And So, Grasshopper, What Have We Learned?

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I’m going to post a brief, zenlike followup to yesterday’s terrifically inappropriate Mother’s Day post.

I’ll begin with the assumption that you’re proficient enough in mathematics to know that it is over. The long Hillary Clinton most-obviously-contrived-to-run-for-president-campaign-in-history is going to come up several delegates short.

We watched it begin, in a sense in 1993 when the freshly installed Clinton Administration made her the “point” for the Health Care Plan that most of us had voted for, who voted for Clinton.

And we watched her drop the ball, big time.

And then, the New York senatorial bid in 2000, which she won.

And the ohh-so-carefully-contrived-for-her-presidential-aspirations vote on Iraq which she rightly wants back, but has refused to apologize for, because being right is more important than being elected — her old Republican “Goldwater Girl” roots showing? (Nobody now remembers that she was originally the head of the college Republicans at Wellesley College before her Pauline Road-To-Damascus Conversion.)

The amassing of the largest political war chest (in dollar terms) in the history of democracies. And the squandering of that war chest to “Super Tuesday” and now a campaign over $20 million in debt. (She claims that she didn’t know her campaign manager was burning through so much cash, but isn’t that a criterion for adjudging a candidate unfit for the office they’re seeking?)

And trying to change the rules, and/or cheat the clearly understood rules on Michigan and Florida now that she “desperately” needs those delegates? Shouldn’t an inability to follow rules disqualify one to make laws?

Sorry. These common sense notions have no business in our national debate, and I shall stop making sense now and just observe something that I’m not sure has been noticed.

The Clinton Campaign was designed to run against Karl Rove.

If there had ever been a political family subjected to Republican attack dogs, it was the Clintons. The “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” that Hillary was pilloried for, mercilessly, turns out to have been real. There is no disputing that. (And no apologies from the “legitimate” press who initially did. Retractions are so passé, after all).

And last time, they barely escaped with their lives. Bill lost his law license. But Hillary carried New York State (a conveniently recent resident, suddenly a Yankees fan) and so began the 8-year march BACK to the White House. Bill’s old “buy one get one free” philosophy.

And, they were geared up to fight Karl Rove. They were ready to get down in the gutter, to go mano a womano in the trenches, slinging mud right back, ready to give as good as they got.

Instead, they got Barack Obama.

With a message of return to Americans First, partisans second.

And they didn’t know what to do with it.

So, they ended up going after Barack Obama like Karl Rove would have.

Because they didn’t know any other way to do it.

They ended up using every sleazy trick and smear tactic.

Because they didn’t know any other way to do it.

They prevailed on their buddies at ABC — and , voila!, on Good Morning America, the “Reverend Wright” story was launched. They had Bill’s old press secretary and campaign spokesman/chairman George Stephanopoulos MODERATE the one-on-one presidential debate, when NO ONE at ABC could more clearly have had a conflict of interest, a journalistic reason to recuse that ANY and EVERY judge in the USA would have found reason for recusal — except one. (Right “Justice” Scalia?)

Now, neither of those blatant attempts to affect the race could have taken place without, at a minimum, the consent and approval, and more likely under the aegis and orders of ABC News management. And the Clintons pulled the strings for it, and ABC happily complied.

Because they didn’t know any other way to do it.

And the descent into ugly racism. (By speaking in the same codes that the former Dixiecrats who now run the Republican Party by — the “party of Lincoln” — to openly conceal a frankly racist appeal).

Because they didn’t know any other way to do it.

The blatant pandering on the “gas tax holiday,” (I still don’t understand how I could live in a country too stupid to explain the problem. The gas tax directly pays for the roads you burn gas ON. If you lose the tax, no construction and repair is done on the roads. Then you can’t drive, or you have to pay MORE to fix the roads you didn’t pay for before. Oh, you can toss in nuances: like, say, that the funds might not be spent on this year’s projects, etc. But it’s a very simple concept. And nobody ever could explain it. They don’t even bother telling you that while the Federal highway system makes up 4% of all US roads, it carries 40% of all US traffic. So, not having taxes repair those roads is an unbelievably assinine notion. What the hell are you going to drive on? Or, more likely, what is the hangover AFTER the so-called “Holiday” — which was the word that polled best in “test marketing” to get the word that would manipulate best. Thank goodness that “holiday” polled better than “orgy. ” Then we’d have had John McCain and Hillary Clinton traversing the land pushing a “Gas-Tax Orgy,” and who knows what that might have led to. But the pandering was offered anyway.)

Because they didn’t know any other way to do it.

They were geared up to fight Attila the Hun and they got Mohandas K. Gandhi, instead. But they acted like they were fighting Attila the Hun anyway.

Because they didn’t know any other way to do it.

You become what you hate. And the loser usually gets to be that way by fighting the LAST war.

And that’s why I still think that John McCain is an old hold-the-cup-to-your-ear phone, Hillary is a Princess Phone, and Barack Obama is an iPhone.

It’s a tale of three generations, two of which remain mired in the late 20th Century.

Or, put it like this: The situation at hand is the situation that we must deal with. What worked for Madison did not work for Cleveland, did not work for Hoover, made no sense for Truman, was inappropriate for Eisenhower. As JFK said, the torch is passed to a new generation. The future is blackberries and a wifi lifestyle that neither McCain nor Clinton have any grasp of. They are still, if you will, pre-internet. They are still fighting the Cold War, Vietnam, Watergate and Nancy Reagan’s Drug War.

And that’s not only their campaigns, but will be their policies.

What have we learned?

Perhaps that living in the past is not the way to win the future.

Courage.

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