Need another reason to dislike Hillary Clinton?
No?
Oh, just play along.
According to the NYT blog The Caucus, Sen. Clinton was asked on ABC News today whether she thought homosexuality was "immoral." The Caucus reports that she declined to answer, giving a classic weasel in response, leaving it for "others to conclude."
I have no doubt that Sen. Clinton is not a homophobe, and I understand the political calculus that underlies her every breath. It may even be that she was misunderstood, as later spin from her camp seems to suggest. Nonetheless, this is yet another case of her being so eager to unoffend that those of us with any moral fiber at all can do nothing but cringe.
To recall the famous words of another infamous First Lady, here's some succinct advice, should the question ever get asked again: "Just Say No."
3 comments:
I just finished reading this on the Times site (after entering my March Madness bracket). Come on, Hillary. Get your finger out of the wind.
I have several reactions to Hillary's statement, though I suppose only the last one will matter much to her:
1) Hillary is a Senator and wants to be President. Either way, it is for her to decide. Passing the buck is cowardly.
2) Every time politicians tell us what they really think and we don't like it, we punish them and they lose or quit in disgust. Those left tell us what we want to hear and are rewarded with (re)election. Expressing surprise at this is tantamount to denying the Theory of Natural Selection. So no surprise from me.
3) A wise friend (Brendan Keefe) once told me that an honest politician is one that stays bought. By this standard, Hillary is not doing too well.
4) A President who does not stand up for gays in the military is immoral, but one who does not standing up for civilian rule over the military in these unsettled times is a danger to the Republic. Hillary should have stately unequivocally that although she is prepared to engage in a moral debate with the Right Wing, she has no intention of doing so with General Pace. [General Pace's subsequent "statement of regret" suggests that he seems belatedly to have grasped this point better than Hillary does.]
5) Bill Clinton made a successful career out of convincing the left that he was a true liberal and reassuring the right that he wasn't really. Hillary Clinton is using the same playbook but seems to have gotten it backwards.
6) A good actor can play it either way. A good politician should not be caught doing so. A good human being should not want to try.
7) It is easier to forgive an enemy who strikes you out of hatred than a friend to fails to come to your aid out of fear or shame.
8) Hillary just lost my vote.
Excellent responses, Dan.
Thanks for the nod in #3, Dan, but the spirit of full disclosure moves me to say that the line about honest politicians is not original with me. I first came across it in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, a book from forty-odd years ago which bears reading by all today. Heinlein was especially prescient in his prediction of how media imagery and organized religion would come to dominate politics in the U.S.
It's also a hugely entertaining story.
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