I'm Right Again Dot Com

                               A new commentary every Wednesday — October 21, 2015


HILLARY and BERNIE

    I have read that the use of only one name only is common in Afghanistan.  For that matter, when I write, "Belushi," "Chaplin," "Disney," "Gates," "Jobs," "Madonna" or Obama," and a few hundred other family names, no further explanation is needed for readers to know who the first subject of this week's topic is. Thanks to the media, there is now only one "Hillary, and for others, one "Bernie."

    It is somewhat of an irony that when her husband William was elected governor of Arkansas, Hillary continued to use her maiden name, Rodham, in connection with her law practice.  It may be some early indication of how stringently Hilllary has attempted to keep her public and private personas separate, as well as her eMail servers.

    Insularity. I read an article recently wherein the interviewer stated that it took some 40 e-Mails and six cancellations before the writer for a major national publication was granted an opportunity to talk—not to Hillary, but to Hillary's traveling press secretary, Nick Merrill, descried as the presidential aspirant's interface with the world—and then the writer had to agree that all conversations with him were to be "off the record."

    Unless you happen to be in some little Vermont cafe when Hillary drops by, your chance of chatting-up the First Female Presidential Hopeful is extremely unlikely. Unless of course you are the host of some highly rated television talk show—and even then, you can believe that the dialog is scripted. I cannot imagine what would happen should she be asked, "If you accidentally ran into Monica Lewinsky in a private setting, what would you like to say to her, Madam Secretary?"

    Yes, it's rude of me to suggest that question, for Hillary has such a monarchical aura about her. Her body language shouts, "I deserve to be Queen." One would never consider asking a similar question of the present Queen Elizabeth. (Of course, one wouldn't have dared ask it of Elizabeth I.)  However, we subjects must remember that there are crocodiles in the moat and the castle guards who protect Hillary from we inquisitors many. 

    Hillary has a brilliant script writer. Her principal talking points stress her wish to raise the incomes of "everyday people," without giving a finer definition of whomever that may include. She would accomplish that, she says, by giving tax cuts to  the "middle-class" and "small businesses," while at the same time raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour.  She says she would encourage businesses to share profits with their workers. (Go head and chuckle. A small joke never hurt anyone.) 

    On the other end of the scale, she would raise the short-term capital-gains tax on those who earn more than $400,000 per year.  In these regards, she sounds more like her opponent for the Democratic Party nomination, "Uncle Bernie" Sanders, than her husband, William Jefferson Clinton.  I do not wish to be unkind and disparage those issues in which she says she hopes to make life better for the middle class. The goals are commendable, but without a dominant lead in both houses of Congress, I don't think anyone can pull it off. 

    If nominated, I am definitely not going to vote for Hillary. Yes, it's time we had a woman president, but the thought of Bill Clinton being back in White House, makes me shudder. No, don't say "two presidents for the price of one," ever again. The man's a predator and a liar; a bad bargain at half the price. She had plenty of reasons to leave the scoundrel, long ago.

    Wide open - No pretense. NO SECRETS. How could anyone not love Bernie Sanders?  He's the uncle everyone wishes we had. Wasn't he charming and avuncular when he chided us for harassing his opponent over whatever foul up happened in Benghazi, Libya? She did not return the favor.

    Remember the time ol' Uncle Bernie (He's either a socialist Democrat or a democratic Socialist) got himself elected mayor, or all places, stiff-necked Burlington, Vermont, back when Ronald Regan was President. (Vermonters are different. They changed the State's motto this year from The "Freedom and Unity" State to one in Latin:  "Stella quarto decima fulgeant ("Let the 14th star shine bright"). Well. it's their State. They can do with it what they want, and that's the way it ought to be. 

    When Sanders was elected Burlington's mayor, the old money, and the commercial sugar-backs, thought Bernie would order that the "International" be sung at all patriotic gatherings and the sickle and hammer would fly over city hall, but he fooled "em all.  Instead, according to Margaret Talbot, writing in the October 12, 2015 edition of New Yorker, "Mayor Sanders led a economic development program that transformed the city. His administration devised creative solutions for preserving affordable housing. He turned the waterfront into a park, trail, and science center, with a perfect fit for commercial development. He created a youth office, an arts council, a women's commission and helped bring in a successful minor league baseball team. According to Ms. Talbot, "Burlington is now a vibrant, hipper, forward-looking town—one of those small cities that appear on lists of the most livable."

    Business loved him. He was re-elected Mayor three times. He had to run twice to be elected to the House of Representatives in 1990 but has held onto the seat firmly—having been re-elected seven times. That says a lot about both him and Vermonters. 

    When I first heard him speak, I expected to hear a New England, "down-easter" accent (remember Ma and Pa Kettle?) but was surprised by his purely Flatbush accent. Born in Brooklyn, he says he fell in love with trees and forests in the early 1970s. He once said, "I've developed an almost emotional attachment to farmers, despite not knowing one end of a cow from the other."

    I enjoy they way he expresses himself and I love it when he denounces the Members in Congress for their cantankerous, do-nothing ways.

    Democrats: Why not Bernie?

 

-Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself." - Joseph L. Menchen

 

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