by James Oliphant
Useful political rhetoric never dies; it just switches parties.
Sunday morning, Sen. Hillary Clinton ridiculed critics of her gas-tax holiday proposal as elitists. Pressed by ABC's George Stephanopolous to name an economist who supported the idea, she said she didn't need to.
"I think we've been, for the last seven years, seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven't worked well for the middle class and hard working Americans," Clinton said.
Pressed to name a supportive economist, she replied, "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists because I know if we did it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively."
Hmmm. Government policies designed by elite, out-of-touch members of the administration. Does that sound at all familiar? It should:
"And you now work from the first of January to May just to pay your taxes so that the party of government can satisfy its priorities with the sweat of your brow because they think that what you would do with your own money would be morally and practically less admirable than what they would do with it.
And that simply has got to stop. It's got to stop in America.
It is demeaning to the nation that within the Clinton administration, a core of the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered and never learned, should have the power to fund with your earnings their dubious and self-serving schemes.
"Somewhere, a grandmother couldn't afford to call her granddaughter, or a child went without a book, or a family couldn't afford that first home because there was just not enough money to make the call, or to buy the book, or to pay the mortgage. Or, for that matter, to do many other things that one has the right and often the obligation to do.
Why? Because some genius in the Clinton administration took the money to fund yet another theory, yet another program and yet another bureaucracy. Are they taking care of you, or are they taking care of themselves?
That's Bob Dole, speaking of the Clintons (and, coincidentally, Stephanopolous) at the Republican National Convention in 1996.
Much of Dole's failed candidacy was built around the idea of which candidate -- he or Bill Clinton -- was the more authentic American. He was the plain-spoken man from the prairie who understood the values of middle America. Clinton in contrast was, as Dole surrogate Kay Bailey Hutchison put it at the convention, a "man of empty words."
Some Democrats apparently were paying attention.
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Comments
Something tells me old man Viagra (Bob Dole) isn't getting daily RNC talking points delivered to his computer each morning anymore because he just whiffed on this one.
"McCain doesn't lack "chutzpah." Yesterday his campaign actually accused Barack Obama of being an "elitist" for saying that it's not surprising that people in small Midwestern towns are bitter after seeing their standard of living systematically destroyed over the last three decades."
"Damn right they're bitter; they have good reasons to be. And most of those reasons are the economic and trade policies that have -- and continue to be -- championed by George Bush and John McCain."
"The McCain campaign is managed by a cadre of Washington-insider special interest lobbyists. He and his current wife are estimated to be worth about $100 million. He reportedly owns eight houses. His let-them-eat-cake economic policies are based on George Bush's failed radical conservative "you're on your own buddy" philosophy. One after another he supported trade agreements that protect the rights of corporations, but ignore the rights of labor, and have devastated one Pennsylvania community after another. He gets most of his campaign cash from the wealthiest corporate interests around. And he has the gall to call Barack Obama an "elitist"?
"This is the same Barack Obama who spent years of his life organizing out-of-work steelworkers on the south side of Chicago -- people just like those who live in Allentown or Erie or Pittsburgh or the Monongehela Valley in western Pennsylvania. He stood shoulder to shoulder with them, sat at their kitchen tables, spent hours in their church basements".
"He didn't do those things as a famous candidate, but as a community organizer being paid $8,000 a year by a coalition of churches. You don't build a resume or a client list organizing unemployed steel workers. You do it because you respect the people and you care about justice."
Extra, Extra, read all about it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/it-takes-real-chutzpah-fo_b_96376.html
Posted by: John E | May 4, 2008 3:35 PM
Just think of elitism and you can think of Bill Clinton growing up in dirt poor Arkansas with a Black maid. (He writes about it in his book.) How many people in dirt poor Arkansas had maids? That is elitism and it has stuck with Bill Clinton and it is part of the wife that he took back to dirt poor Arkansas when he became governor. The absolute gall of this woman who wants to be president to refer to someone as elitist should cause the good people in Pennsylvania to ask for the votes that they cast for her back. Okay, so the media makes much hay of the blue collar White vote that Hillary has a monopoly on. These people really need to to some serious gut checking on just who this woman is and why they are supporting her.
Posted by: GW | May 4, 2008 3:36 PM
So, in other words, if you don't agree with Hillary Clinton, you are an elitist.
She doesn't need any input from economists. She doesn't need any input from military brass on the ground in Iraq.
Is this the change she promised us, or does this sound reminiscent of "The Decider"?
To top it all off, one of her surrogates questioned Barack Obama's manhood on national TV this morning.
I hope this ends Tuesday - the world is watching. It all becomes more embarassing by the day.
Posted by: Susan | May 4, 2008 4:03 PM
Hillbillary supporters,
You can keep on claiming that down is up and up is down, that the sun rises in the west and on and on - that I'll believe.
What will never stick though is HillBills laughable contention that they're just a couple of years removed from being Ralph and Alice Cramdon.
Obama's the "elitist?"
Shame. Shame on you Senator Clinton.
Posted by: Doug "Hussein" Zook | May 4, 2008 5:38 PM
ALL the sexist piggies who hate Hillary on these blogs'=---
GET USED TO SAYING MADAME PRESIDENT BECAUSE WE AINTA GONNA LET ANY OBAMA THUGS STEAL THIS NOMINATION AND LET THE REPUGS WIN AGAIN!
Wake up.
Why do ya s'pose Viagra BOB
is campaigning for Obama like this?
Huh?
Is it because the repubs wanna go up against Hillary and Bill and carville again?
Posted by: OBAMA = MCCAIN | May 4, 2008 7:17 PM
UH, Obama=McCain, If you look closely the quote cited above is from a 1996 speech that Dole gave. Where do you get the idea that he is campaigning for Obama? You've been out in the back smoking funny smelling cigarettes with Bill, who now inhales as evidenced by his many recent head trips.
Posted by: GW | May 4, 2008 8:38 PM
Bob Dole looks more prescient every year removed from that election...
Posted by: Jeff | May 4, 2008 10:00 PM
Bob Dole, former U.S. Senator (R-KS), who rarely
returned to Kansas during
his inside-the-Beltway
tenure; instrumental in
creating & expanding
corporate farming while
tremendously increasing
federal subsidies, payoffs;
used Cargill's corporate
jet throughout his '96 presidential campaign;
systematically enabled
wife, Libby, to get free ride
within Repug. administrations, institutions, and current
U.S. senate seat via NC;
and, since '96, the accidental "War Hero" (sic)
has exploited millions of
dollars from the federal
government/American people as a celebrity
K Street lobbyist.
No folks, it IS both Bob
and Libby Dole who have long been "out of touch"
and "out for themselves"!!!
Posted by: ABE | May 5, 2008 12:48 AM