The Reality Check » Blog Archive » Better Late Than Never

Better Late Than Never

Posted by Bob Parks On April - 22 - 2008

I touched on this over the weekend, but the more I think about it, the more I feel the need to expend a long-simmering rant.

I saw this op/ed in the Burlington Free Press by a now-enlightened Hector J. Vila, assistant professor in writing at Middlebury College …

“I have entered into an agreement with my mother and one of her friends: If Hillary Clinton is the nominee of the Democratic Party we won’t vote in the national election.”

The writer then goes on to enumerate the many things the Clintons have done during and after their presidency. What really gets me is his tone, which gives readers the impression that he’s tipping us off to things we did not know.

For example, he talks about Hillary’s now-laughable story of her serpentine under enemy sniper fire in Bosnia.

“Sidestepping the truth is in the Clintons’ DNA. Continuing down this road will drain us emotionally and spiritually. My mother, her friends and I are exhausted.”

Over the years, I’ve been called a “sell out” and “Uncle Tom” for being a Republican, but it was precisely my intellectually honest fatigue of blindly defending the Clinton escapades of the 90’s that prompted me to change my party affiliation in 1995.

I too was tired of lying for them. Thirteen years later I am, all of a sudden, not alone…?

As I peruse the Daily Kos and Huffington Post prop up all things Obama, they now lecture us about Hillary and the Clinton family trait of dishonesty. What galls me is that these were the very people who called people like me a “Clinton hater” for simply doing what they are doing now. These Democrats act like we should have known this about the Clintons long ago.

Many of us did.

As I am not officially a betting man, I can’t come right out and say that Obama WILL be the Democrat presidential nominee, because I know the Clintons won’t take defeat lying down. If I may bring up a talking point of the recent past, when people dared expose a Clinton malfeasance, they where subject to the three D’s: deny, delay, and destroy.

Barack Obama is only in the “delay” phase right now.

“Hillary is asking voters to take a look at her baggage because the Republicans have attacked it and she has come through this test victorious. Indeed — there is Whitewater and Travelgate and Filegate, and the circumstances around Vince Foster’s death. A cloud hangs over Hillary. Old news, perhaps, but if we stop and take a closer look, we see a couple that has miraculously escaped condemnation, legal or otherwise.”

The only reason that Bill and Hillary came through the test victorious was because so many Democrats were willing to have a suspension of belief when it came to the many scandals that popped up, one after another after another, during the Clinton administration.

There was Cattlefuturegate, Indonesiagate, Pardongate, and maybe this fall we’ll hear from all the people who fled the country to avoid testifying against them.

While progressives demand we give women the respect and honor they deserve, Bill Clinton was defended by his minion as the many women who gave uniform descriptions of his boorish tendencies were discredited, attacked, and accused of being lying, Republican operatives. One Hollywood actress who claimed to be a victim of Bill’s “touch” left the country instead of subjecting herself to the liberal love.

By the way, I wonder if Juanita Broaddrick will soon become an honored speaker at the next Yearly Kos Convention?

“Hillary claims that Obama is out of touch, an elite. But the Clintons have skirted reality — our mounting debt and the fear that we are transitioning into a new age where America is no longer “top gun” but something else, lagging behind China and India. Neither Clinton nor Obama are addressing this reality. This and the war plague the American consciousness.”

Alas, the fear in which America is no longer “top gun” lagging behind China. We “Clinton haters” were accused of gross exaggeration while we were screaming about the possible treason that was “Chinagate”. Maybe now, Assistant Professor Vila will newsflash the details behind that little gem, details that he probably dismissed as Republican fantasy and hate.

It’s sad that Democrats, who are suddenly defenders of all things proper and legal, now want to warn us about the very Clinton past they vilified us for while they were happening.

I guess better late than never.