It Would Be Foolish

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"[It] would be foolish, at such a 'critical time in our history', to pick people who 'had no experience in Washington whatsoever,'" said the 48-year-old junior senator who had served less than two years in the capitol before beginning his run to hold the top office in the land and become the leader of the free world. [For how long the U.S. can continue calling itself the leader of the free world remains to be seen.] Hello!

While I completely agree with President-elect Obama's call for experience at his press conference this week, I wonder if he sees the irony of his words. He ran on "CHANGE" as in "change the channel." Had his theme been "Let's watch a re-run of the Clinton cast of West Wing," it would have been less impressive. In fact, for many it would have confirmed that Hillary was a wiser pick than him. At that time, Obama mocked Hillary for lacking foreign experience, now he's poised to make her Secretary of State.

Those of you who have "read me" through the years would rightly guess that I was no fan of Hillary Clinton, but I should clarify (since those feelings go way back before I blogged) that one of my biggest beefs with the Clintons was the complete double standard of Hilary's blind eye to Bill's "bimbo eruptions." What we learned in those years was that it did not matter what a man did TO WOMEN as long as he did the right things FOR WOMEN. A man in power [as both a governor and a President] could gratify himself with subordinate women all he wanted, in any way he wanted, [in any rooms of the White House he wanted] and feminists would defend him.

The very groups of women who tried to "BORK" Clarence Thomas for allegedly telling Anita Hill a joke about a Coke can stood by their man as if to say, "As long as you support feminist views," Mr. President, "we'll overlook how you treat females. As long as you make good on your promise to put women in White House positions, we'll overlook the positions you put "that women" in. And Hillary was right out front explaining that our President was not a megalomaniacal womanizer; it was all just a "vast right wing conspiracy." ["That woman," by the way, was only six years older than the Clinton's daughter Chelsey.]

So yes, I am among those who found it fitting that a set of George Bush bookends would help hold forever shut the "pulp non-fiction" volumes of the Clinton years.

Having said that, I am willing to concede that people can change. Bill's heart surgery may have made a faithful husband out of him, and while I still have lingering distrust for the Clinton cast of characters from "That 90's Show," they were at least operating in the realm of 20th Century American politics and Capitalism. I take some comfort in that. ["Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."] It's also somewhat reassuring that Obama's most worried critics (at the moment) are the far left (and leftists) who hoped he really was going to bring rapid, radical CHANGE.

Obama also said in the statement that opened these thoughts: "What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking.” It will be interesting to see if the end result of mixing Clinton's re-tread, "Washington insiders" with yet un-named "fresh thinkers" will produce a potent political cocktail or a just a cockamamie concoction. Time will tell, and the gaps between posts here at PI reflect my willingness to wait and see one week at a time.