Blatant hypocricies and obvious bullshit

Last September, my preferred Democratic candidate for President was Hillary Clinton. It's now Obama. What happened? Two things: Obama showed me he's a politician to be excited about. And Hillary showed me that she's got a share of those negative characteristics that are commonly found in the worst polticians: A willingness to pander, commit blatant hypocrisies, and look right in the camera and deliver a smiling line of obvious bullshit.

Three examples from this week:

1. Obama says: Release your tax returns. That's something that politicians routinely do. Hillary has so far refused, saying she'll release them in April after the tax deadline, but not now. Why not? Forget that for a moment, because there's probably nothing there to get excited about. Here's the blatant hypocrisy: In her 2000 Senate campaign in New York against Rick Lazio, she demanded for months that Lazio release HIS tax returns, which he was refusing to do at the time. Definition of hypocrisy.

2. In the two weeks prior to the Texas/Ohio primaries, it is undeniable that Clinton began to get very critical (most would say negative) in her campaigning against Obama. There was the red phone ad, the line in a newsconference saying "I (Clinton) and John McCain have foreign policy experience, Barack gave a speech in 2002," etc. She talked more about Obama's shortcomings, even sarcastically mocking his lofty speeches to her own crowds, than she talked about her own strengths, and won 3 of 4 states after doing so. Here's the hypocrisy: In the aftermath of this week's primaries, Obama said he would begin to get more critical of Clinton in response. Hillary's spokesperson promptly responded by comparing Obama to Kenneth Starr because he is now going to "attack" Senator Clinton. Pot, meet kettle.

3. Here's the obvious line of bullshit, being spouted by Clinton and her campaign officials: Michigan's delegates should be seated because Michigan residents have a right to participate in this process and make their voices heard, but hey, there's no need for a make-up election! Just use the early Michigan primary results! Why it's obvious bullshit: Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. If you think the Michigan residents should have a voice in the process (and I agree they should) then OF COURSE you need a make-up election with both candidates' names on the ballot. Otherwise they have not had a chance to vote for Obama. Saying otherwise makes it blatantly obvious that you don't really care about the rights of Michigan residents to make their choice, but that really you just want the delegates from an obviously tainted election.

I really sincerely hope that Hillary knocks this shit off, backs off the panic button and returns to running the intellectually honest campaign she was running late last year, in which she ran on her intelligence, experience, and mastery of the details of policy, rather than a negative campaign focused on tearing down and delegitimizing her Democratic competition. She's said several times that the most important thing is that a Democrat defeats the Repbulicans in this presidential election. It's about time she started acting like she meant it.