This column has only been around five years, pretty short by journalistic standards, especially at the MDJ, and good old Bill has been irrelevant the whole time. So I never got to share with you how he reminds me of W.C. Fields or that Marine friends stationed aboard Camp David in the '90s corroborated early stories of the first couple's less-than-kind attitude towards our warrior class back then. Or how I actually admire Hillary in the same strange way I admire Madonna - not for what she stands for, but more for her power and being able to morph from one persona to the next and have the masses actually accept and embrace it.
To watch the faux cookie baking, eyebrow-laden, headband-wearing lawyer-wonk transform herself into a truly fashionable First Lady - if way too forgiving of her husband's infantile infidelities - was amazing, and I credit her for that. I also will not gossip about her much-discussed lower appendages, as we are soul sisters in that arena and if I were her I'd have a thousand pant suits too, not to mention it made her a real person. Unlike Michelle O. of the svelte upper arms, which I've heard more than enough about at this point.
Bottom line: I never thought I would miss the Clintons, but doggone it, I really do. At least they weren't trying to "organize" me.
So when Bill came out the other day in all his ex-presidential glory and sly-like-a-fox compared the tea party patriots to the Oklahoma City bomber, I found it of note. These people who hate the tea partiers are really good.
You see, Fox News Channel's Juan Williams had tried the comparison a couple weeks ago, but it didn't stick. Whoever is pulling the strings on the left apparently decided if the twisted analogy was really going to sear into America's collective psyche, all the better to destroy the fledgling movement, bigger guns were needed.
So there was W.C., speaking conveniently at a left wing Center for American Progress event "commemorating" the 15th anniversary of the awful Oklahoma City crime. And what did he say that got the AP headline?
He said, "Words we use really do matter." And he referenced something that's been in the news lately, "anti-government rhetoric," calling it a slippery slope to domestic terrorism. Stopping short of calling for censorship, he referenced the tea parties, surprise, surprise. Job done, he can now return to his latest intern search or whatever.
Once again, Bill planted a seed.
Isn't it funny that of all the many stories on the tea parties, we never actually seem to get a read on participant's true intentions? The media doesn't really want to report that, and even photos, I've noticed, are cropped and printed at a slight funhouse tilt, making subjects look angry and combative (see the top of page 7A from the MDJ's April 17 issue).
And poor Bill, he's not that concerned, it seems, about the slippery slope that's led to violence at our southern border - American consulate workers and tourists being beaten or gunned down in Mexico and in border states, or even people being beheaded in drug-trade violence. Or jihad. His side won't even formally say the word any more.
No, he's sounding the alarm about my toddlers and me, strolling around at a tea party with our individually packaged bags of goldfish and apple juice. I can just picture him biting that lip, or should I say his lip, over this disturbing picture of me and my potential domestic terrorists.
Meanwhile, economist and CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow correctly if not widely reported on Tax Day that tea party patriots are "Free Market Populists," desiring a return to Reaganism.
1. He says we are promoting a Contract FROM America, with top planks that include:
2. Protecting the Constitution
3. Rejecting Cap & Trade
4. Demanding a balanced budget
5. Enacting fundamental tax reform
6. Restoring fiscal responsibility and a Constitutionally limited federal government.
Wow. Sounds realllly scary, doesn't it?
As for Bill and his assertion that words matter so much, just two years ago his wife said this in a speech about Obama:
"Some people may think words are change. You and I know better. Words are cheap."
Those Clintons, always playing every side of the field. I really miss them.
Lbarmstrong3378@comcast.net
Follow us on Twitter!
Regardless of your intentions (or those of many of your fellow protesters), if even a few whacko nutcases are welcomed into your ranks (and its pretty inarguable that there've been more than a few unhinged individuals amongst you) then it serves to delegitimize and negate your larger rhetorical points.
I suggest you instead focus your energies on weeding out the genuine whack jobs in your ranks to the larger purpose of having your message heard by the masses rather than attacking those who point out there are whack jobs among you. On the other hand, so long as you continue to defend / welcome / obscure the role of nutcases in your protests, you will be easily caricatured as a bunch of pathetic false patriots who are really just a mob of petty and immature partisans.
At the request of President Bush 43 or President Obama, our 42nd president has participated in the following relevant efforts in the past 5 years either alone or with Bush 41 and 43.
• January 2005 – Tsunami Relief with Bush 41
• Late 2005 – Katrina Relief with Bush 41 and formation of the Bush Clinton Katrina Fund
• August 2009 – Travels to North Korea assisting in the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee
• January 2010 - Haiti Earthquake Relief with Bush 43
• Ongoing - Clinton Global Initiative
The text of Clinton’s speech to Center for American Progress never compared the tea party to Oklahoma City Bombers. Various conservative talk show hosts said it was so, but in reading the text it is never stated, nor inferred. He mentioned the “vast echo chamber” where words fall on the ears of the “serious and delirious, alike…”. I wonder if she read the full text of the speech or was parroting the tea party wordsmiths.
Historical knowledge would also help Ms. Armstrong realize Clinton’s time in office resulted in the smallest government workforce since Eisenhower along with 4 years of balanced budgets and surpluses. Two items Armstrong acknowledges as top tea party planks.
Like Ms. Armstrong, I too am upset with the media coverage of the tea partiers. Why cover these small gatherings? There was a time when media coverage for “movements” was devoted to participant numbers in the 10’s of thousands or the arrest of key movement leaders. With so few numbers, and a message of hate versus solution, it’s no wonder the posters of America’s President with a Hitler mustache is the focus of the coverage.