By Catherine Durkin Robinson PoHo contributor Catherine Durkin Robinson is a “feminist mother of twins” and a political blogger, working under the title Out in Left Field.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was questioned earlier this week about her views and how they compare/contrast with President Clinton’s views during a visit to the Congo. (The student meant to say President “Obama.” Right.)
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Aug. 11, 2009, at 8:14 am
Somebody’s cranky…
(It turned out that the question was wrongly translated, but wow, is our Secretary of State a little fed up with Bill getting the lion’s share of headlines?)
Scott Farrell of The Farrell Files on 10 Connects and Joe Bardi of Creative Loafing’s Film & TV section were on board again this morning to tape the weekly HoCast, in which we examined the week’s top political stories, made sense out of them and played funny-sounding audio clips.
Here was our tentative show rundown as written before taping; we added the Tampa health care reform “near riot” to the top of the issues list and had some audio from the unpleasantness:
1. BIll Clinton (and Al Gore??) set free the journo-hostages from North Korea. The price? An unsmiling photo-op with an equally unsmiling and flaccid Kim Jong-Il plus some “face” for the North Koreans. Worth it or not? What happens next time a nation takes poeple hostage and we don’t send Slick Willy or a different ex-president to rescue them? Can you imagine the hilarity that would have ensued if we’d sent former President George W. Bush?!? And how long will Hillary stand for Bill upstaging her?
Posted by Dan Sullivan on Jun. 25, 2009, at 11:00 am
The most dangerous predator on the Appalachian Trail: The Argentinian cougar
By Dan Sullivan PoHo contributor
I love a good political scandal. There’s just something about the revelation that those we elect to office are regular human beings – susceptible to all the same temptations and lapses in judgment as the rest of us.
It’s not so much fun to read about Republicans breaking their word and compromising their good morals. Especially rising stars such as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
By Mitch Perry PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio
Last week, Lakeland State Senator Paula Dockery said she was seriously contemplating
a run for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010.
Apparently, she didn’t get the edict that party Chairman Jim Greer issued recently that all good Republicans should get behind Attorney General Bill McCollum’s candidacy.
But as far as Republican consultant (and soon to be PoHo contributor) Chris Ingram is concerned, Dockery’s possible entrance into the race is a good thing.
Maybe because it happens so infrequently, but it seems that every time a Democrat gets elected President, Americans of a certain persuasion get psyched that maybe marijuana use could become legalized.
Jimmy Carter was considered to be a reformer regarding the herb, but he quickly disabused Americans of that notion when he endorsed the Mexican government’s use of the herbicide paraquat on marijuana fields in Mexico in 1977.
Bill Clinton infamously smoked but didn’t inhale in his halcyon days, and of course, Barack Obama infamously admitted in his first memoir Dreams of My Father that in his confusing days in high school, “Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it.”
But when asked about legalizing pot at his town hall Internet meeting last month, the president was quick to dismiss such thoughts, saying he had no intention of doing so.
Move On goes after McCain with an ad reminiscent of the Jim Davis “empty chair” ads that helped deliver Florida to Crist in 2006. Enjoy, and have a good weekend, everyone.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 2, 2008, at 10:37 am
The nasty, prolonged fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama really wasn’t hurting the Democrats’ chances to retake the White House. Until this weekend.
The much-hyped DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on Saturday was a disaster not only for the party’s chances against John McCain but also showed the complete hypocrisy of a party that has pretended to stand for the big tent and tolerance in the face of openly intolerant Republican leadership.
Consider this amazingly racist quote from a Hillary supporter, reported in an excellent analysis by Adam C. Smith this morning:
“The Democrats are throwing the election away for what? An inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for president!” New Yorker Harriet Christian screamed after being ejected from the meeting room. “They think we won’t turn and vote for McCain? Well, I got news for all of you — McCain will be the next president of the United States!”
The zoo in Washington that Team Hillary whipped up was devastatingly childish and destructive to the party and to her cause. This account from the Miami Herald:
Clinton supporters chanted ”Denver! Denver! Denver!” suggesting some activists are itching for a fight on the convention floor, though most Democratic leaders say such a battle would devastate the party’s chances in November.
Even with the additional delegates from Florida and Michigan, the odds of Clinton overtaking Obama’s lead are long and her supporters in the audience erupted into a chorus of boos and jeers when a motion to fully restore Florida’s votes failed.
”This isn’t unity,” one man shouted from the floor. ”You just took away votes,” one woman yelled.
”Please don’t do what people expect us to do,” committee member Alice Huffman said as protesters shouted and hissed, sometimes drowning out the committee members. “We will leave here more united than when we came. . . .”
”Lipstick on a pig,” came a catcall.
With Hillary’s I’m-not-getting-out-despite-the-math approach and President Bill’s increasingly off-the-reservation remarks, the Clintons have lost both her shot at the presidency and his reputation as president. Quite the two-fer.
On top of that, Bill Clinton’s fast-lane lifestyle is starting to raise the bubba issue again. Here’s how former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers’ hubby, who should be a Bill lover, portrayed the former pres in Vanity Fair. Here’s the tease:
Old friends and longtime aides are wringing their hands over Bill Clinton’s post–White House escapades, from the dubious (and secretive) business associations to the media blowups that have bruised his wife’s campaign, to the private-jetting around with a skirt-chasing, scandal-tinged posse. Some point to Clinton’s medical traumas; others blame sheer selfishness, and the absence of anyone who can say “no.” Exploring Clintonworld, the author asks if the former president will be consumed by his own worst self.
And this excerpt about his new, swinging entourage:
Also in attendance was Ron Burkle, the California supermarket billionaire and investor who is Clinton’s bachelor buddy, fund-raiser, and business partner. Burkle had come with an attractive blonde, described by a fellow guest as “not much older than 19, if she was that.”
Burkle’s usual means of transport is the custom-converted Boeing 757 that Clinton calls “Ron Air” and that Burkle’s own circle of young aides privately refer to as “Air Fuck One.” Clinton himself had arrived on the private plane of another California friend, the real-estate heir, Democratic donor, liberal activist, and sometime movie and music producer Steve Bing, whose colorful private life includes fathering a child out of wedlock with the actress Elizabeth Hurley and suing the billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian for invasion of privacy, alleging that private investigators for Kerkorian swiped Bing’s dental floss out of his trash in a successful effort to prove that Bing’s DNA matched that of a child delivered by Kerkorian’s ex-wife, the former tennis pro Lisa Bonder. (The suit was later settled out of court.)
In fairness, it should be said that Clinton’s entourage that weekend also included his daughter, Chelsea, and her boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky, and no one who was there has adduced the slightest evidence that Clinton’s behavior was anything other than proper. Nor, indeed, is there any proof of post-presidential sexual indiscretions on Clinton’s part, despite a steady stream of tabloid speculation and Internet intimations that the Big Dog might be up to his old tricks. On any given visit to London, for example, Clinton is as apt to dine with Tony Blair or Kevin Spacey as with anyone who might raise an eyebrow.
But among the not-so-small cadre of Clinton friends and former aides, concern about the company the boss keeps is persistent, palpable, and pained. No former president of the United States has ever traveled with such a fast crowd, and most 61-year-old American men of Clinton’s generation don’t, either. “I just think those guys are radioactive,” one former aide to Clinton who is still in occasional affectionate touch with him told me recently, referring to Burkle and (to a lesser extent) Bing. “I stay far away from them.”
Day Two – Pissing in America’s Stream of Consciousness dispatches from one pathetic presidential primary
by Chris Faraone
I’ve been a Dennis Kucinich fan since 2003, when I was abducted by aliens who coerced me to accept a leading role in his last hapless presidential bid. In addition to the intergalactic intervention, I was also persuaded by the fact that he’s the best candidate for me. I truly respect Kucinich’s courage – always have and always will – but in this past year I’ve both admired and resented his perpetual lunge at the White House. Not because I’m one of those hack pundits who think every race should begin and end with a few top media-propped candidates, but because while I know that he’s on point – and perhaps the only one in either party who is genuinely interested in engineering social equality – I’m constantly embarrassed by his campaign.
The five minutes that I spent in Kucinich’s Manchester office gave me flashbacks of the 2004 campaign I helped run in New York City. I haven’t seen such a swarm of apathetic credit-seeking students, bleeding heart fools and barely post-pubescent Sondheim fanatics since liberal arts school. All week I’ve been griping about how a maniac fringe Republican like Ron Paul can generate so much more steam than his benevolent equivalent across the aisle, and I think I’m closing in on an answer. Instead of focusing on pragmatic people who might agree with his ideas if they paid attention, Kucinich hangs in smoothie bars and vegan delis. The highest-ranking member of his staff who was on the premises couldn’t tell me one place where the man was speaking today.
Having had enough with self-destructive loser staff types, I went back to covering the dirty rotten scoundrels who have a shot at placing in this kumite.
I’m beginning to think that Hillary Clinton’s declining popularity has to do with the aggressive presence of armed guards and police dogs at her campaign events. To cover ground, the Clintons have embarked on separate speaking tours this weekend. I went to peep Bubba at a high school up north in Dow, where I was greeted by a Reservoir Dogs-esque cop and K-9 team in the bathroom. And while it would have been mightily ironic to get busted holding weed at a Bill Clinton event, I felt relieved to have left my crops back at the car.
This was probably one of the smallest crowds that Bill Clinton has ever romanced; it was less than half the turnout that Mike Huckabee – that other former Arkansas governor – turned out in a nearby gymnasium just one day earlier. Sure, Bill Clinton didn’t have Chuck Norris in tow, but that’s just because there aren’t enough mops in New Hampshire to soak up the roaring female cum rapids that would surely flow if Chuck and Bill were in the same room at one time.
Bill was on time in a way that no other presidential candidate or celebrity has ever been on time before; Maya Angelou was wrong — he wasn’t really the first black president, which is good news for Obama. After being introduced by a local politician who said something about change, change and change – political panhandling, if you ask me – he gave the first amazing speech that I’ve seen so far this week.
With Hillary’s I’m-not-getting-out-despite-the-math approach and President Bill’s 
admired and resented his perpetual lunge at the White House. Not because I’m one of those hack pundits who think every race should begin and end with a few top media-propped candidates, but because while I know that he’s on point – and perhaps the only one in either party who is genuinely interested in engineering social equality – I’m constantly embarrassed by his campaign.
