Reading: "There are times when regular politics will not do"

Molly Ivins pretty much nails it in one:

I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone. This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership.

Let's be clear: It's not about how vicious the attack on her will be, once she finally, officially, becomes Candidate Clinton--although it will be vicious: Unless the political and media landscape changes dramatically in the next 18 months, of course, she'll get a Swift Boating that will make John Kerry think he spent 2004 at Club Med. It's not just that she is a Clinton, which the Repubs hate above all things--although you should expect to relive all of the Whitewater Days of Calumny, including the Rovean whisper campaigns resurrecting rumors that she's a lesbian, that she had an affair with Vince Foster, that she had Foster murdered, that she was guilty of all the things that the Whitewater investigation laboriously and expensively proved she wasn't guilty of.

And three factors will probably make the GOP attacks even more vitriolic than their performance against Kerry and Gore, which was stunning indeed:

First, they have had more time to hone their act, and the ammo is already lying around like undetonated landmines from the 1990s. (Remember: In the new right-wing media landscape, a charge that's been thoroughly disproven can still be repeated ad nauseum. Google "Abramoff gave money to Democrats" and watch what happens.) Don't imagine that, even if lightning strikes and the GOP loses both houses of Congress next year and Bush faces impeachment or censure, the Republicans will draw the conclusion that any of their tactics of the last decade have been repudiated. (If history is any guide, and if Karl "Attack Their Strength" Rove is still directing GOP strategy, expect the Repubs to try to convince voters that the reason that health care costs are skyrocketing and the Medicare reform is a mess is because Hillary tried to reform health care in the early 1990s.)

Which brings us to the second reason that the GOP attack on candidate Hillary (or any Democratic front-runner) will be brutal: They really don't have anything else, like legislative or foreign policy success of their own, to point to, and "national security" may not give them the mileage it once did. Americans, even those who voted against Kerry a couple of years ago, are finally catching on that the Repubs are the party of dishonest wars, fiscal irresponsibility, big programs that don't work, vindictive culture war spats, and--O this, above all--corruption and graft. It's perfectly evident that, even at this stage in the exposure of their culture of corruption and lawlessness, none of the Republican leadership is seriously contemplating the possibility that their mistake was in being corrupt and lawless, as opposed to the lesser sin of getting caught.

(From our "Great Moments in GOP History" scrapbook: At a 1990s anniversary reunion of the various Nixon and CREEP operatives brought down in 1974, someone asked one of the break-in team if he'd learned anything from the whole Watergate impeachment episode--perhaps imagining that the fellow would say, "Why yes, I've learned that democracy and the rule of law are precious things, and woe betide those who would tamper with its delicate workings!" Instead the fellow explained, using his hands to demonstrate, that next time, when he put the tape on the office door latch, he'd run it up-and-down, so you can't see it outside the door jamb, rather than side-to-side, where it would show.

But I digress.)

And third, as much as they still hate Bill Clinton, they hate and fear Hillary. The Repubs have a real pre-adolescent psychosexual thing about her (see above, re: rumors of lesbianism) that'll make them behave even worse toward Hillary than toward other Democratic candidates.

But, as I say, let's put those aside--let's "bracket them," as we used to say in phenomenology courses. Let's assume that both candidate Clinton and the American voters can find a way past these snares.

What we'd still be left with is a candidate whose fundamental strategy--by the way she's been trailing her skirts since becoming Senator and setting her sights on the White House--boils down to "being too-clever-by-half" as opposed to "being a leader."

Hillary has spent way too much of her time trying to make herself "safe" on the Iraq War as well "culture wars" pseudo-issues like violent video games and flag burning (where the only sensible legislation, if legislation we must have, is still to require all flags to be made of fireproof material). And she's spent not nearly enough time talking about what America needs to do if it's going to rebuild itself and its role in the world.

America is hungry--starving--for actual leadership, on issues from the war to the working wage to (set your Irony Meters on "stun") health care. Molly writes:

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

Nothing Hillary's done since becoming Senator suggests she's the one to step up to the plate.

(This Ivins column is going to the Readings list on the sidebar.)