If You Don’t Take Care of Women in Your Party (and Don’t Respect Those in the Other Party), How Can You Be Trusted with Issues Affecting Women–Or Anything Else, For That Matter? (It’s the Loss of Credibility, Stupid!)

It’s the LOSS OF CREDIBILITY, STUPID!

That’s all I have to say now.  The Democratic Party has ZERO credibility with me now.

Oh, it was hanging by a thread even before this primary season.  In 2005, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were going to “Drain the Swamp.” Except that the Democratic Party itself turned into “The Swamp.” on their way to achieving the lowest Congressional approval ratings ever in Gallup poll history . The first 100 hours went by in a flash with nothing much happening.  Harry Reid kept mailing me about how he was “giving them hell” but I never saw any flames.

And my criteria for “results” was pretty low. Did I expect a wave of programs sailing through and a rollback of the Bush agenda? No! All I expected were a few signs of life and SOME FIGHT!!  Did I get any? None that stick with me.

I wasn’t a Hillary Clinton supporter in the beginning. The only one who appealed to me was John Edwards, because he was mentioning corporatism and how its tentacles affected every aspect of American life.  The media ignored Edwards out of the race, which turned out to be a good thing as his pants had been unzipped unbeknownst to us who really were hoping for a fighter.

Obama never really made a great impression on me. From the get go, I didn’t trust him.  He had no experience and I knew early on about his questionable connections.  Being an old hag, I wasn’t buying all the hopey dopey stuff.

I saw a book event by Obama biographer Shelby Steele in Berkeley, California and listened to his discussion of Obama’s life and how his followers would be disappointed.  It sure made a lot of sense to me.

Once Obama opened his mouth saying that the Viet Nam war held no lessons to be learned and then launched into his admiration for the operating system of the Reagan Era (all in the same interview) he was pretty much over for me.

His version of “change” didn’t look like change to me as he voted for FISA and it was revealed that he was going to vote for John Roberts for the Supreme Court but was advised otherwise because it wouldn’t look right.  He caved on his nuclear safety bill and accommodated the GOP. Well, he also accommodated himself since Exelon was one of his biggest donors. His flip flops would later come at such breakneck speed that I couldn’t figure out when he had the time to stick his finger into the wind to even see which way the wind was blowing.

Then there was the crap he started dishing out to Hillary Clinton.  “You’re likable enough,” uttered with his head turned down and away from her, was a complete turnoff. His strutting around the stage like a bad imitation of a nightclub comedian bugged me.  When he flicked Hillary off his shoulder and gave her the “street finger” I was appalled at his cocky arrogance. With this behavior, you knew he and the Party weren’t about to stand up to the misogyny being dished out to Hillary by the media.

The man swung between intoning platitudes with forced gravitas and acting like a street thug.  It was like he couldn’t make up his mind whom he was talking to.  One minute he was talking like a preacher, the next he was posing for a “crotch shot” for women reporters on his plane. And, oh, that plane. Just the type of plane that Sarah Palin would love to put on Ebay…

But the crowning achievement of Barack Obama was to re-create Bill and Hillary Clinton as a racists.  It took all of his own talents as a whiner and faux victim, coupled with the same qualities in his wife, to accomplish this.  The surrogates waved paper around on Meet the Press and off they went, leaving the wreckage of Bill Clinton’s legacy and the old guard of the civil rights movement behind.

I didn’t like the people he hung out with.  Rezko, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Nadhmi Auchi, a boatload of “mega-pastors, ” William Ayers…but not too many real people.  And Axelrod…the guy who cleverly gave Obama Deval Patrick’s speech to read and was emulating every Rovian trick in the book.

You know what really appalled me? That comment about women and late-term abortion: “”Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother,” said Obama.   And NARAL and even Planned Parenthood are still on board. Was it the money promised or the threats of no money that got them there?

And then his crew got to humiliate Hillary Clinton at the RBC Meeting and the Democratic Convention and the next week, stood by as Obama followers trashed Sarah Palin.

Threats. Intimidation. Lack of respect. Acceptance of misogyny. Divisiveness. That seems to have replaced reaching out…especially to many in his own Party!

I’m recalling the lovely black woman whom CNN caught on tape…She wept as she expressed what Hillary Clinton represented to her.  Beside her was a young man, whom I thought was a guard of some sort.  Well, it turned out he was…an enforcer from the Obama camp, who spoke sharply to her as she finished speaking.

The hallmark of the Obama campaign has been the lack of caring for anybody but Obama. I don’t see much evidence of his really caring about much else…and that includes the people in Rezko’s slums

Last night I caught a rerun of “The Best Man” on TCM. The older Secretary of State (played by Henry Fonda) confronts the ruthless Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson) with this hard truth:

“You have no sense of responsibility to anyone or anything…and that is a sad thing for a man and a disaster for the country.”

Seems to sum it up perfectly.

Democratic Delegates Should See Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man” (1964) Before They Make Their HUGE MISTAKE Tonight…

Late on Sunday night (August 24), Turner Classic Movies aired “The Best Man,” the 1964 film based on Gore Vidal’s 1960 play about a power struggle for the Presidential nomination. The movie stars Henry Fonda playing Secretary of State William Russell, an intellectual in the Adlai Stevenson mode (Vidal said JFK was part of the blend) and Cliff Robertson, who plays Joe Cantwell, a brash Senator running as a populist who is maneuvering to stop Russell from winning the nomination (some reviewers think he’s “Nixonian.”)

Neither candidate has enough delegates on the first ballot, so watching this film is like experiencing “deja vu all” in many ways.

Along the way, the viewer witnesses all sorts of political shenanigans, which includes the hiding of a broken marriage, an attempt at blackmail through the threat of revealing a medical history of one candidate, and the revelation of the homosexual past of the another. (Cheating on a wife, however, is of little consequence in the scheme of things, unlike today.)

There are some great lines in this flick, many coming from the dying former President Hockstader who is reinvigorated by the battle for his endorsement; at one point he says, “There’s nothing like a low-down political fight to put the roses in your cheeks!” One of the best scenes involves  Hockstader and Cantwell.  Cantwell, who believes the ends justify the means of getting into office, including taking his positions based based on polling, is told by Hockstader that “there are no ends, Joe, only means.”  Hockstader also tells the stop-at-nothing Cantwell that if he begins to believe his own “myth” and then gets to the Oval Office without having any real ideas of his own, he’ll be creating a recipe for disaster. As the plot unfolds and Cantwell threatens to reveal a secret from Russell’s past, Hockstader has another great line: “It’s not that I mind your being a bastard. . . . It’s your being such a stupid bastard, I object to.”

At another point in the film Hockstader, reflecting on how times have changed since his campaign days,  observes that when he ran “you had to pour God over everything, like ketchup.”  Back in 1960, the issue of Kennedy’s Catholicism came up, but today, we’re really back to the “ketchup” days with religious groups being pandered to by the Democratic Party like never before.

Howard K. Smith, then a real network anchor, appears in the scenes covering the Convention which makes it seem even more realistic.  This is a real rough-and-tumble affair…and the votes swing quickly at the surprise ending. This film sure made me wish that we were back to the old-style conventions! As a kid, I remember Mike Wallace prowling the conventions and the genuine excitement on the floor.  There was much less polish and a damned site more more grit and excitement.

You’ll see how little has changed in nearly 50 years with respect the status of women in the Party beyond the lack of concern over the philandering of a candidate.  Ann Southern plays Mrs. Gammadge, who despite here flighty image, is a savvy women’s leader who knows all the players and knows her own power as she drops hints to the rivals about how they should appeal to women.  But the scene at the pre-Convention dinner clearly displays where the REAL power lies.  During his pre-Convention speech, Hockstader says to the delight of the men in the crowd that after the Party takes care of a couple of constituencies, which includes the “colored” folks,  “then we’ll take care of the downtrodden majority, the ladies” to a roomful of appreciative laughter.

Last on the list then…and last on the list now…So, have we really come a long way, baby???  If you ever get to see “The Best Man” you’ll probably say, “NO!”

If the delegates could tear themselves away from the trendy “eco-food” for a couple of hours before tonight’s fake “roll call” to view “The Best Man,” they might be in for a shock and realize that they could use their power to right a ship that’s taking on water.  But they’d have to really face themselves and be brutally honest about who they’re all falling in line for.   Sadly, as they struggle to stay in the “no-fry” zone and eat their fruits and veggies, they won’t have time to really think about doing the right thing, which tonight  should be nominating “The Best Woman.”

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SPOILER ALERT

For an excellent rundown on the plot (which doesn’t give away the ending), check out this essay.

If you want to know who actually wins the nomination, check here.

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For a brief bio on Gore Vidal which explains his family ties to both the Gore and Kennedy families, and his runs for the House and Senate,  see here. Gore Vidal actually ran for Congress in 1960, the year “The Best Man” was first produced on Broadway.  For a picturesof Gore greeting JFK when the latter attended a performance as President-elect, click here.  According to historian Michael Bechloss, Kennedy “blinked nervously at the references to Russell’s infidelities, which he (correctly) presumed to be based on his own.”