Senator Clinton:
Yesterday you appeared in front of the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review which is owned by the ultra-right-wing billionaire, Richard Mellon Scaife - the same billionaire who led the "vast right-wing conspiracy" (your own words at the time) to smear your name and to Impeach your husband for lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
You chose that venue, the inner sanctum of the media organ of one of the most reactionary and divisive figures of our time, to reveal the depths of your desperation by driving a racial wedge into the Democratic Party. You did this in order to attempt to salvage your floundering candidacy.
With a look of scorn and disgust, you dismissively stated, "He would not have been my pastor," in response to the question of whether you would have left Senator Obama's church because of the comments of his former pastor (which Senator Obama has denounced).
Then, following that statement to the employees of the man who has spent a large fortune attempting to divide America so that the right wing could assume and maintain its control, you stepped to the podium of a news conference and made this follow-up statement:
"We don't have a choice when it comes to our relatives; we have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend."
Following those comments, which were a failed attempt to divert attention from the unmasking of your baldfaced lies regarding your activities as first lady, I am compelled to make the following points:
- I hope no child who is trying to escape from the clutches of a rapist parent hears that statement, Senator Clinton. The fact is that we can choose to separate ourselves from a relative when the situtation warrants it, just as we can choose to put up with a relative or pastor whose faults, though serious, are smaller than the love and kindness they provide. I assume that latter reason is why you chose to remain married to your husband after he disgracefully violated your marriage vows and lied in public about it. Certainly questioning Senator Obama's choice to maintain his relationship to a man who has done so much good for his community (but who has also made a few outrageous statements) opens you up to being questioned about maintaining your relationship to the former President.
- Your choice to associate yourself with the very forces that tried to annihilate you and your husband's carreers (by launching this racially divisive campaign in his media bastion) directly calls into question the sincerity of the quote above. You had a choice whether to participate in or disassociate yourself from the right wing's smear campaign against your opponent, and you chose the former disreputable path.
- Even if you win this nomination by destroying a good man, your victory will be Pyrrhic. I and millions like myself can never again associate with someone like you and the politics you represent. I and millions like me will choose not to vote for you in any election in which we might be offered the choice, even if it means that the right-wing idiots you associate yourself with today might win as a result. You see, your association with them - on top of your appropriation of their toxic tactics - makes a vote for you become a vote for the very reactionary forces we have struggled against since Ronald Reagan was elected and our democracy began its great unravelling.
- If you have any shred of integrity left, Senator, please disband your campaign now and disassociate yourself from the politics of division and discord. It's your choice.
Sincerely,
Bruce F. Cole
Waimea Kohala, Hawai'i