See, this is what I dont get at all. All the bullshit conspiracy theories theyve concocted about Hillary Clinton, the Vince Foster murder and so on, I can understand if not condone their eagerness to dredge up. All that stuff is, if taken seriously, an attack on her character. But this gleeful eagerness to slime her by invoking Monica Lewinsky? Which Rance and Rush and Mitch and Liz have all publicly defended as a perfectly legitimate tactic, one theyre so eager to use that that this bumper-sticker has been stockpiled in advance of her official candidacy? How does this reflect anything but Republicans acting like a bunch of silly tits? What this tactic ignores, logically, is that the innocent party in the Lewinsky affair was Hillary Clinton. The worst you can say about Hillary is that when her husband violated his marriage vows she dealt with her considerable hurt and anger and -- from what the Clintons are willing to say about it, and from what actually got captured on camera once or twice, with the help of Chelseas considerable peace-making skills -- salvaged her marriage. In what way does the Republican Party consider this shameful? The self-proclaimed party of family values, home to any number of bathroom stall and congressional page and Appalachian trail epics, wants us to sneer at a woman who forgave her husband for a very public humiliation. Im tempted to conclude that the result is the Republican Party writ small: campaigning by bumper sticker, when the sentiment on the bumper sticker falls apart if you give it thirty seconds of intelligent examination; an exercise in higher thinking that the party seems confident their base is disinclined to attempt. This is not me insulting Republican voters. This is the Republican Party insulting Republican voters. It says a lot about their faith in the shallow stupidity they attribute to the people theyre courting. If the base ever did bother to consider what a blatant insult this was, it would revolt.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 15:36:04 +0000
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