DETROIT -- Listening to the weeping and gnashing of teeth from Sen. Hillary Clinton's zealots you'd have to conclude that if the Michigan and Florida delegations to the Democratic National Convention were not seated exactly as they demanded it amounts to a chilling assault on representative democracy and a massive disenfranchisement not seen since the post-Civil War South.
If people see TV's Rachael Ray wearing a scarf plugging coffee it represents an endorsement of terrorism, encouraging hordes of extremists from the Middle East to destroy western civilization and bring jihad to our shores.
We live in an era of madness, shaped with wretched hyperbole, politically inspired victimization and fear-mongering rivaling, and in many cases exceeding, Joe McCarthy's witch hunts.
Meanwhile, President George W. Bush sits smugly in the White House plotting war with Iran while the lies he used to sell the war in Iraq are further exposed and the Republicans' presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain -- aka "Third Term Bush" -- promises more of the same.
McCain condescendingly told Sen. Barack Obama he'll brief him on Iraq -- at least the Green Zone fantasy version -- while McCain himself couldn't keep track of the number of soldiers there and continues to fail to grasp distinction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Iraq. Iran. What's the difference? They all wear scarves and look like terrorists -- or so goes the McCain-Bush narrative of the Middle East.
The Democratic Party's rules committee agreed to a compromise solution that will seat Michigan and Florida delegations, giving each delegate a half-vote only.
Sens. Carl Levin, Debbie Stabenow and Gov. Jennifer Granholm -- all Clinton supporters -- were responsible for creating the Michigan debacle. Although the Democratic National Committee told them breaking party rules and holding an early primary would have serious consequences, including the disqualification of the entire Michigan delegation, they proceeded with a January primary.
Sens. John Edwards and Obama's names were not even on the ballot. Clinton at the time said she did not think it made any difference whether her name was on the Michigan primary battle since "it's clear the election they're having is not going to count for anything."
Now Clinton wants it to count for everything, as Obama closes in on clinching the nomination. And even though a staggering 40 percent of the Michigan primary voters chose "uncommitted" -- clearly a rejection of Clinton and support for Obama or Edwards -- she wants to lay stake to those delegates.
Clinton and many of her supporters are hell-bent on a prolonged scorched-earth fight for the nomination, based on the notion that the party's presidential nominee should be selected on the basis of anything but the number of delegates won.
But those who dare question Clinton's campaign tactics and her occasional reckless language run the risk of being labeled sexists. In a recent column, I took Clinton on for dancing on racial fault lines and bragging that she is the darling of "hardworking white Americans."
That inspired one critic to declare that I was among those who "could not stand to see a woman as president. You must be one of these people who feel that, because she is a woman, she couldn't handle the job."
It's actually humorous to see such nonsense without a scintilla of substantiation other than the ridiculous argument that if someone finds fault with Hillary, he or she is anti-women. In fact, I believe Clinton could handle the job of being president and have never suggested that she could not.
The same critic also used the threadworn entitlement plea: "Clinton had a great campaign going and she could have left Sen. John McCain far behind. Why didn't Obama leave things alone until he got a few more years' experience?"
Yes, that young upstart Obama just didn't know his place and dared to challenge Clinton for the nomination she spent $100 million on and so many pundits claimed she had sealed up last year.
"Those who think she will withdraw gracefully in a few weeks are living in cloud cuckoo land," wrote noted author, professor and feminist Camille Paglia in Britain's Telegraph. "The Clintons are ruthless scrappers who will lock their bulldog teeth in any bloody towel."
Anyone who would dare suggest Paglia "could not stand to see a woman as president" would do so at the risk of great bodily harm. But she argues Clinton's candidacy has done no real favors for feminism.
Paglia sees Bill Clinton's persona as destructive for his wife's presidential quest: "In her raw ambition and stubborn, grinding energy, Hillary will certainly cast a long shadow on young women aspiring to high office. She is both inspiring roles model and cringe-making bad example -- an overtly feminist careerist who never found a way to succeed without her husband's connections, advice and intervention."
Paglia says while Bill Clinton was the mastermind for Hillary's runs for the Senate and the Democratic nomination, "he has been a gross liability in recent months, as he has co-opted the hustings to maunder on about himself or to inject divisive racial overtones into the debate."
Paglia argues, "The next major female presidential candidate will be well advised to stuff any errant husband into a rucksack and chuck him down a laundry chute. It they are to be truly equal, women must fight their own fights and not rely on a borrowed spotlight."
Paglia notes Clinton prepared her commander in chief credential by serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee and building trust with the military brass.
In his new book, former press secretary Scott McClellan describes how Bush mounted an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" that was "less than candid and honest" to sell war with Iraq. Already with her eye on the presidency, Clinton made the political calculation to side with Bush and the lies they both found convenient at the time.
The plan went off course for Clinton, as Paglia says, "when, servilely following polling data about national opinion, she voted for the war resolution authorizing George W. Bush to invade Iraq. That fateful decision, meant to shore up her military credibility, would alienate her from the left wing of her party and ironically boost the presidential hopes of a virtual unknown, Obama, who had publicly opposed he war."
This week Obama will see more super-delegates coming his way, especially from the House of Representatives, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing uncommitted delegates to take sides and prevent a fight on to the convention.
But it still is not over for the Clintons, who will squeeze super-delegates to the bitter end. Maybe Karl Rove will slip the Clinton camp a photo of Obama wearing a keffiyeh and a Palestinian flag lapel pin.
The keffiyeh is a scarf-like head wrap, worn in the Middle East for thousands of years as protection from the sun and also to protect the mouth and eyes from blowing dust.
In the eyes of right-wing fanatics, the keffiyeh has become the cloth of fear, and Americans must be protected from it. The genesis of this crisis was an ad on a Dunkin' Donuts Web site showing celebrity cook Rachael Ray holding a cup of iced coffee while wearing a fringed black-and-white silk scarf.
The terrorist are coming, the terrorists are coming! Little Green Football, a conservative blog, claimed the ads "casually promote the symbol of Palestinian terrorism and intifada."
Then reactionary columnist Michelle Malkin -- who makes Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly seem enlightened -- chimed in, calling Ray's scarf "jihadi chic." The story should have ended there with a chuckle over the ridiculous paranoia.
The bed-wetting executives at Dunkin' Donuts cried that the scarf "was selected by a stylist for the advertising shoot" and "absolutely no symbolism was intended."
They should have left it at that, but the corporate cowards capitulated to fear, yanking the ad "because the possibility of misperception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee."
Malkin was triumphant: "It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists."
Malkin and her ilk are like the people who hung "witches" in Salem, Mass. Playing to them encourages their hate and intolerance.
To the boneheads at Dunkin' Donuts: Have no misperception about my intention. I will never again enter one of your stores or touch any of your products, and I am encouraging others to do the same. I'm giving all my business to Tim Hortons, a refreshing Canadian company. Besides, they make much better coffee.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | June 3 2008 |