Clinton Denounces 'Mission Accomplished'
Her voice raspy from days of campaigning, Clinton brought delegates to
their feet when she said she wished she could turn the clock back to a different
time.
"Somebody said to me that he wished we could just rewind the 21st century and just eliminate the Bush-Cheney administration, with all their mistakes and
misjudgments," she said to cheers. "People are ready for leaders who understand
it is our votes who put them in power, our tax dollars that pay the bills."
She lambasted the "Mission Accomplished" speech nearly four years ago,
in which Bush declared an end to major military actions in Iraq. He made the
comment while on the deck of an aircraft carrier off the California coast.
That speech, Clinton said, was "one of the most shameful episodes in
American history. ... The only mission he accomplished was the re-election of
Republicans."
I've worked for Republicans and the Republican Party and Republicans blew it. They didn't blow it in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they did screw the pooch in the Pentagon and the Old Executive Building when they failed to fully understand what the troops and the people needed. Both were and are ready to get the job done if they only knew what the job is.
Republicans blew it when, once in power, they became Democrats. They played the same "get everything in my district or state named after me" pork game. They became "statesmen", or actually "statespersons", to win over the press and blunt their "anti-intellectual" perception. They may have worked hard, but they forgot who they were working for.
Mizz Clinton speaks of "one of the most shameful episodes" in a non-Jolson patois to give it due gravitas. Republicans can counter with many more shameful episodes, while republicans snark about blue dresses, noting such Clintonian issues as the failure of of pre-9/11 intelligence as seen by the Berger burglaries, their abuse of power, their pursuit of race and class warfare, their desire for socialized medicine and other programs, and the whole Evita complex.
President Bush has many failures, but he has been resolute on the GWOT, taxes and the court. Not bad, but, as they say, "a day late and a dollar short", because even at this late date most Americans don't think that.
If the people, actually the voter, believes that elected politicians will remember who put them there, those voters will vote for them. Not, as the cynics say, because the elected officials will bring the bling home, but because those elected are doing what is best for the Republic.
A minority believed in the formation of this nation, a minority believed in the equality of all men, a minority believed in the Reagan Revolution, a minority believed in the Contract With America and now a minority believe in the future of America. In each case, what made these things possible is that a majority hoped they would work.
If politicians sincerely put ideals into action the people will follow. If the people believe that politicians care only about elections, voters will wonder why they should care.
Somebody once said to me that they wished they could erase the embarrassment that led America in the last eight years of the 20th century. I told them that wishing against reality wasn't realistic, but my daughter was 15 years of age at the time, not a Presidental candidate.
The most shameful episode in this minor episode of Ms Clinton's quest for power is her flippant and political slur that President Bush, and thousands in his administration, used soldier's blood merely to re-elect Republicans.
I am still waiting for an electable politician for President that personifies Ms Clinton's ideal of a leader who understands who voted them into power and who also remembers that the taxpayer pays the bills. I don't need a cynic who recounts the "most shameful episodes" to cover their own and I also do not need a politician that treats the voter, the soldier, the taxpayer and the citizen as their "little people".
Of course, that is the Liberal problem in that they vote people into power, they don't elect people to represent the power of the people. Maybe Republicans should remember that as well.
