This column has spent a lengthy amount of time on republican candidates running for President. Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson have been written about at length, with Newt Gingrich being analyzed as well.
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2007/03/why-rudy-is-right/
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2007/03/john-mccain-its-the-man-himself/
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2007/03/more-than-just-dilberts-mormon-manager/
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2007/03/from-the-king-of-the-hill-to-the-white-house/
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2007/03/newt-gingrich-if-only-ideas-and-solutions-mattered/
I have paid significantly less attention to the democrats running for president for no other reason than that they are irrelevant. There is a serious debate going on about serious issues, but the democrats do not seem to be participating.
There was never a fairness doctrine in the blogosphere, but out of courtesy I will spend some time discussing the three candidates that are the least irrelevant by default.
John Edwards—Long before Jim Carrey starred in the movie “Liar Liar,” John Edwards was making money suing people. He is a trial lawyer, and receives a majority of his support from trial lawyers. Legal reform would be a non-starter in an Edwards administration, which means any attempt at health care reform would fail because it would not provide significant protections for doctors.
Spending time on 30,000 foot mansions and $1,200 haircuts would show hypocrisy for a man staking his entire campaign on poverty, but there are much deeper issues with him.
On February 20th, 2007, Edwards remarked that the “greatest short term threat to world peace was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.” Only a man who had rabidly anti-Israel David Bonior as an advisor could come up with such an inane statement.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/02/edwards_israels_threat_to_worl.html
The biggest threat to world peace are Islamofacists, who according to my knowledge, as well as by definition alone, are not Jews.
John Edwards voted for the Iraq War before he voted against it. Yes, he will claim that this was a sincere political conversion, and for those who believe this, I have a bridge to the 21st century connecting Brooklyn to Iraq that I can sell you at a premium price. He wants a complete withdrawal from Iraq because he is better informed on the issue than General David Petraeus, and has experienced more combat than retired military expert and New York Post columnist Ralph Peters.
Vice President Dick Cheney stated brilliantly in the 2004 VP debate, “How can you be trusted to stand up to Al Queda when you can’t even stand up to the Howard Dean Voters?” Mr. Cheney also correctly replied in his typical understated manner that Mr. Edwards’s senate record was, “not very distinguished.”
Mr. Edwards shows bad judgment when he appears at campaign rallies with Danny Glover, days after Danny Glover is seen hugging Hugo Chavez. Edwards is doing his best to appeal to the lunatic fringe of the democratic party, not realizing that they alienate many normal Americans. Just ask Howard Dean.
People should be judged on their record, and Mr. Edwards avoids talking about his because it is paper thin.
Lastly, Mr. Edwards is considered too sleazy to be President by Bob Shrum and John Kerry. I did not know that was possible. Mr. Edwards’s invoking Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter in 2004 was so far out of bounds of what is decent that it reflects what Mr. Edwards is…a human being who will say anything, regardless of who gets hurt.
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2007/05/kerry-edwards-revisited-the-scam-the-scum-the-scrum-and-the-shrum/
What John Edwards is to sincerity, Barack Obama is to depth. His constituency of guilty white liberals is not the issue. His race and his name have nothing to do with his qualifications. I have said on many occasions that Barack Obama is as black as I am (I am caucasian), and the only person less black than Barack Obama is Tiger Woods. The only people who care about his skin color are those who treat anybody who criticizes him for any reason as insensitive on racial issues.
Barack Obama is simply a lightweight. He is a phenomenal speaker whose lofty words hide an empty suit. There is no there there. He speaks of new ideas, but his policy prescriptions are the same failed Great Society programs that liberals have been offering for the last half a century.
He speaks about how we must unify the country and get beyond our divisions, all the while lambasting George W. Bush.
His health care plan involves letting the tax cuts that President Bush enacted in 2001 expire. This is called raising taxes, and it would have a devastating effect on the US economy. Obama estimates his health care plan at 50 to 65 billion dollars, but respected economists put it at closer to 100 to 115 billion dollars.
Obama’s foreign policy experience, to steal a line from Jay Leno (about Bill Clinton), apparently comes from one visit to the International House of Pancakes. He wants to end the War in Iraq in March of 2008, refusing to acknowledge what would happen if we pulled out prematurely. He talks tough getting tough with Pakistan, failing to understand that they are a strategic ally. Ralph Peters has said that Obama’s proposals are simply unsound geographically. When asked what Obama could do to improve his knowledge of the Iraq issue, Peters told Michelle Malkin, “I am going there in a couple weeks. He is invited to come with me and see things for himself.”
Obama’s foreign policy idealism has led him to state that he would sit down and have dialogue with the leaders of Iran, Syria and North Korea. He has also stated that he would not be willing to use nuclear weapons to defend America under any circumstances. These are irresponsible comments that show a lack of understanding of world events. All options should be on the table, with nothing ruled in or out.
Obama wants to end racial profiling, and “reform,” aka gut, the death penalty. He is critical of John McCain’s approach to the Iraq War. The day John McCain has to take foreign policy advice from Barack Obama is the day I teach Aerosmith how to form a rock band.
http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/03/obama-mccains-iraq-plan-continues.html
On issues of Israel, Obama is influenced by people that are disastrous on Israel. His long time Church Pastor Jeremiah Wright, who he now tries to distance himself from, has stated, “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now. It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up concerning the South Africa issue. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community up and to wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”
People who say that Obama cannot be responsible for the utterances of another (just because they support him does not mean he supports them) ignores the valid notion that people have always been judged by the company they keep. Disavowing somebody when running for President is akin to the famous election year conversion that turns politicians into pretzels.
For Obama to be seen as anything other than unsympathetic to Israel would be to ignore his close association throughout his limited career with well known anti-semites.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/barack_obama_and_israel_1.html
Obama can claim that he was against the Iraq War from the very beginning. This is a principled stand that his main competitors cannot claim. Had his principled stand been official policy, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, paying $25,000 to the family of every Palestinian homicide bomber. By ignoring the Obama Doctrine, President Bush has not only brought down Saddam Hussein, but forced Khadafi in Libya to abandon his nation’s weapons programs. This was accomplished without face to face meetings, or any kind of dialogue.
Mr. Obama is popular and charismatic. He should host the 2008 opener of “Saturday Night Live,” because he is simply not ready for prime to time.
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2007/04/why-democrats-chase-the-obama-dragon/
Edwards offers snake oil while Obama offers platitudes. The worst of the lot is Hillary Clinton, who offers viciousness. Often compared to Lady Macbeth, Hillary has only friends and enemies. She complains about President Bush polarizing America. She is more polarizing. She has three main problems.
First of all, Hillary is corrupt. She violates rules, stonewalls investigations, and then blames her opponents when the investigations drag out. The public gets bored, and she declares the scandals “old news.” She indicts any conservative who criticizes her as part of a “vast right wing conspiracy.” She takes anybody who takes issue with her, and turns their grievances into an attack on all women. Simply put, she is an expert at decking a guy between the eyes, and then crying and pulling the poor “girly girl” routine upon the guy daring to hit back.
Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Rose Law billing records, etc. Is it possible that she is ever responsible for her own actions? She wants to claim the experience of the Clinton Presidency without the scandals. How about the White House Pardons, including FALN Puerto Rican terrorists? How about “liberating” White House property for her house in Chappaqua?
In addition to being corrupt, Hillary is simply vicious. President George W. Bush and his father have both been overwhelmingly gracious to President Clinton, feeding his desperation for attention with high profile missions. Hillary has responded with nastiness. Watch her facial expressions during President Bush’s State of the Union address, and you will see a person who simply lacks class.
I received an email from Hillary’s campaign recently that asked me to help “fight enemy propaganda.” As a Holocaust Survivor’s son, I can tell you that propaganda is a word used to describe Joseph Goebbels, not a democratically elected Vice President and ally of Israel, Dick Cheney. This fits perfectly into the “Bush equals Hitler” mentality that has afflicted the democrats. Hillary sees political opponents as enemies, having angrier words for the President and Vice President than the terrorists. Hillary simply despises people who disagree with her.
This leads into the most serious problem with Hillary. On most issues, she is simply wrong. She wants to confiscate the “record profits” that the oil companies are earning. This was done in Russia recently, with Vladimir Putin breaking up Yukos Oil and imprisoning the CEO. In Hillaryworld, Big corporations are evil, and need to be punished.
Drug companies are rightfully fearful of Hillary. Her 1993 government takeover of 1/7th of the US economy, aka the health care industry, collapsed, mainly due to her inability and unwillingness to accept alternative approaches. Her “my way or the highway” attitude reinforced notions of her as inflexible, and unwilling to reach across the aisle. She claims to have learned from this, but she is still talking about wealthy companies giving their fair share. Somebody should explain to her that drug companies put their profits into research and development, which saves lives.
Hillary is an unreconstructed socialist, which would be wrong but respectable if she would run as that. Instead she is triangulating, trying to be all tings to all people. She is tightly scripted, for and against everything. This works during peace time, but as Dick Morris has said, “You cannot triangulate the war.”
It is difficult to criticize Hillary’s position on the war because it keeps changing. It is whatever she thinks will get her to 270 electoral votes at any given moment. She voted for the war, but criticized it when popular sentiment turned. She refused to fund the troops, but she supports them. She claims that President Bush lied about WMD, even though she had exactly the same information.
Her record on Israel and Jewish issues is less than sympathetic. She called for a Palestinian State with no preconditions placed on the Palestinians themselves. This was done as she was kissing Suha Arafat, seconds after the terrorist’s wife accused Jews of poisoning the river where the Palestinian children play. I doubt Hillary supports blood libel, but she did not condemn the remarks either, or apologize for her warm embrace of Mrs. Arafat. She has never apologized for Yassir Arafat being given the royal red carpet treatment at the White House on many occasions.
http://www.aijac.org.au/review/1999/2412/suha.html
Hillary Clinton and the Palestinians are a perfect fit because at no time do either of them ever admit they are wrong. Nothing is ever their fault. They are oppressed victims, unable and unwilling to admit any complicity in the conflicts they face with people. If only their enemies could understand why their scorched Earth tactics were justified, we would all be better off. Republicans and Jews are evil, and that should just be accepted.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3972294114f3.htm
She denies screaming an anti-semitic slur at Dick Morris. He insists it happened. In her angry press conference, she condemned the politics of personal destruction. Hillary Clinton is the politics of personal destruction. She wants people to focus on issues and stop focusing on scandals. This is because her path to power has been one long giant scandal.
This is how a woman can support a War that President Bush begins in exactly the same way, but would have done everything differently. It is how she can ask to be treated with kid gloves while slandering her opponents as liars. It is how she can be married to a sexual predator (forget Monica, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broderick never said they consented), while declaring that republicans have a war on women because of the abortion issue. It is how she can demonize her opponent as enemies, while bemoaning the lack of civility in politics.
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2007/07/hillary-clinton-was-right-about-somethingmy-head-may-explode/
These are the democratic nominees for president. One man who will say anything, one man that does not know anything, and one woman that tries to destroy everything in her path. This is the best the democratic party can do.
Further coverage of the demagoguic party is not necessary, since it will not involve any actual news. We live in an adult world that involves a serious commitment to winning World War III against Islamofacists. This requires adult discussions about adult solutions. Thankfully, there are four candidates willing to have this adult discussion. They are all republicans.
eric
Just before I read erics post I was checking out these liberals commenting back and forth while attending a live blog supported by the Kos with Edwards as the guest.
http://www.theseminal.com/2007/08/04/liveblogging-at-yearly-kos-with-john-edwards/#comment-21732
The contrast is amazing , they are absolutly blind to any of the points made in erics post. And the questions were almost all cake walks, or not important
If anybody wants a good laugh, check it out.
Eric, this is an impressively thorough analysis of the Democrat candidates. I’d say maybe the best comparison I’ve read. Though I’m a born American (half Aussie), living in Australia, I don’t get all the info you do there, but instinctively from the bits and pieces I’ve heard, I would agree that Hillary is the most abysmal choice. There is something about her which rings evil; her comments to big business in the U.S. and her views on stasis market. Her history including the Black Panther incident. This woman is a very bad apple. Heaven help the U.S. if this she-devil gets into power.
True, True and So True……..steve
Eric, another very good post. Very depressing to think that any of these three might next occupy the White House.
[…] Hillary is an unreconstructed socialist, which would be wrong but respectable if she would run as that. Instead she is triangulating, trying to be all things to all people. She is tightly scripted, for and against everything. (Via Black Tygrrr) […]