You Didn't Really Mean That, Did You? By: Mark W Adams

Mr. Rubyan reminds me that in our existential struggle as the civilizations clash, Franklin's "real" existential dilemma of the USA, "A republic if you can keep it," there can be no compromise with those in the GOP that consider our 200+ year experiment in representative democracy "quaint."

In the context of Hillary Clinton's much discussed answer to one of those dreaded hypotheticals all politicians of her experience should know to avoid, she said:

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world,"

You have to admit one thing. The perception that the GOP is better at security is not born out by the facts. They have been effective pushing the perception, not making us safer. (If you cannot agree with this premise, at least to the point that neither party holds a monopoly on security effectiveness wholly apart from their reputation, just stop reading. This blog is not your cup of tea.)

Hillary has internalized that perception and perpetuates it -- which infuriates me when she speaks like Rudy -- and ignores the considerable blame and backlash the administration would be subject to if we suffer another devastating attack despite two wars, torture, secret prisons, dilution of habeas corpus, a power grab by the executive that Nixon didn't even dare, and a wholesale and unilateral abrogation of international law and the Bill of Rights.

(Did I miss anything? I'm sure something else will come to mind.)

Can we keep the republic if another attack makes 9/11 pale in comparison? Will the terrorists win? They will if Bush and Cheney use the opportunity to do away with any pretense of normal electoral succession -- and suspend voting until they say it's safe.

If we lose the republic in the next 16 months via some terror inspired presidential coup, Clinton's contribution to the discourse is no more relevant than Cicero witnessing, opposing, but unable to prevent the fall of a great republic into empire:

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear."

However, with statements like Hillary's, in effect acknowledging that Bush/Rudy/Caesar and his supporters make the plebs feel safer and in the event the barbarian hoard arrives Caesar will win popularity as the citizens flock to his perceived strength -- the idea that she is the best person to stand in opposition to Caesar's coup will not stop the gates of Rome (or the doors to the White House) from swinging open to the 13th Legion to protects us all from the Hun.

And I fail to see where she made the case that she is the candidate most likely to stop the warmongers. She does not stand diametrically in opposition when she adopts the GOP spin, nor does Obama when he looks for the non-confrontational approach.

This is not a place for a negotiated settlement. In this existential battle for the continuation of the republic, we do not need to solved a problem -- "Get to Yes", as it were. We need to bury the extremists' conservative and neoconservative ideology, with their transparent partisan scare tactics and incompetent, partisan cronyism as a failed and discredited cult of personality.

If K-Lo from The (F-ing) Corner can twist Hillary's words to say this, and yet the essence of this spin cannot really be denied, Hillary did neither herself, nor our cause much good:

It's hard to tell from the Washington Post piece, but Senator Clinton appears to be acknowledging the fact that Republican frontrunners appear to more fully understand the jihadi threat America is facing tha the Democrats and the American people know that full and well and that another attack on the United S ates will only make that clearer. And she seems not to have offered a persuasive reason why that's a wrong train of thought -- unless she's straight-on going to blame Republicans (Bush/Cheney/'neocons') for the next attack. Anyway, seems like a dumb remark, but not for reasons other people are outraged.

Blaming them, the neocons, is precisely what she should be contemplating because the only justification the Bush apologists ever had was giving up a bit of liberty was the price of security. (Hmm, seems to me that Franklin said something wise about that too.)

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

When they put me against the wall and I bite the filter off the end of my last cigarette, let none of the charges include that I enabled the Pax Americana Imperium by my silence or even tacit acknowledgment that we are in better hands in the face of the greatest usurpation of power since the end of the Weimar Republic.