Friday, February 1, 2008

Queen of Mean

The late Leona Helmsley famously was reported to have said, "We don't pay taxes.   Only the little people pay taxes."   Because the rules that apply to the rest of us, like the one about paying taxes, don't apply to truly superior people like the Helmsleys.  Now comes America's current and equally repellent Queen of Mean with the same attitude.

Last August the Democratic National Committee stripped Florida of its delegates to the 2008 convention, for setting an early primary date violating DNC rules.   The Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton, signed pledge to not campaign in Florida, as the DNC requested, and none challenged the national committee's ruling taking away the state's delegates.   But that was then.

This is now.   After her South Carolina embarrassment by Barack Obama, Clinton showed up in Florida anyway, to give a full-blown "victory" speech in what was no more than a "beauty contest" primary.   Speaking to the crowd, Clinton vowed "to do everything I can to make sure . . .Florida's Democratic delegates [are] seated."

A classic Clintonian move.   All of the candidates pledge not to campaign in Florida, and don't.   So Obama and Edwards forbear from any campaign against Clinton.   Then, only after Clinton wins the beauty contest, she announces she'll pull out all the stops to seat the Florida delegates.   If the nomination is still unresolved by convention time, whether or not Florida's 210 delegates get to vote could make the difference.

As ever, concepts such as pledges, rules and truth are meaningless to the Clintons.   That nonsense is only for the little people.
 

2 comments:

Seward said...

Apparently Bill has been spending some time in Kazakhstan, leveraging shady deals for friends in the mining business.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?bl&ex=1201928400&en=34871ee7da314ab4&ei=5087%0A

They didn't call him Slick Willy for nothing.

Philbrick said...

FOLLOW-UP

From Frank Rich's article in today's New York Times:


The question now is how much more racial friction the Clinton campaign will gin up if its Hispanic support starts to erode in Texas, whose March 4 vote it sees as its latest firewall. Clearly it will stop at little. That’s why you now hear Clinton operatives talk ever more brazenly about trying to reverse party rulings so that they can hijack 366 ghost delegates from Florida and the other rogue primary, Michigan, where Mr. Obama wasn’t even on the ballot. So much for Mrs. Clinton’s assurance on New Hampshire Public Radio last fall that it didn’t matter if she alone kept her name on the Michigan ballot because the vote “is not going to count for anything.”