Thursday, February 26, 2015

Same Old Record, Different Recording Artist





Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin recently revealed that when Senator Elizabeth Warren met, at Hillary Clinton's request, in December at the Clinton home in Washington, D.C.

Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren, according to a Democrat briefed on the meeting, who called it “cordial and productive.” Mrs. Clinton, who has been seeking advice from a range of scholars, advocates and officials, did not ask Ms. Warren to consider endorsing her likely presidential candidacy.

Good thinking, Hillary.  Tuesday, Reverend Al Sharpton asked Warren  "you had a meeting with Hillary Clinton, and I`m not even going to ask you about your private meeting, you didn`t invite me, but a lot of progressives have question about whether she`ll be a progressive warrior. What would you say to them?"

The Massachusetts senator responded "You know, I think they`re told what we`ve got to see. I want to hear what she wants to run on and what she says she wants to do. That`s what campaigns are supposed to be about."

Coincidentally, on that same day, Mrs. Clinton had appeared at the first annual Waterrmark Silicon Valley Conference for Women in Santa Clara, California, for which she was paid $300,000. In a question-and-answer session, Clinton, the New York Times reports, "called for a variety of policies like equal pay for women, paid leave, a higher minimum wage, and incentives for corporations to provide better wages and benefits to workers."

If you think that's fairly tepid stuff, you probably heard also

She spoke at length about bipartisanship and promoted her record of working with Republicans in Arkansas and as a senator from New York. Her objective, should she run for president, would be to end partisan gridlock, she told Ms. Swisher.

“I’d like to bring people from right, left, red, blue, get them into a nice warm purple space where everybody is talking and where we’re actually trying to solve problems,” Mrs. Clinton said.

This should sound familiar.  Campaigning with vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden in August, 2008, Senator Obama asserted "After decades -- after decades of steady work across the aisle, I know he'll be able to help me turn the page on the ugly partisanship in Washington so we can bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda that works for the American people."

We all know how that turned out.  That probably is among the reasons Senator Warren (unrelated video, below) has chosen to be non-committal about an HRC run for the presidency, now that even President Obama is getting the message.  At his town hall meeting, co-sponsored by MSNBC and Telemundo Wednesday

Obama rejected accusations that he failed to act to get immigration done early in his administration while Democrats controlled Congress. He got a little piqued when a member of the public accused Democrats and Republicans of playing "political ping pong" with immigration.

"That's just not true … Democrats have consistently stood on the side of comprehensive immigration reform. Democrats have provided strong majorities across the board of comprehensive immigration reform," Obama said. Suggesting no one was focused on the issue, said Obama, was a "disservice" because "then you don't know who is fighting for you and who is fighting against you."

President Obama, uncharacteristically, stood up for Democrats and called Republicans out. It might be the new Obama, who after after six years which included two devastating mid-term elections, no longer needs to be clubbed over the head with a baseball bat to realize that Repubs believe the way to electoral success is to throw a temper tantrum against anything Democrats propose.

And now, we have the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee maintaining- with a straight face and without fingers crossed (as far as we now)- “I’d like to bring people from right, left, red, blue, get them into a nice warm purple space where everybody is talking and where we’re actually trying to solve problems."

While far less eloquent, that sounds a lot like someone who declared "Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America." Four and a half years later, he became President of the United States of America. He now realizes- however the rest of his second term may play out-  that was a pipe dream.    Either Hillary Clinton is merely blowing smoke, is naive enough to believe what she said, or is signaling another center-right Administration. Unless it's the first, we're in trouble.











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