We've got to thank Barack Obama. It looks like he has sealed Hillary Clinton's fate. Yes, Slick Hillary will continue with her false smiles and false assurances, but everything is beginning to ring hollow. I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary got out of the race soon.

The Democratic primaries sure have been fun. To me they have been reminiscent of the Iran-Iraq war. Needless to say, I have been hoping for heavy casualties on both sides! Hillary's attacks on Obama have taken a toll. It was especially gratifying to hear Hillary make the argument that both she and McCain are vastly more experienced than Obama. Surely McCain will get some mileage out of that in the next several months. Hillary also raised questions about whether Obama can be trusted in an emergency. Again, this is a theme that can only benefit McCain. Between the questions raised by Hillary and the doubts raised by Obama's association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama's reputation has been tarnished.

Ambivalent though I am about Obama, I must credit him with saving the nation from the prospect of another Clinton presidency. For eight years the Clintons used the Oval Office for personal self-aggrandizement, renting out the Lincoln bedroom, selling pardons, and chasing around the hired help. Yes, Bill was the lecher, but Hillary was the enabler. I wonder if this is the "experience" she has been touting on the campaign, since I'm not sure what else she accomplished over her eight years as First Lady. Finally America may be ridding itself of this cunning, opportunistic duo.

Contrast the Clintons with other recent presidencies and the difference becomes apparent. Many people disagree with and even loathe Bush but it's hard to say that Bush became president for personal gain. All the folks who said he invaded Iraq for the sake of oil interests have never shown Bush to be the beneficiary of any such gains. By contrast, the Clintons came to Washington virtually broke and have been cashing in since day one. Now the couple since has a net worth in excess of $100 million. Is there any precedent for such self-enrichment? George H.W. Bush and Reagan and Ford and Carter had their share of Oval Office troubles but all of them involved disagreements about policy. No one suggested that these men were using their office for their own benefit. The Clintons are clearly in a low class of their own.

Good riddance to the Clintons also means good riddance to the era of the 1960s. The self-indulgent, megalomaniacal sixties generation is not only an embarassment to itself, it also represents the great failure of the World War II generation. For all its accomplishments, the "greatest generation" failed in one significant respect: it couldn't replicate itself but produced instead the spoiled children of the Clinton generation.

This November, America will have a choice between an independent-minded candidate of the World War II generation and an inspiring but also troubling candidate of the post-sixties generation. Meanwhile, it appears, two sullen, resentful Clintons will be watching from the wings.

MEDIA UPDATE: I'll be on Hannity & Colmes on the Fox News Channel tonight, discussing election issues. I am scheduled for two segments, beginning around 9.30 pm Eastern time.

Hillary Clinton presents herself as the candidate of "experience." So far this isn't helping her. Why? Because most people realize that her experience is mainly in screwing up.

We all know about Hillary's arrogant attempt to take over one-sixth of the U.S. economy through her nationalized health care scheme. Americans rebelled against this, and Bill Clinton wisely dropped the idea.

Hillary doesn't talk much about that, but she does talk about her foreign policy experience. This is puzzling, because the New York Times reported a few months ago that Hillary didn't have a security clearance and virtually never attended any foreign policy meetings.

But let's say she did. What experience can she claim? Well, the radical Muslims launched a series of devastating attacks against U.S. targets in the 1990s. They bombed the Khobar Towers facility in Saudi Arabia, they attacked two U.S. embassies in East Africa, they launched a suicide attack against the U.S.S. Cole. And what did the Clinton administration do in response? Basically nothing.

Between 1996, when he declared war on America and moved from the Sudan to Afghanistan, Bin Laden was a public figure. He lived in a house provided by Mullah Omar and preached in the local mosque. He granted interviews to the British journalist Robert Fisk, to Peter Arnett of CNN, to John Miller of ABC news, to the Pakistani journalist Abdel Bari Atwan. The Clintons have been saying that they did everything in their power to get Bin Laden, but how could all these journalists so easily locate Bin Laden while the Clinton administration couldn't?

Experience counts when it points to a record of accomplishment. Hillary's experience, to the degree that she was involved at all, has been one of neglecting the threat of radical Islam and consequently emboldening Bin Laden to strike us on 9/11.

If you want to read more about the political and cultural roots of 9/11, my book The Enemy at Home is out in paperback this week.

We have an article up today on Nerve.com about the Obamas' vs. the Clintons' marriages. Here's an excerpt:

The Clintons have an absolutely typical Boomer union, a rickety first-generation prototype of the modern marriage. They were early adopters of this "equal partnership" thing, so while they deserve all credit for having pioneered, their marriage is the romantic equivalent of the Apple IIe. The Boomer marriage has a lot of things that got phased out in later development: male entitlement, female determination, resentment on both sides. They're trying hard to be good at mutual respect and encouragement, but there's only so far you can upgrade an old machine.

So the Clintons proclaim and demonstrate their love, convincingly: "No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does," she wrote in her 2003 memoir. "He's so romantic!" she coos to Essence. He kisses her on the forehead. They hug. I totally buy it. And then, like clockwork, he screws her over. Most recently, he says the thing about Jesse Jackson that turns off who knows how many supporters. She seethes, re-asserts her independence. They make up. Rinse and repeat.

[...] Contrast that with the Obamas . . .

It turns out the surprising answer is yes:




What do you think? Have you been impressed by her campaign? I'm not asking whether you're going to vote for her; I'm asking whether you think she's run a smart and effective campaign.

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There are many pundits now saying that Hillary Clinton is overusing Bill Clinton on the campaign trail. It seems like the popular thing to say, but what evidence is there for it? She's won everything since Iowa, so she must be doing something right.

In the short video below, we explain why using Bill Clinton has two important advantages for Sen. Clinton (and how it can go too far):




One of the reasons Sen. Clinton won New Hampshire and Nevada is because women voted in big numbers for her. She doesn't want to lose this advantage, so there is a limit to how much you can use Bill Clinton. Otherwise it might begin to look like it's his campaign. On the other hand, he is a masterful campaigner and has obviously already had a positive influence (in results, not in the form of campaigning) on his wife's campaign.

In the final analysis, having a skillful politician and former president like Bill Clinton in your corner is an enormous advantage and I would ride that gravy train until it looks like you're about to beat a dead horse (I love mixing metaphors).

There's some chance that Hillary Clinton will get wind of someone claiming that Bill Clinton will get all the credit if she winds up winning -- and then she'll stop using him. And probably to her detriment. This is a great chess match, I can't wait to see who comes out on top.

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*Ok...So I've updated the content of this post thanks to this video from the New York Post. This video will probably entertain some. Meanwhile Obama was in Georgia taking on homophobia, anti-semitism and Xenophobia.

Being a Canuck, I never grew up learning about Martin Luther King Jr. Actually, there aren't many blacks outside of the major cities here in Canada. Either way, I think it's truly fascinating what he did, and his famous speech should give anybody goosebumps his legacy lives on MLK Day, read all about it.

Here is a quick clip from the 2006 Documentary American Blackout. Congressman John Lewis Illustrates some of the courage of Black Americans had during the time of MLK.

via videosift.com

Heckling is a fine art, if you can make it into a political event and get away with a good heckle you could potentially make a fool out of somebody. Be warned sir heckler as the person on stage with the microphone will always get the last word and can potentially benefit from your heckle, in this post I will take a look at some new heckler videos straight out of New Hampshire. But first to warm you up, here is a Bill Clinton heckler clip from 1992. Let's have a look. I don't like the way Bill handles this fellow, he gets angry and cusses and starts pointing at the guy, singles the heckler out, and tries to make the heckler feel bad. The heckler is successful because he boils up rage out of the candidate. Out of Ten I will give the heckler 7 and Clinton 3.

Next, from just yesterday in New Hampshire, where Bill's wife Hillary Clinton fares a little bit better.

Even Hillary's hecklers are old, are there still... honestly... still sexists out there? I don't believe there are, "Iron My Shirt" - doesn't actually sound like something a person would heckle, the whole situation just throws me off. Due to the comedic value of the heckle I am giving the heckler a generous 4 out of Ten, Clinton gets a 6.

For our third heckler we go back to New Hampshire, this time at a recent Obama rally, as oppose to one heckler we have a group of hecklers, a group of pro-life (or is it anti-choice) in the crowd starts heckling Obama and his pro-choice stance on abortion.

Naturally, these un-evolved religious nuts were booed, but Obama was polite and actually asked his fans to stop booing, then marveled at the fact that this group of people had to organize for the protest. He takes the negative situation and turns it into a positive everybody can be proud of. I think the Christian protesters, have no choice but to be humbly and thank Obama for accepting them and their views, even if he doesn't agree with them. I have no choice but to give the hecklers a 1 out of Ten, because they organized, Obama gets a 9.

For the record if I could heckle, I would heckle Mitt by paying tribute to his dog.

In 1992, Ross Perot warned us that if we didn't get the deficit under control, the national debt would double in size and hit $8 trillion by 2007. That seemed like an astronomical number at the time. And for awhile it looked like he was worried over nothing because Bill Clinton balanced the budget and left office with a surplus that would have nearly wiped out the national debt by now if we had stayed on the same path. Except a funny thing happened on the way to the forum ... George W. Bush became president.

The US debt has now nearly doubled. We have proven Ross Perot right in principle and wrong on the numbers. He underestimated. The national debt now stands at $9.13 trillion. That's a trillion more dollars than even Perot guessed.

Watch the video below to see how much your own family owes foreign governments because of all this spending:

The U.S. Debt - Check out What You Owe the Gov't

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Now, you still want to spend that $2.4 trillion dollars on Iraq?

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Hillary Clinton has been using her husband far more extensively in Iowa lately. He has been aggressively campaigning for her for the last couple of weeks. This strategy has upsides and downsides.

The first obvious advantage is that it reminds Democratic voters how much they liked the Clinton administration and how much better off the country was at the time. But it also has the downside of bringing the Clinton baggage along to the new campaign. It reminds people of the problems they had with their marriage, some of the issues Democratic primary voters had with Clinton policies like NAFTA and for some it brings up the issue of Clinton fatigue.

There is, however, one extra facet to this strategy that I think makes it very smart. It has led the other Democratic candidates to criticize President Clinton and the policies of his administration. They feel they have to do this because he is being used as a proxy for Senator Clinton's campaign. But that's a dangerous idea because then you accidentally wind up running against Bill Clinton -- and you don't want to do that!

The other candidates don't want to face off against Bill Clinton because he is a very effective campaigner and because Democratic voters love him in general. I think Obama and Edwards would be much better served distinguishing Senator Clinton from President Clinton. If they run against Bill Clinton, they're walking right into Hillary's trap.

I think it's definitely a smart move by Sen. Clinton to use her husband more extensively on the campaign trail. Al Gore might have been president in 2000 if he had done likewise.

What do you think?

















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Some Hillary supporters won the chance to watch the debate on TV with Bill at an apartment full of snacks. You can watch video from the party here. There was a lot of talk about how well she did, and about the food. "Pizza!" shouts Bill when he walks in.

The video made us totally want to watch TV with Bill and then chat on the phone with Hillary afterward while Bill grabbed for the phone.

Watch it and attend vicariously, and help us figure out if this is indeed John Grisham seated between Bill and the lady in the blue dress.

According to the New York Post, Hillary says Bill brings her presents from all his trips, like a giant wooden giraffe or, recently, a Chanel watch made of white cubes. "I had dental surgery and he said it reminded him of teeth." Sexy!

She also said she was happy she'd stuck with Bill despite their problems and that women should support each other in the decisions she made about their marriages. We support her decision, even if we're not sure we'd want to be reminded of our dental surgery every time we checked the time.

Bill Clinton speaks out about the ridiculous and disingenuous Senate and House votes condemning the General Petreaus MoveOn.org ad.

On Thursday Bill Clinton joined Jon Stewart on the Daily Show to discuss his new book. In the clip below Clinton responds to the question. - "Do you believe money is polluting the political game?"

Sleep deprivation eh... That explains a few things.

"I don't think we should be in the business of blaming anybody for 9/11," Bill Clinton recently said. Yes, you read that right. Clinton was speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, and his comment is quoted in the October issue of The Atlantic Monthly. So is Clinton trying to say that Bin Laden and the radical Muslims didn't do it? Actually, Clinton's point is that he himself bears no responsibility for the attacks. That's because he did everything--everything--to capture and kill the world's number one terrorist. He even warned Bush about him, Clinton says, but unfortunately Bush was far too obsessed with Saddam Hussein. Having said we shouldn't blame anyone for allowing Bin Laden to attack us, Clinton proceeds to blame Bush for doing just that.

"I was obsessed with Bin Laden," Clinton says. "We dealt with him four or five days a week, every week, for the last four years I was president." So what happened? "We tried to mount a CIA operation to go in and take him out; they couldn't do it. We contracted with tribals to try and take him out; they couldn't do it." Pretty elusive guy, Bin Laden.

Here's the problem with this account. Between 1996, when Bin Laden moved from the Sudan to Afghanistan, and early 2001, when Clinton left office, Bin Laden was frequently interviewed by media sources around the world. He granted two separate in-person interviews to British journalist Robert Fisk. He was interviewed one-on-one by Peter Arnett, then of CNN News. He met with the Pakistani journalist Abdel Bari Atwan. He was interviewed by John Miller of ABC News. He met with the BBC and Al Jazeera. He even held a press conference in the town of Khost where Chinese and Middle Eastern journalists were present. So how come all these people could find Bin Laden but not the Clinton administration?

Clinton gives us a hint of the answer when he says, "I would've attacked him at the end of my presidency...but the CIA and FBI had not jointly certified that he was responsible for the U.S.S. Cole bombing, even though we all knew it." So now the clouds part and our Prevaricator-in-Chief starts to come clean. It wasn't that the CIA and the Northern Alliance couldn't find or couldn't get Bin Laden. CIA analyst and author Michael Scheuer says Clinton had at least 10 chances to kill Bin Laden and took none. Turns out Clinton was waiting for both the CIA and the FBI to give him bureaucratic confirmation of something he already knew. Bin Laden had declared war on America four years earlier, in 1996, and he was the known mastermind of a series of attacks on U.S. targets. Yet Clinton as late as 2000 was still waiting for a joint CIA-FBI certification before he would act.

Imagine if Clinton had taken one of those 10 chances sometime before 2000, when Bin Laden went into deep hiding. In that case 9/11 would not have happened. So I can see why Clinton eagerly maintains that we shouldn't be in the business of blaming anyone for 9/11. That gets him off the hook, doesn't it?

... when the president was Bill Clinton. Look at these devastating quotes from Republicans when President Clinton was conducting the Kosovo and Somalia campaigns.

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"--Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

Hannity is talking about body bags before the fighting even started. Incidentally, there was not one US body bag in the entire Kosovo War. Meanwhile, now Fox won't ever come close to mentioning the American dead in Iraq coming home in "body bags."

Conservatives started screaming their heads off for withdrawal instantly. Look at this quote from Tom DeLay a month into war:

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

A month! Meanwhile Democrats have been waiting for four and half long years to finally gather up the courage to take on this inept president in a meaningful way in a war that has been a stunning and overwhelming failure.

Please take a look at all the quotes from Republicans shouting for withdrawal and exit strategy the minute fighting started when Clinton was president. These are the world's biggest hypocrites.