To hear Bill Clinton tell it, his wife, as president, will reach up to the sky and swat down al Qaeda missiles with her bare hands. She will chill global warming, rescue our economy and repair America's tattered reputation around the world. With characteristic humility, Bill has volunteered to be her emissary of goodwill (we could, of course, do far worse). He has also volunteered George W. Bush's father to join him in this mission, though Bush Sr. denied ever agreeing to be—you can imagine the disgust with which he said it—"Hillary's envoy."
Come again? Just in case the Clintons don't get it, here it is: We the people never again want a Bush family member near the levers of power. We never again want a Bush family member representing the United States in any capacity whatsoever. Never. Again.
And now we're beginning to wonder if we really want another Clinton.
Watching the blathering hyenas on cable news last week, as Hillary lost in Iowa but won in New Hampshire, brought back all the collective pathology and hysteria of the 1990s. There was the lizard-like James Carville, weighing in on Hillary's brilliance. Carville, married to Mary Matalin, architect of Dick Cheney's lies. No, thank you. And over there was Dick Morris, the Great Triangulator, the man who deleted all principles from the Democratic Party before being caught sucking on a whore's toes while playing recordings of phone chats with Bill Clinton. No, thank you.
And there were Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity and Bill "Loofah" O'Reilly and Maureen Dowd and Ann Coulter, oh my! All the media harpies who make life so monstrously unpleasant 24 hours a day were out, Halloween-costumed and energized by the thought of eight years of Hillary bashing. They're aching for her! They want Hillary elected so they can dissect her every weep and crow's foot. They want Hillary elected so that they can make sport of Bill. They long to resurrect Vince Foster's corpse and shove it back into the political discourse, to bring back Monica and Linda Tripp, Paula Jones and Jennifer Flowers. It's all over their faces, their hands, their black, black hearts.
Do we really have the time, energy or stomach for this rerun? If so, we are one sick puppy of a nation. Above and beyond Hillary Clinton's abilities to disturb men like Matthews and O'Reilly, who are insecure about their masculinity, what is it with America and our obsession with family names? Seriously, after George W. Bush, that entitlement program is done.
Hillary Clinton, of course, made a nice comeback in the New Hampshire primary. And she might make a decent president. But let's face it: anyone in America would be an improvement over what we've had the past eight years. I personally like Lewis Black's suggestion for picking the next president: American Idol's winner throws a dart at a U.S. map. A monkey is flown to the spot on the map where the dart hit and dropped there by parachute. The first person the monkey touches is the new president.
Hillary's wild card is Bill. Bill's meddling has done more to harm her campaign than to help it. He has attacked other Democratic candidates. He has suggested that Barack Obama is "no Martin Luther King, Jr." and intimated that Obama doesn't have the experience or courage to face the challenges of the presidency.
Barack Obama, simply by being a black man running for the White House in a violent, racist country, has already proven he has more courage than Hillary Clinton. Can anyone recall a single courageous vote or stand Hillary has taken as U.S. Senator in the past eight years? All I seem to recall is the Bush enabler and the triangulator.
We need an antidote to the past. We need a new vision. That may (or may not) include a Clinton. But being a Clinton is not a requirement.
