Charlotte, N.C.

Have you ever wondered why Hillary Clinton has based her presidential campaign on her experience and not upon her actual record? For a simple reason. Any emphasize on the record would bring attention back to her results. Her results are best characterized by the dismal approval ratings of the current Congress, which are even worse than Bush's ones--an amazingly miserable result. But if you believe that our media would bother to explain this not-so-subtle distinction between the spin and reality, then you are betting on the wrong horse.

By the way, in a case of a successful presidential run, would the Clintons hire again that Republican consultant Dick Morris (now prominent Fox News commentator) to redefine their priorities? If we needed Dick Morris to determine our national priorities, we could keep George W. Bush in the White House.

Their hiring of Dick Morris is a sign of how much the Clintons wanted to be liked by Americans, even at a cost of abandoning their declared principles. But in the Clintons' minds, principles are for fools. Hillary has just denounced the same principles (globalization, open-border trade agreements, export of American jobs) that her husband signed into the law while in the White House. When the negative consequences of such policies started to flood the USA, Hillary acted as she had nothing to do with them, without a single tear in her eye for all the problems wreaked upon the middle class.

But we have to admit one amazing characteristic of the Clintons. They are such quick learners. They fully accepted (and took the credit) for Morris's action plan that delivered some initial results, Kucinich's call to withdraw from Iraq and Obama's request for a change as their own.

It is even more impressive that Americans are faster learners than the Clintons. The Clintons embraced all those changes only after the majority of the Americans supported the changes as indicated by 1994 Congressional elections, 2006 Congressional elections and 2008 Iowa caucus. It means that the Clintons are not naturally-born leaders, just extremely skillful followers.

Isn't it very tragic that in early 2008 Bill Clinton felt a need to declare somewhere in New Hampshire that he opposed the Iraqi War from the very beginning? It would be great if he shared his early thoughts with the American public in a timely manner several years ago. But to lead, one needs to be a leader.

Kenan Porobic
01/16/2008 @ 10:22am