For all her delusive Embellishments, Hillary will take it out on Obama.

As if the Hillary Clinton sniper story has not been dicredited enough, her second story about a woman who was denied care by an Athens, Ohio hospital—having been debunked—places the American people on alert for further embellishments which border on delusion and outright lies. With one exaggeration after another, Mrs. Clinton is proving to be a serial exaggerator of the worst category. What is even more frightful is that she seems to internalize these lies with such ease that it puts into question her fitness to run the country as she is likely to be acutely delusional. This is a state of mind that does not comport with the intricacies of rational thinking as the foundation of policy-making. Thus, to assuage her self-inflicted wounds as well a multitude of her unwittingly self-imposed hurdles it is easy to predict what the next course of action she is likely to resort to :  taking it out on Barack Obama, once again the kitchen sink strategy that arguably has at various times worked for her in the recent past to undercut Obama’s momentum. She may be hoping that once again its gonna work for her, come Pennsylvania et al primaries. She knows how malleable and gullible the the electorate happens to be. That’s why she is taking them so much for granted.

Holier than thou Rush Limbaugh

I listen to the Rush Limbaugh show from time to time at the earliest available opportunity for the purpose of both entertainment as well as to contextualize some issues from the perspective of American conservative viewpoint. And very rarely do we see eye to eye on issues. Hence his ranting today about Barack Obama being associated with a racist minister in Chicago flies in the face of  Rush’s long history of bigotry and racism which have become a daily staple in  his show that spews racist platitudes with impunity. He has no credibility on issues of race. The only people who would buy whatever he says on this issue are only those who were not going to vote for Barack Obama any way. Even his professed solidarity with Geraldine Ferraro in the wake of her racist remarks is’nt surprising to me in light of what Rush really is on this issue. Thus his holier-than-thou posture on this issue leaves him no credibility at all beyond his confused circle of diehard bigots.

The Specter of the Bill Clinton Scandals

By comparing  Barack Obama to Kenneth Starr simply because he is demanding the release of Hillary’s latest tax returns as well as other documents related to her years as first lady, the Clinton campaign is in fact engaging in an effort to cow Obama into silence through their usual intimidatory tactics which have worked for them in the past and must not be allowed to work this time. While this invocation of Starr’s name further crystallizes the desperation that underlies Hillary’s attempt to suppress the release of the documents in question at all cost and whatever it takes, even if it means tagging further smears on her opponents. With this in mind, furthermore, it cannot be in doubt that they are —for all intents and purposes— bringing into public discourse (wittingly or unwittingly)  the specter of the Clinton  scandals. The Clintons campaign have no one else to blame but themselves for  implicitly and indirectly bringing up that sad chapter of American history that will without question be a furtile ground for invevitable Republican attacks.

Republican-style Hillary dirty Tricks

It is easy to look at the results in Texas and Ohio and give Hillary and her campaign all the credit for her victories. To be sure there is no denying that she deserves some of the credit. But at what cost? At the cost of relegating herself to the lowest gutter, and perhaps to the irreparable damage to Barack Obama whose above-the-fray style may not necessarily be a conducive one to the rough and tumble of American politics. Where voters are gullible to negative advertizing even as they claim otherwise. Where negativism unconfronted grows  like a cancer in our body politic. Hence Hillary’s all-out attacks, ensconced in desperation, but extremely effective, must be addressed by the Obama campaign to seriously rethink the fatality of their non-response philosophy. All they need to do is not look far back at the sad implosions of the campaigns of Mike Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry all of whom suffered fatal blows under the devastating attacks of the Republican attack machine. Hence Hillary has adopted the methodology of Republican hard-nosed tactics and perfected them to a high-valued weapon against his opponent. The circulation of racially-tinged falsehoods,rumors and outright lies in the internet, as well as inflamatory campaign ada, have been used very effectively by the Clinton campaign to sow doubts about Obama. But as for the crossing over of Republicans to vote for Hillary at the urging of Rush Limbuaugh there is’nt much Obama can do about it. The Republicans are trying to steal an election one more time by orchestrating a sustained and drawn-out contest between Hillary and Obama hoping that when its all sad and done either of these Democratic candidates will be so hopelessly muddied and easy to defeat by their nominee John McCain who would have fortified his position and ready to go.

Beating the Clintons in their own Game.

Hillary Clinton likes bragging that her life experience for the past 35 years has been on the cutting edge of social change in American politics. But what she fails mention is that most of those years she spent defending the status quo in Washington D.C., as well as big business and corporations for nearly 20 years as a partner with the Rose Law firm in Arkansas. Furthermore, she has gone on to make sweeping claims about what  clearly are her pseudo-credentials on national security, foreign policy as well as international crisis management which her opponent have’nt really made serious inroads toward debunking and exposing her for the phoney character happens to be.

It is safe to say, however, that the nearest thing to a crisis perhaps she may ever have had to handle was having to navigate delicately through a constitutional crisis sparked by her husband’s sexual predatory impulses that led to his impeachment. Hence the Clintons have yet to be called on this, if only because they seem so self-righteous as to deem themselves entitled to political power in America to the exclusion of everyone else. Their false sense of entitlement has more often than not driven them into desperation to seize whatever they want to believe is theirs. To achieve their political ends, and, uninhibited by the constraints of decency, there is no moral limit to what they can do. Their failure to put out of action Barack Obama by Super Tuesday 1 had all but convinced them of the imperative of the utility of underhanded means. The ruthless below-the-belt attacks against Obama, the leaking of falsehoods as well as their internet circulation of dirt on him are only the latest last ditch and desperate means they have waged with impunity. They have gotten as much mileage as they could  get out of a situation in which their opponent has often chosen to stay above the political fray rather than stoop to the gutters with them. Yet clearly these attacks are working, as they seem to have slowed Obama’s momentun to a large extent as evidenced by the tactical impasse reflected in the proportionality of  individual shares in poll numbers of both candidates in both Ohio and Texas.

With the foregoing in mind, then, it is important to ask: what will it take for the Obama campaign to understand that the American people are more gullible to negative ads than they profess to eskew. But to ask this question is not to suggest they should castigate themselves to the low the Clinton campaign has relegated itself to.  All there is to it is for them to not just tepidly deny what they view as falsehoods tagged on them by the other side, they should be well equipped with  research on Hillary sufficient to provide effective utility for an uncompromising counter-attack.  Hence the centrality of the Obama campaign war strategies should unequivocally be the prioritization of their initiatives within the context of maximazing their impact through advertising and rapid dissemination of information as a counter-measure to debunk misinformation as well as to initiate a resolute undertaking to define his opponent before she has the chance to define herself.  And, toward this end, they should ”leave no stone unturned”.

The Hillary Race Card and Black Surrogates

In the January 15 Washington Post article entitled ”A hand the Clintons are’nt showing” Eugene Robinson writes, ”Still it’s possible that the Clinton campaign has been so aggressive in keeping the race issue alive”. Robinson goes further to state, “Is it possible that accusing Obama and his campaign of playing the race card might create doubt in the minds of the moderate, independent white voters who now seem so enamoured of the young black senator. Might that be the idea.” In light of the foregoing, then,  in light of the foregoing, clearly Robinson is on to something here. But to understand the dynamics of the Clinton-Obama racial conflict, it is critical that we understand its anatomy.

Going into the primaries, the Clintons believed that an unstoppable cake-walk to the coronation was a foregone conclusion given the  presumptions prompted by her assumed aura of inevitability which ofcourse was proven unsustainble by subsequent developments  as very little did they realize that, lurked unexpected, was the ensuing Obama challenge that grew increasingly potent by the day and caught the Clinton campaign off guard, throwing them into a tailspin, and leaving the once seemingly impregnable Clinton fortress as vulnerable as ever.

While the Clintons may not necessarily have engineered this race issue, nor anticipated the media frenzy feeding thereon, it  became obvious to them that this was a do-or-die moment for their campaign. Hence for them the fundamental question seems to have boiled down to the prudence and wisdom of seizing this moment and adapting  to the practicality of the utility of race for political advantage. Thus since that realization, then, they have not looked back. Their demagogic drumbit preying on the racial fears of the white electorate will continue unabated—albeit surrepiously day in and day out. Although they purport to exercise some restraint toward the demonization of Obama lately,  there is ample evidence that they underhandedly will continue to ratchet up race issues until they are convined that they have effectively disabled the Obama campaign by driving a wedge between him and the white electorate, using black surrogates to neutralize his effectiveness,  thereby rendering his challenge fatally impotent.

Hillary’s worst attacks on Obama are in the offing

Barack Obama won Iowa last Thurday, and is more likely than not to win New Hampshire come Tuesday because the issues he is bringing forth are gaining the level of traction we have’nt seen, more so with a reveberating resonance with the American people . As much as they flow deep from his heart, these issues speak to the the aspirations of the Americans across color line. Unlike Hillary Clinton whose campaign talking points float conveniently depending on the direction the winds blows. The narrative of “change” she is trying to steal from Obama is unlikely going to work for her, if only because the people will without doubt see through her hypocritical machinations and shenanigans as driven by her vituperatve impulses and over-sized ambition whose boundless petulence are dwarfed  only by her williness to initiate ruthless reprisals against perceived foes. The Clinton’s punitive posture has not only yielded an intimidating deterrent to potential challengers, but has also meted out swift punishment to those who dare stand in their way. It thus remains unquestionable that, while they have already, and continue to subject Obama to the most underhanded political negativity, the worst is yet to come before it is all over.

The Obama Doctrine

The endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama nearly 6 months ago by the most accredited and reputable geostrategist Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski  as well as numerous former President Clinton’s aides and advisors testify to the originality as well as strategic clarity of the senator whose vision of hope and of change is bound to set in motion a re-orientation of the international diplomatic and political climate in ways that are at variance with the current Bush administration’s practice which has since 9-11 been devoted to the exclusive use of military power at the expense of diplomacy and political conciliation, hence the proliferation of international disdain for the United States as well as a heightened prospect of asymetrical challenges thereto. It is thus the understanding of the situation and its dynamics that has decidedly propelled Obama to a new thinking divorced from the business-as-usual mentality characterizing the Washington political class.

These endorsements, hence, are an inestimable bonanza for the Obama campaign that had arguably suffered a significant setback following an interview and a major policy speech in which he came close to enunciating a military-diplomatic doctrine encapsulating his thinking with regard to the imperatve of striking a balance between diplomatic practice and military necessity. It is hardly surprising, then, that Obama’s stance on unilateral action in the event of Pakistan’s failure to act against terrorists operating within its borders, as well as his non-use of nuclear weapons raised eyebrows within the elitist circles of the foreign policy establishment. For them the U.S. ought to maintain a position of strategic ambiguity regarding its use of nuclear weapons, never mind that its overwhelmingly preponderant nuclear capacity and perceived recklessness with which it excercises its military power have created an incentive for other nations to develop their own countervailing options of deterence or defence. From Obama’s perspective, however, it means breaking away from the current paralysis caused by fear of, and aversion toward America, and coming to grips with the imperative of the reoriantation of the international community to a new environment that proceeds from the presumption that to change the international mindset you’ve got to change the environment that has spawned the negative view of the U.S. in the first place. In this sense, then, the question as to whether an American president could or could not use nuclear weapons under certain circumstances ceases to be purely a matter of American domestic politics as it evokes broader questions of countervailing response to the U.S.—strategic, or, tactically asymtrical—as well as nuclear proliferation. It goes without saying, then, that Obama’s thinking has far-reaching significance consequent to future non-proliferation efforts as much as it potentially has domestic as well as international resonance, not only because it seems to chart a clear-cut and unambiguous repudiation of weapons of mass destruction, and impunity of those bent on harming America, but also because it crystallizes an imperative for viable strategies for the maintanance of both American national security and world peace.

A Catalytic Impact on White-Black relations

For months since the inception of her candidacy Hillary Clinton had been running a flawless and highly disciplined campaign which led some to prematurely draw conclusions of her inevitable coronation as most electable Democratic candidate substantively endowed with all the gravitas and toughness required in the rough and tumble of American politics.

Assured of her contrived and carefully orchestrated aura of inevitability, the so-called black leaders—including the likes of Congressman John Lewis,  former Jimy Carter’s U.N. ambassador Andrew Young,  South Carolina state Rep. Harold Mitchell ,etcetera—deserted Barack Obama in droves. Due to their opportunistic disposition, they denied themselves the opportunity to make history rather than being just spectators in an event that will have a long-lasting impact on racial relations in this country, irrespective of whether Obama loses or wins the primaries. Oprah Winfry is one of the very few African Americans who has the courage to seize this moment.  

The mere fact that Obama’s candidacy is offering a realistic presidential alternative says a lot about the prospects of a turn-aroud in racial attitudes that could go a long way toward remaking racial relations in America for the better. That eventuality would undoubtedly  represent a prelude pivotal to a more caring and considerate society.

Hillary, those who live in glass houses must not throw stones.

The former president, and Hillary’s strategist-in-chief, Bill Clinton seem to believe that he can attack his wife’s rivals with impunity simply because he is not running himself, never mind that he is virtually running the Hillary campaign and is also proxy for its ever-escalating negative attacks against her democratic rivals. Thus he is not above the political fray (nor should he be) even as he is presumed as such by his apologists and therefore immune from attacks. He cannot have it both ways, as has always been opportunistically expedient for him for as long as he has been in politics. Yet given his scandalous past you would think he would be less disposed to personal attacks, if  for no other reason than the unwitting revival of his raunchy past which concomittantly will compromise Hillary more than she has already compromized herself by throwing stones at Barack Obama while she herself lives in a glass house.  As her poll numbers have plummeted, her negative attacks through her surrogates have intensified by the day. Without doubt her negative campaigning has all but eroded her moral ground, making her a fair game to the inevitable Republican assault which will assume such vitriol as we have’nt seen in American politics. Mrs. Clinton would well be reminded that, “what’s good for the geese, is good for the gander”, and “those who live in glass houses must not throw stones”.