I have always admired Republicans and Democrats who were willing to stand up and speak out against candidates or elected officials of their own party when they believed those candidates or officials were acting unethically, immorally, or unadvisedly. To put country in front of party strikes me as the most patriotic thing you can do, especially when the person or persons speaking up are highly vested in their party.
Republicans who oppose George W. Bush and his war in Iraq have shown courage, as did Robert Byrd and others who condemned Bill Clinton for his behavior in the oval office.
I wasn't sure I could do the same. Even though I have no power or status within the Democratic Party, and therefore my view matters very little, I always thought I would support Democrats because the alternative to me was unthinkable. However, with the recent behavior of the Clintons that has changed. Just as I have been unable to bear listening to or looking at George W. Bush these last seven years, I have found myself becoming nauseous each time I see Hillary or Bill on the TV screen.
I can't believe how far I have come.
When this campaign began, I liked a lot of the candidates, including Hillary. I always thought it a bit unseemly that she was running, being a former First Lady and the wife of a president. And I had no illusions. I saw her as a calculating politician who planned her run for the presidency while her husband was still in office by running for a Senate seat in New York, even though she had never lived there, knowing it would be a great launching pad for her eventual campaign. However, I thought she was smart and capable. I always thought the attacks on her and her husband were unfair and I was willing to overlook her raw ambition. I even kind of liked the idea of finally having a female president.
But now I cannot even stand to look at her. She promotes ideas I tend to agree with, but she acts no different from George W. Bush when it comes to political machinations and attacks on opponents, even opponents of her own party. And her husband's behavior has been outrageous, and unseemly for a former president.
Hillary has shown that she is willing to do whatever it takes to win, including changing the rules laid down by the Democratic Party regarding Michigan and Florida, rules she agreed to, using superdelegates to overturn the will of the people, and now trying to peal off delegates won by Obama in caucuses and primaries.
What Hillary seems not to grasp, and what Obama gets, is that the people who despise George W. Bush and who have been in despair over the direction of our country for the past seven years, have not had those feelings solely because of Bush policies they disagree with. In fact, they have felt both despair for the country and contempt for the president because the president cannot be trusted, because he violates rules and laws, because he is more interested in himself and his own power than the well being of the people.
I don't care how brilliant Hillary is, nor how enlightened her policy positions, if her ethics and her political maneuvering serve only to enhance her bank account and her power, while they overrule the will of the people, she is no better than George W. Bush.
The country has waited seven years to put someone in the White House they can trust, admire, and look up to. And it isn't Hillary. If she becomes president, and we have to wait another four years, or even eight to renew our country and rescue our democracy from deceitful, calculating and narcissistic politicians who care nothing for the people, I fear we might never recover.
The best possible thing that could happen to our country in the next few weeks is for the people to send a message loud and clear to Hillary Clinton:
Your time has passed.
It is time for you to exit gracefully and let the next generation repair the damage that you, your husband and George W. Bush have done to this country.
