Curtis LeMay, Hillary Clinton, Both Bipolar?
Written from Victoria, Seychelles Islands--
After Gen. Curtis LeMay suggested that the U.S. bomb North Vietnam "back into the stone age," he proved an embarrassing vice presidential candidate for Gov. George C. Wallace in the 1968 presidential campaign. Americans did not want to go that far, and they quickly dismissed the idea of LeMay in power.
But isn't Sen. Hillary Clinton's remark in an ABC news interview on Tuesday, Pennsylvania primary day, threatening to "obliterate" Iran seem just as excessive? We certainly don't need a U.S. president who is joining Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in threatening to obliterate anyone (except Al-Qaeda, that is). Ahmadinejad keeps threatening to obliterate Israel. Now, Clinton says, if this happens, we could obliterate Iran.
We're talking about destroying whole peoples here. That means a nuclear holocaust. It's what Hitler would have done, if he could have.
This dangerously bellicose statement is so out of place, it raises the thought, when I think about it, that Clinton might be bipolar.
Bipolarity is a tragic condition marked by excessive mood changes. And when we pay careful attention to Hillary in this campaign, she certainly exhibits those characteristics. One day, she's all peaches and cream, saying it's an "honor" to be running against Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. The next, she's suddenly dismissing Obama as effete and elitist, which is ridiculous. One day, she's saying she's full of good ideas, and the next she's suggesting that because her father and grandfather were Christians, it puts her on a pedestal above Obama, who became a Christian only when he grew up.
In short, like Robert Louis Stevenson's story, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' there's a possible pathological shifting of positions and roles by Mrs. Clinton (not to mention her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who seems also to be highly tempermental and moody these days).
What a contrast with Obama, and for that matter Sen. John McCain. Neither Obama or McCain would ever talk about obliterating anyone. Neither of them would suggest in any way that they are another Ahmadinejad. Now, Hillary Clinton has.
And that's why, the more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I become with the idea that this politician could ever obtain power. Not only our country, but the world, might be at risk.
Prior to the vote in North Carolina and Indiana, I wonder whether it might not be possible to commit Hillary for mental examination by a battery of psychiatrists. It's obvious from her cut and slash campaign that she has a problem, and it might well be a dire problem.
Mentioning the word 'dire,' reminds me of Gen. Reginald Dyer, the British general who ordered his troops to fire on demonstrators in Amritsar in 1919, slaughtering hundreds.
That destroyed the prospects of British rule in India, and no less an Empire advocate than Winston Churchill gave a speech in the British House of Commons condemning Dyer and insisting that he be punished.
There is a difference between bellicosity, such as Churchill and Charles de Gaulle exhibited against the Nazis, and anyone who is willing to contemplate the extinction of entire peoples. We certainly don't need a General Dyer in charge at the White House beginning next year.
So I think this election is mighty important. I hope ever so much that the major party candidates are Obama and McCain. Neither one of them, as I said, is a Hillary Clinton.
--
The Chinese government is offering today to meet with representatives of the Dalai Lama to discuss the Tibetan situation. This is the second time this week that calmer heads seem to be prevailing in Beijing. Earlier in the week, China announced it would withdraw a ship carrying arms for the dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
Is this a ploy designed to defuse controversy over the Beijing Olympics? Perhaps. But still it is welcome news. Any sign that the Chinese government is willing to reconsider its backing for dictatorships in Tibet, Zimbabwe, Burma and North Korea is good news for the world.
--
Someone reminds me that this blog has been devoted in the past to lamenting the decline of the L.A. Times. I still feel that way, but since I don't read the newspaper on my African cruise am hardly in a position from the Indian Ocean to comment in detail on what is happening there. Those commentaries will resume when I return home at the end of May.
--
I took a trip to see coral today off small Seychelle islands, but the glass bottom boat was not as good as the one on Santa Catalina island. What we saw, however, was plenty of dead coral, and very little live coral. The tour guide said that, as in many places, global warming is killing coral. The ocean is simply getting too warm.
After Gen. Curtis LeMay suggested that the U.S. bomb North Vietnam "back into the stone age," he proved an embarrassing vice presidential candidate for Gov. George C. Wallace in the 1968 presidential campaign. Americans did not want to go that far, and they quickly dismissed the idea of LeMay in power.
But isn't Sen. Hillary Clinton's remark in an ABC news interview on Tuesday, Pennsylvania primary day, threatening to "obliterate" Iran seem just as excessive? We certainly don't need a U.S. president who is joining Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in threatening to obliterate anyone (except Al-Qaeda, that is). Ahmadinejad keeps threatening to obliterate Israel. Now, Clinton says, if this happens, we could obliterate Iran.
We're talking about destroying whole peoples here. That means a nuclear holocaust. It's what Hitler would have done, if he could have.
This dangerously bellicose statement is so out of place, it raises the thought, when I think about it, that Clinton might be bipolar.
Bipolarity is a tragic condition marked by excessive mood changes. And when we pay careful attention to Hillary in this campaign, she certainly exhibits those characteristics. One day, she's all peaches and cream, saying it's an "honor" to be running against Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. The next, she's suddenly dismissing Obama as effete and elitist, which is ridiculous. One day, she's saying she's full of good ideas, and the next she's suggesting that because her father and grandfather were Christians, it puts her on a pedestal above Obama, who became a Christian only when he grew up.
In short, like Robert Louis Stevenson's story, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' there's a possible pathological shifting of positions and roles by Mrs. Clinton (not to mention her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who seems also to be highly tempermental and moody these days).
What a contrast with Obama, and for that matter Sen. John McCain. Neither Obama or McCain would ever talk about obliterating anyone. Neither of them would suggest in any way that they are another Ahmadinejad. Now, Hillary Clinton has.
And that's why, the more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I become with the idea that this politician could ever obtain power. Not only our country, but the world, might be at risk.
Prior to the vote in North Carolina and Indiana, I wonder whether it might not be possible to commit Hillary for mental examination by a battery of psychiatrists. It's obvious from her cut and slash campaign that she has a problem, and it might well be a dire problem.
Mentioning the word 'dire,' reminds me of Gen. Reginald Dyer, the British general who ordered his troops to fire on demonstrators in Amritsar in 1919, slaughtering hundreds.
That destroyed the prospects of British rule in India, and no less an Empire advocate than Winston Churchill gave a speech in the British House of Commons condemning Dyer and insisting that he be punished.
There is a difference between bellicosity, such as Churchill and Charles de Gaulle exhibited against the Nazis, and anyone who is willing to contemplate the extinction of entire peoples. We certainly don't need a General Dyer in charge at the White House beginning next year.
So I think this election is mighty important. I hope ever so much that the major party candidates are Obama and McCain. Neither one of them, as I said, is a Hillary Clinton.
--
The Chinese government is offering today to meet with representatives of the Dalai Lama to discuss the Tibetan situation. This is the second time this week that calmer heads seem to be prevailing in Beijing. Earlier in the week, China announced it would withdraw a ship carrying arms for the dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
Is this a ploy designed to defuse controversy over the Beijing Olympics? Perhaps. But still it is welcome news. Any sign that the Chinese government is willing to reconsider its backing for dictatorships in Tibet, Zimbabwe, Burma and North Korea is good news for the world.
--
Someone reminds me that this blog has been devoted in the past to lamenting the decline of the L.A. Times. I still feel that way, but since I don't read the newspaper on my African cruise am hardly in a position from the Indian Ocean to comment in detail on what is happening there. Those commentaries will resume when I return home at the end of May.
--
I took a trip to see coral today off small Seychelle islands, but the glass bottom boat was not as good as the one on Santa Catalina island. What we saw, however, was plenty of dead coral, and very little live coral. The tour guide said that, as in many places, global warming is killing coral. The ocean is simply getting too warm.
Labels: Presidential campaigning
posted by Ken Reich at 3:35 AM
2 Comments:
Ken,
Your bi-polar analysis is very interesting but I don't understand why you are giving John McCain a pass on this issue of "destroying whole peoples here."
Surely, he is just as bellicose and frightening, if not more so, than Hillary Clinton.
Sara
once again, a militaristic Republican blogger, who supported the invasion of Iraq and called for decimating Islamic militants, is now trying to position himself as a Dovish Democrat and voice of sweet reason. What a sick joke.
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