Hillary and the Yankees

Whoa! What is this nonsense of Democrats and liberal pundits ganging up on Hillary Clinton?

We expect that of Fox News and the Republican National Committee. But when columnist Bill Greider writes disparagingly in The Nation that ”Hillary Clinton is the past” and talks disparagingly of a “Clinton restoration” and reaches so far as to compare her with Lurleen Wallace, you gotta ask yourself what is going on here?

As a life-long New York Yankees baseball fan, I suspect it has a lot to do with Hillary being the front-runner and everyone else is the Red Sox. Or Tigers. Or one of those lesser teams that every decade or so dislodge the Yankees from their rightful perch as World Champions. Oh how they hate…and envy the pinstripes.

Sure, her campaign has money, lots of it. So does George Steinbrenner and he doesn’t hesitate to spend it on a Jason Giambi or Alex Rodriquez if it makes his Bronx Bombers more unbeatable. Does he worry that it also makes them more hate-able among fans of the also-rans? He does not. All he cares about are results. Can you imagine Steinbrenner putting up with Halliburton’s cost-gouging or failing to have enough troops on the ground in Iraq?

The Washington Post ridiculed Hillary as “Candidate Cliché” after a recent speech, calling it “trite”. The story ignored her substantive proposals for a new GI Bill of Rights for men and women in uniform that included pre-screening troops for physical and mental conditions before they are deployed. In that same “trite” speech (that came on the day she backed Senate Democrats’ plan for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq) she also insisted more needs to be done for those suffering traumatic brain injuries, though this too was overlooked by the newspaper that broke the Walter Reed story.

At least when Bucky Dent broke Red Sox hearts with his blast over the Green Monster, no one blamed Steinbrenner for building such a short porch in left field. But when it comes to the Bush war in Iraq, it’s all Hillary’s fault and why won’t she apologize?

Now just as Barack Obama isn’t black enough for some, critics of Hillary say she isn’t feminist enough. Here’s a woman who has been an advocate of women’s and children’s rights long before she got into politics and is an idol and inspiration to young girls around the globe. Is she tough enough? Running on the most bitter political terrain in the nation, she twice she has been elected U.S. Senator in the State of New York, which means she has few fears of the mud-balls flung by the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters as they attempt to stir into hysteria the GOP conservative base.

After all the damage George W. Bush has done to our military, our economy, the environment, world alliances and life as we know it, America needs a leader who inspires, as wearers of the pinstripes do. As a transplant from Chicago where she once lived the summer frustrations of Cubs’ fans, Hillary knows both winning and losing and knows that winning is better and that’s the new direction she wants to lead America.

For elected leaders, as it is with baseball teams, you don’t have to love `em, just respect `em. Then get out of the way so she can get those trailers to Katrina refugees and health care to 47 million uninsured Americans.

Throughout her public life, Hillary has shown she can get things done, just as the Yanks do when the chips are down and they call on a Mariano Rivera from the bullpen, bases loaded and none out.

The jury is out on whether Steinbrenner will be her Secretary of Defense.

Re-elect Al Gore?

It’s an inconvenient truth that Al Gore looked a lot like Boss Hogg as he basked in the praise of Hollywood celebrities at the recent Oscars show. But as the cameras panned the beaming money crowd that funds Democratic presidential campaigns you could almost hear the ca-ching, ca-ching of cash ready to flow to porky Al when he gives the word. Donna Brazile, his former campaign manager, described it as “one of those rare moments, similar to the civil rights movement, when you could experience the ground shifting.”

The Democrats already have an abundance of talent running for president in `08, but early polls keep shifting and there is no clear front-runner. When that happens, party leaders and political pundits begin their ‘what ifs’ such as `what if Al Gore got in the race?’

(The Republican Party has a different problem: their conservative base can’t stand any of the GOP’s top three candidates for president. Their derisive “flip-flopper” chant was aimed last time at John Kerry but now targets McCain-Guiliani-Romney for their furious back-peddling on social issues so dear to them).

The election season never began this early before and already most are sick of it. It’s a lose-lose situation for those who have thrown their hats in the ring: As announced candidates their every utterance is parsed by pundits for errors or contradictions. Pundits like nothing better than to bring down the frontrunner so they then can pummel the one that moves ahead.

Gore is in the envious position of watching from the sidelines, mostly out of the line of fire of those in the media urging Hillary and Obama to attack each other. Voters are mostly bored. Anyone in the business knows that voters rarely pay much attention to candidates and their campaigns until after Labor Day prior to the election—which is 18 months away. Compounding the discontent this year are state parties moving up the dates for holding their primaries, just another aggravation like TV-reruns and Daylight Savings Time starting earlier each year.

In 2000, Gore was a shoo-in for the Democratic presidential nomination. When he gave Tipper that big smackeroo at the DNC convention, it reminded everyone that while he shared credit with Bill Clinton for giving the American economy its eight best years, he did it without Monica Lewinsky

Gore has a lot going for him. In ’00, despite a dreadful campaign, he won the popular vote for president. If he wants to try again, Donna Brazile says she would work for him again. “He could come in at the end of the day as a candidate who can truly unite his party as well as his country,” said Brazile. “He can help repair our country’s image abroad. He’s someone who an go toe-to-toe with world leaders and doesn’t need a crash course in diplomacy.
There’s an even bigger factor in his favor: After what happened to Al in 2000, everyone owes him.

The enormity of the disaster wrought on the country by the frat boy who took the Oval Office in his place makes America’s guilt trip over Al Gore and what shoulda-been all the more compelling.

Ralph Nader owes him (and us), big time.

The Supreme Court owes him.

Katharine Harris and the State of Florida owe him.

The media owe him.

His home state of Tennessee owes him.

In coming weeks, while campaigns staffs for Hillary and Barack seek more photo opts like Selma, porky Al can stay home and do a few minutes on the Stairmaster while waiting for the phone to ring with media events to die for. For example: Later this month he will be featured at global-warming hearings in both the House and Senate, and in July he will be among the luminaries heading a 24-hour “Save Our Selves” concert marathon across seven continents. Ringggg, ringgggg.

Through it all, subliminally, will be the message: we owe him. And for Republicans, that’s the inconvenient truth.