Monday, March 24, 2008

Should Philandering Matter In Politics?

I vote yes on this one. It is an indication of character. I know people, mostly men I have to admit, who have convinced their mates to engage in “open” marriages. I have always wondered why these people decided to get married in the first place. If you want to screw around, why not stay single? What’s in it for the women? I suppose if your husband is stinking rich, and you enter into a marriage with an iron-clad prenuptial agreement that he will pay you for giving him the illusion of respectability that marriage confers in certain types of professions, then that’s your business—business being the operative word. But if you are a politician, get your wild oats days firmly in your past before you ask us to trust you.

If you will lie to your wife, you will certainly lie to me. If you cheat your family, squander the kids college fund to pay for high priced hookers, you will lie to me and foolishly spend my tax dollars. It goes to character. It goes to accountability. If you believe the rules don’t apply to you because you’re so damn special, become a hedge-fund manager.

Hillary Clinton, Friend of the Little Guy??!!!??

There is this myth, reinforced each day in the news world, that Hillary Clinton is a friend of the working class, the blue-collar, Joe six-pack kind of guy. Since when? The only way she can keep this myth going is to dodge the tax return issue.

What Hillary learned during her bungled attempt to give us single payer universal health care for all Americans, was not to mess with the insurance lobby. So now her health care plan is not a single payer plan, but, like the new prescription plan, medicare part D, is run by the insurance companies to the detriment of the taxpayers and the people getting the help. I am one of the people benefiting from the plan, but that is because my income is below the poverty limit and puts me in a special category. Most retirees don’t get that good a deal. Hillary Clinton is so well plugged into the big business loop she will never find her way out. She is connected up the wazzoo.
So where did this reputation for feeling the pain of the little guy get started? It is one of the many faces of the new and improved brand that is the Clinton myth, created for this particular time and just for Pennsylvania’s poor under-educated working class. It is being patched together out of thin air for the most cynical of reasons.