methinks "You know where I stand, same as 35 years ago - will soon lead to some Campaign or Main Election Rival's efforts to show voters just where Hillary! stood on Saul Alinsky, her race quota work at Wesleyan, her communist law firm employers, her past writings on chidren's rights over parents.)

Other emarassing little tidbits on where she personally stood 35 years ago -- like how her plan to hang part time with Bill in Bumfuckville and not marry him so she could shuttle to DC and do activist lawyer work for progressive causes....was derailed somewhat by One of the Top 100 Lawyers in the Country passing the Arkansas Bar Exa but failing the DC Bar Exam (thus shoving her off several fastrack jobs she was looking at in DC).

Arkansas then became "gifted" by her presence.

Bruce Hayden said...

She can't get away with feeling our pain, since that was trademarked by someone else - unless they lived in a community property state at the time.

I guess if you really, really, really, wanted to believe, this reassurance would be sufficient. The problem is that she has such high negatives, and that means that there are a lot of unbelievers in the center who have to be convinced, and just assuring them that she stands next to them and their children isn't going to be sufficient.

It is aimed, I think, at making a lot of people feel good about her and her positions without having to actually commit to anything. The problem, at least here, is that this is a purely emotional appeal, and it isn't all that good of one.

Anonymous said...

HR Clinton very much wishes to avoid a clear position on just about everything - might offend a voter, you know. Meanwhile, none of her various momentary public stances will reflect the angry, feminist-socialist she is underneath. Making that clear surely would offend, leaving only the hard radical fringe among her feeling-based followers.

Unknown said...

Sadly, I think Hillary actually believes what she's saying.

The Commercial Traveller said...

Well, thank God she clarified that, because I know so many of the other candidates are against me and my children.

That kind of political rhetoric makes my ears bleed. Just like when I hear politicians claim they are "pro-environment," as if anyone is seriously anti-environment.

Is it so impossible for people to admit that almost all politicians of all ideologies honestly believe that their ideas are best for the poor, the rich, children, the elderly, and everyone in between?

It's absurd. For many partisans, it's as if everyone in the other party is some incarnation of Mr. Burns of _The Simpsons_.

Bob said...

We'll find out where she stands if she wins the election: behind us, dagger in hand, grin on face.

Brian Doyle said...

Fair criticism of Hillary, but give me a break about Kerry.

It wasn't Kerry's evasiveness but his (too late) opposition to the war that you didn't like, being an Iraq War fan.

You'd be much less ridiculous if you didn't try to make every disagreement you have with people about their style or character rather than what they think.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Cedarford: Did Hillary! really fail the DC bar exam?

Wow. That puts a whole new spin on the "smartest woman in America" moniker.

Tim said...

The Hillary! as Jesus.

Boy, does she have bottomless contempt for Americans.

Regardless, today is Veterans' Day. Raise your flag in their honor, and hope Americans elect a president who stands for the troops and their mission.

Cedarford said...

Ruth Ann - Yep, here's a link:

http://hillaryclinton.us/2007/08/10/hillary-clinton-failed-the-dc-bar-exam/

She revealed that a few years after she was in the Senate. Which is why she had previously explained her not signing anything as a lawyer while on the Watergate staff except as "researcher".

I mention it because of the media narrative that she gave up an "unlimited future" as a lawyer inside the Beltway to move to backwater Arkansas to be part of the formidable Clinton Team. And the other media narrative of her being "even more brilliant than Gore, Kerry, possibly Bill Himself!", as one of the smartest women in America, one of the top lawyers...

I also cut her slack. As qualifying remarks indicate, failing a Bar Exam is no great sign of stupidity. Plenty of smart people get hosed - then go on to take it again, pass, and become noted lawyers. Stupid is relative. She is a Yale Law graduate. Brains, as Nixon and Hoover and Bill Clinton taught us - aren't everything. Better a Reagan or FDR with better than average intellect - no more - but with good sense, leadership, and vision - and free of the ethical and personal demons that hurt Nixon and Bill Clinton so much... But Hillary is plenty smart.

And DC, like New York and Louisiana - have some squirrely aspects to their legal system unlike most states that law schools train to. That require additional prep, and even then, superb wannabe lawyers have bad days.

But it suggests that her long spoken narrative promoted by her minions of "abandoning her unlimited future as an activist lawyer in DC, abandoning the plum "hot public service lawyer fastrack jobs" she worked to line up in DC - all so she could sacrifice and be with her Partner in Arkansas - has more to do with her unexpectedly failing the DC exam and passing the Arkansas one.

former law student said...

"I am all things, to all people"
"I am Who am"

Let's face it, if she were any good even as a fellatrix Bill would never have strayed off the reservation.

Bruce Hayden said...

It is a bit hard trying to carry the smartest woman in the world banner when you have failed a bar exam. Most people pass their first bar exam when fresh out. The problem more likely arises a decade or two out when you have forgotten a bunch of stuff and don't have the time for bar review.

Maybe the D.C. bar was hard back then. Maybe twenty years later, it was a "gimme" for me, if I had wanted it. It was one of the bars that would let you in on just your Multi-State scores, and I think the cut off was twenty points below Colorado (where I was taking the bar), and that was 20 points below where I scored.

Most people pass the bar the first time around. Yes, I know people who didn't, but not many. And in my family, we are running 7 for 7.

So, as I noted above, it is hard to consider someone who did fail their first time the smartest woman in the country. She either isn't as smart as she would like us to believe, or wasn't as well prepared as everyone else was. Either way, not the best sign.

Freeman Hunt said...

If she really does stand with me, those of you in her party are going to be really pissed off if she's elected.

Freeman Hunt said...

When did she get the "smartest woman in the world" banner? I've heard that, but I've never understood it, and I've always wondered where it came from.

rcocean said...

Smartest 20th century presidents:

1) Hoover
2) Clinton
3) Taft
4) T.R.
5) Nixon

Low correlation between success and intelligence.

Dumbest Presidents:

1) Reagan
2) FDR
3) Eisenhower
4) Truman
5) Ford

Hmm... some of our greatest presidents.

Bob said...

former law student said...

Let's face it, if she were any good even as a fellatrix Bill would never have strayed off the reservation.



Poonhounds like Bill don't stray because of the skill of their wives (or lack thereof), they stray because they crave novelty. They want some strange, as Bill himself might vulgarly put it.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Cedarford: Thanks for the link. I agree that on any given day, anyone might fail the bar exam. My concern is her not trying again if she really wanted to practice in D.C. After listening to Medved [who was Yale Law classmates with Hillary! and Bill at the beginning of their relationship], I am convinced that she was deeply, truly in love with Bill. That kind of feeling can make you do unexpected things.

Freeman Hunt: LOL!

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

Intellect without a moral centre produces nothing more than cunning, and she's not even very good at that because it's SO obvious.

What an empty, power-hungry, over-programmed ... twit.

Unknown said...

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said..."Intellect without a moral centre produces nothing more than cunning, and she's not even very good at that because it's SO obvious. What an empty, power-hungry, over-programmed ... twit."

Opposed to the intellectual giant in the White House now?

John Stodder said...

Maybe this would work better for Hillary:

I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.

Simon said...

former law student said...
"Let's face it, if she were any good even as a fellatrix Bill would never have strayed off the reservation."

Oh, that really is grotesque "blame the victim" crap. Of course, Bill strayed because Hillary was in some way (specifically sexually) inadequate. Had nothing to do with him - if only she hadn't been inadequate, he wouldn't have needed to cheat.

Ralph L said...

She either isn't as smart as she would like us to believe, or wasn't as well prepared as everyone else was
Or worse, she panicked.
More likely, she called Bill the night before, and a woman answered.

Anonymous said...

simon, is you a fudge-packer, a hump-thumper...? Because you sure sound like one of those tiny shrinking prick boys (unless it is "former law student").
"Blame the 'victim' say you" ? I say to blame feminism, for feminism has made all women into far greater "victims" than they've ever been.
And if you be one of these rump-riders, I'd advise you to keep that conclusion to yourself -and whack-off in private. And dont disturb any other male party.

Clang!Honk!Tweet! said...

Apropos of what john Stodder said upthread, here's an ad for Hillary in the style some would like her to adopt.

Simon said...

Tom, that's simply adorable. No, I'm not a "fudge-packer" (I have no idea what a "hump-thumper" is, but I suspect it's a synonym for the former, in which case the answer's naturally no).

former law student said...

blame the victim
People don't vote for victims. They want winners, not losers -- ask Milt's "brainwashed" dad.

Bob may be right, but I believe people stray to get something they're not getting at home. He wasn't exactly picking 9s and 10s or femmes fatales. It's hard to believe any guy with Bill's sex appeal was hitting on some of those women unless he was deprived. I mean, if the home cooking is good, why would you go out for McDonalds?

Anonymous said...
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Freeman Hunt said...

What's going on with tc? Is there any way to check on him? Shouldn't someone be caring for him?

Revenant said...

She stands with me?

Cool. Finally, a Democrat who wants to cut my taxes.