Published on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Hillary, Rupert, and the Culture of Corruption
by Jeff Cohen

Excuse me for not getting fired up when I hear Democratic leaders bleating about the "culture of corruption" in Washington under GOP rule. Sometimes I have to laugh ... and not because the charges against the Republicans aren't true. They're totally true.

It's just that top Democrats are up to their eyeballs in that same culture of corruption - which may be why they seem blind to how activists see them. Take my New York senator, Hillary Clinton. The Financial Times just reported that she and her re-election campaign have lined up rightwing media mogul Rupert Murdoch to host a Hillary fundraiser in July.

Murdoch is the symbol of media conglomeration and the owner of Republican mouthpieces like Fox News, Weekly Standard and the New York Post. He and Hillary have lately conducted a public courtship. Last month, Hillary attended the 10th anniversary party for Fox News in Washington, where the presidential contender schmoozed Murdoch and Fox chair Roger Ailes. According to the Financial Times, Bill Clinton will address the summer conference of Murdoch's media colossus, News Corp...

By having Murdoch host her fundraiser, Hillary Clinton seems to be signaling to Murdoch that while Democratic Party activists have mobilized in recent years against media conglomeration and policies that favor and subsidize media giants, those are not concerns of hers. What does Hillary want from Murdoch? Obviously, softer coverage from Fox and elsewhere. She certainly doesn't need his help getting funds; she raised $6 million in the first three months of 2006.

Among Democratic activists, few institutions are more detested than the raging rightwing Fox News, which was unmasked by Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism...

Perhaps Hillary and Bill Clinton aren't actually blind to how grassroots activists view them. More likely, it's simply of little concern. Their political careers have been based on unholy deals with the right and the corporate, and their calculation that activists in the Democratic base have no alternative but to support their opportunist leadership...

Assuming Hillary wins the senate primary and is pitted against an even worse Republican, voters in one of America's most progressive states will face a choice of two major-party candidates with roughly identical views on Iraq, military spending, Iran, Israel, media consolidation, pro-corporate trade deals, etc. That's a choice Murdoch relishes. He can't lose in such an election...

[ 10 May 2006: Message edited by: Naci_Sey ]

And frankly, if she can pronounce the word "nuclear" and keep it in her pants, she'll be better than the last two idiots who were president. The top contenders in both parties are corrupt and right-wing and pretty much horrid. Might as well let a corrupt, horrid woman get a shot at it this time.

[ 11 May 2006: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
I think Hillary will win.
[ 11 May 2006: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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I think at this point just about any Democrat would win unless the Republicans come up with someone like Rudy Giuliani (who is ideologically closer to Clinton than Bush) who is good at appealing to the Democrat constituencies. That's not likely. Even John McCain, whose "maverick" image is what makes him so attractive in the first place is now courting the religious right. He was called part of the "axis of evil" a few years ago by Jerry Falwell but they've made their peace I think.

reminder: it is more than 2 full calendar years until the last Democratic primaries are held, and the delegate hunt some years goes right to the wire in California and elsewhere, esp. when neither party can field an incumbent or a really dominant personality as appears the case for 2008

so nobody but nobody knows which party will nominate whom;
in January 2000, I remember our friend David Frum confidently predicting that year's presidential duel -- which as he correctly foresaw it, was a race between ... John McCain and Bill Bradley

but ....

it is the confident-prediction part that is too much for me, given the many many variables we cannot account for today, in mid-May 2006

For context, imagine a previous situation leading up to a U.S. presidential cycle, say, 1992;
if we were here at babble in mid-May 1990 (ha), looking ahead, What do we see?

* a high-powered liberal New York political figure leading the race for the Democrats, despite his vague programme and coyness about declaring, against a George Bush presidency showing some serious weaknesses.
-- A natural pick, eh?

But just for fun, imagine the mental gymnastics needed by some guru to account for what would ACTUALLY happen in the next 2 years:

- the high-profile New York political figure loses his nerve, decides not to run for President, opening Democrat field to a bunch of 2nd-tier candidates, including obscure young governor of a backwoods state;

- kook billionaire throws himself into the ring and somehow manages to make deficit-fighting a national crusade, grabbing along the way 20 per cent of the national vote;

- sitting president Bush loses budget battle and midterms to Democrats, then soars in polls following unexepected Mideast war, then collapses following severe recession, to become one of few incumbents ever defeated ...

Who d'a thunk it ???

So, for 2008, throw Al Gore, Mark Warner and Who Knows into the Democrat pot, and Giuliani, McCain, Mitt Romney and Who Knows into the Republican pot, add in a 3rd party or 2, stir, and get ready for some political surprises.

[ 12 May 2006: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
if she can . . . keep it in her pants

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
There is no way Hillary Clinton will win the Presidency.

The first woman president of the United States will be white and Republican.

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As far as I'm concerned, Hillary is about 90 percent of the way there.

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perhaps she can acquire some refrigerated drawers from Martha.

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And in fact, most of the grassroots is even more disappointed in her than even Kerry, and they don't intend on being fooled again.

In fact, she could be a disaster, like this "what-if" outlines: Guardian

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Here's a much more telling piece from Ariana on the Hillary Code, and her pandering to the right. Quite a catastrophic and completely unnecessary drift to the dark side.

[ 15 May 2006: Message edited by: ceti ]

Shit. I might as well go back 10 years in my life and be a Reagan lovin' Republican again. Hell, at least its FUN to win with the courage of your own (albeit misguided) convictions.

Yeah, let Hillary be the first woman nominee for president (I wonder how Geraldine Ferraro, a REAL liberal would feel about that, now honestly). What a freaking disaster that would be - here's a craven political animal who never met a right wing donor she didn't like, who strongly supports more US warfare around the world, doesn't give a tinker's damn for the real working class, and would seal the deal forever between the one party state that is driving America and the world along with it into certain destruction.

(radio analogy: The Democrats and the Republicans are just like the old NBC radio networks - red and blue).

We now live in an age where, according to Cohen, a good solid liberal candidate alternative to ClintonCorp. (tm) has virtually no chance at all because he isn't a "rock star." Even in freakin' New York State, the bastion of Eastern working class liberalism.

As Winnie the Pooh might say, I want to fwow up.

I mean seriously, why fucking bother? How do you save a country too stupid to want to save itself? How do you save a society completely ignorant of its roots, its history and the basics of political science and theory?

It becomes a game, a lurid, stupid, rigged and fixed TV game show where the contestants are pre-chosen, the debate pre-arranged, and the outcome pre-ordained. Richard Dawson hosting in Running Man. Its so easy, isn't it?

And in Canada, Jack Layton gets up in front of a nationally televised debate and says, well of course, he isn't planning on serving at 24 Sussex any time soon. He's just up here keepin' em honest.

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Originally posted by nister:
Pretty sure Ferraro stood for VP, AE.

{soap box, pls.}...I feel you're taking your eye off the ball a bit, AE. It's the War Party that needs watching, not for what they say, but what they do. Democrat, Republican, meh. Window dressing.

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I know nister - the point I should have made is she was the first woman to run on a national ticket and could have conceivably been President at some point.

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Excuse me for not getting fired up when I hear Democratic leaders bleating about the "culture of corruption" in Washington under GOP rule. Sometimes I have to laugh ... and not because the charges against the Republicans aren't true. They're totally true.

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