Why all the Hoo Haw about Hillary's Iraq vote? It’s simple. Very simple. The Bushies have been wrong on everything from privatization to Katrina to Social Security...to Iraq. We are sick and tired of leadership that is utterly incapable of leveling with the American people. If it comes down to her and some Republican, most if us will hold our noses and vote.
But is flat out honesty too much to ask?
The base is remarkably forgiving toward Democrats who supported the war. But the base and, I believe, the country want someone in the White House who doesn’t sound like another George Bush. That is, they want someone who doesn’t suffer from an infallibility complex, who can admit mistakes and learn from them.
Edwards admitted it was a mistake. People like that about him. Kerry couldn’t quite find the right words. In a media environment like ours that is so rightwing and so unforgiving and void of memory, we have had it with a president who lies, and treats us all like children. We need a leader who doesn’t live inside the beltway. We need a leader who isn’t a millionaire. One who has paid a bill from time to time and has had to make a hard decision like choosing between a medical bill and a car repair. Hillary may be the lesser of two evils, but we still yearn for someone who reprises the likes of a simple character like Sheriff Andy Taylor, who who admitted his mistakes, apologized and moved on.
For the last six years we have been ruled by men who are pathologically incapable of owning up to mistakes. And this pathology has had real, disastrous consequences. The situation in Iraq might not be quite so dire — and we might even have succeeded in stabilizing Afghanistan — if Mr. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney had been willing to admit early on that things weren’t going well or that their handpicked appointees weren’t the right people for the job.
The experience of Bush-style governance, together with revulsion at the way Karl Rove turned refusal to admit error into a political principle, is the main reason those now-famous three words from Mr. Edwards — "I was wrong" — matter so much to the Democratic base.
Hillary, tell your handlers it’s over. This was a mistake. Admit it, and move on, and stop trying to look superhuman. How do you expect us to respect you when you act just like the dictator who is "running" the country? You’ll get a lot further with the simple truth than all this spinning. If we wanted to see spinning, we’d turn it to Fox.
Link here:
http://select.nytimes.com/...