Barack and Hillary and Hope

On at least two occasions, Senator Hillary Clinton warned her fellow Democrats about raising "false hopes." At the ABC News debate on the Saturday night before New Hampshire's primary, she said, "We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered."

Did New Hampshire Democrats understand the depth of offense in those words? If she thinks she needs to protect our country from false hopes, she must think we're susceptible to them. Does she think us ignorant, foolhardy, feebleminded, irrational, or what?

"Don't say that in front of the children, you'll get their hopes up."

The next day, Senator Obama questioned her comments by pointing to President Kennedy and the moon shot, and Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. From this I assume he thought Hillary had been attacking one or more of his proposals as unrealistic.

Which one would that be?

— Health care? If anything, his ideas are slightly less ambitious than hers.

— Iraq? His plans may include a faster withdrawal of U.S. forces, but not by much.

— Taxes? Both say they will raise them on "the wealthy."

— Foreign policy? There may be a slight difference here. To my Republican eyes, he seems a bit more naive in his rhetoric, but it's hard to see substantive differences.

Education? Civil rights? Homeland security? Immigration? Social Security? Energy? Yes, they deviate from one another slightly, but where does Obama raise an unrealistic hope that Hillary doesn't raise just as high?

She's not talking about his positions. She can't be. Their positions are practically the same. Her problem's not with the man's ideas or words, but with the man himself. To Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama is the false hope.

Elitist liberals don't trust flyover-country Americans. They court what they call "working Americans," but don't trust them. They think we're a bunch of racists out here in the hinterlands, that we won't vote for a black man for President. They think we have to be handled carefully, brought along slowly, eased into it. They think electing a white woman will be an easier first step.

To any American who longs to soon see a man or woman of color presiding from the Oval Office, Hillary's message is simple. "Don't get your hopes up. It's not your time yet. Wait a little longer. The country's not ready."

To Senator Obama, she adds, "And neither are you." She's "ready from day one" and he's not.

You might be tempted to think she just misspoke. Anyone might say something wrong while speaking off the cuff, under the pressure of a debate. But she used the same words in a prepared speech prior to the debate and defended them after the debate. If she had used words she didn't mean, she or her campaign would have said so. They would have issued a clarifying statement. They didn't do that. She meant what she said.

Later, she took the reasonable things Mr. Obama said about Kennedy and King, and said he was comparing himself to these men. She went on, "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It took a president to get it done."

What's the point about it taking a president to get it done? It actually took Congress. Besides, they're both running for President. I think she's showing, as she often does, her feeling of entitlement. She's presidential timber. She lived in the White House, more or less ran the place. She's waited a long time for this, put up with so much. It's her turn!

In her words to this African American upstart, she differentiates between Johnson and King, making LBJ the superior. "Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It took a president to get it done."

Look close and you'll see a jarring hint of the ugly thought, "Martin King knew his place. . . . So should you."

In 1960, Frank Sinatra recorded a special Kennedy campaign version of a popular song. No one knew it was subversive because in those days the country didn't have Hillary on the national stage to warn it against the danger of "High Hopes."

"Jack is on the right track. 'Cause he's got high hopes!"

Scary little ant song!

Posted: 1-11-2008
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