Catapulting the propaganda, or why Obama’s Reagan comments bother me
Obama has taken some heat for his remarks to the newspaper editors in Reno, Nevada, in which he largely repeated the Republican narrative of the past two decades: Reagan was a great president, bringing Morning in America to a country weary of the intellectually bankrupt Democratic politics of pork and sloth.
Obama is way too smart to actually believe that. But his comments in Reno weren’t about what he believes, but about what he needs to say in order to court independent voters and peel off Republican support. (Newsflash to the young’uns: Obama is a politician, kids. He’s not the saint of purity who farts rainbows.)
The more I see of Obama, the more I understand his game. He’s decided to exploit the Republican propaganda of the past 20 years, rather than fight it, in order to get himself elected. The right-wing lie that Reagan was Saint Ronnie, who won the Cold War and could leap tall buildings in a single bound? Fine, use it. The right-wing lie that the Clintons were incompetent/dishonest/dirty/all of the above? Fine, use it. The right-wing lie that the 60s and 70s ushered in an era of excess and we need to get back to family values and personal responsibility? Fine, use it.
The problem with this tactic is that these right-wing lies are dangerous. The lie that the Clintons were incompetent/dishonest/dirty/all of the above is one reason Dubya is in office. The lie that Reagan was a great president is the other. The Reagan lie, in fact, is probably the dominant political fact of the American landscape, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, dig into the tubes and read up on the Southern strategy, the Moral Majority, Iran Contra, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Iraq, the trillion-dollar deficit, the end of the Fairness Doctrine (hello, hate radio and Fox!), AIDS, union busting, the defeat of the ERA, the assault on women’s reproductive rights — oh, geez, I could go on and on.
The meme of Saint Ronnie is dangerous. It needs to be exploded. It needs to die. Endorsing it may give Obama the mainstream appeal he personally needs to win, but at what cost to our country?
On the other hand, perhaps the fight is already lost. Perhaps the truth is already a lost cause. One of the most striking things I’ve noticed in this campaign season is the unthinking repetition by young Democrats of the “fact” that the Clintons were incompetent/dishonest/dirty/all of the above. Democrats saying this! It’s right-wing propaganda, but they don’t know it. Repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. The wingnut noise machine is so effective at saturating the very air we breathe that people don’t even know they’ve been brainwashed.
I recognize the pattern because that’s exactly what happened in the feminist movement. When the backlash started in the 80s, women my age realized that we were in a fight for the truth. We wanted to educate our daughters and pass on the torch, but we were up against a 24/7 noise machine that was telling them that feminists were man-hating prudes, that feminists hated sex, that feminists were just ugly girls who were jealous of the pretty girls, that pornography was empowerfuling, that Andrea Dworkin was in bed with the religious right, that all Second Wavers were vicious racist homophobes, and on and on and on.
And we lost. We lost the war for the truth. I know this, because most of the young women I see around me believe at least some of those lies, sometimes all of them. And what’s even worse, a lot of young feminists believe it too. Feminists.
I’ve seen young feminists repeat the Larry Flynt version of feminism as if that’s what really happened. I’ve seen young feminists describe the Second Wave in terms that have more to do with Rush Limbaugh than reality. I’ve seen young feminists claim that when older feminists try to knock some sense into the conversation, it’s really just sour grapes because the old hags are jealous of how young and pretty the new girls are.
I know of one professional anti-feminist who’s been haunting the fringes of the movement posing as a disaffected feminist, with a shtick that is largely a rehash of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Christina Hoff Sommers. Her story is that she used to be a feminist but all the ugly girls were jealous of her because she’s so pretty, plus all the feminists were sex-hating prudes and evil censors who were intent on squelching her “voice” (feminists love to talk about “voices”). I doubt if there’s a feminist over 40 who can’t peg this person as a ringer from 10 paces off — we’ve been here before, kids — but a lot of young women who encounter her think she’s for real. Ooh, they were mean to you because you were so pretty? It’s sobering testimony to the power of the backlash.
To the power of propaganda.
41 Responses to “Catapulting the propaganda, or why Obama’s Reagan comments bother me”
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Tabby Lavalamp says:
When Hillary Clinton talked about the “vast right-wing conspiracy” against Bill, it was quickly turned into a joke that conservatives enjoyed embracing. The thing is, it was true. Before he was even sworn in, there was a concerted effort from the right to drive Clinton from office, and it lasted for eight years. When the Republicans won their House and Senate majorities, it crippled the chance of any real work being done for years.
If Hillary wins the nomination (which is looking more likely every day), it’s going to start feeling like the Nineties all over again. It’s just too bad I’m not America, because damn, I want to vote for her.January 22nd, 2008 at 7:36 pm EST -
The Ghost of Violet says:
When Hillary Clinton talked about the “vast right-wing conspiracy” against Bill, it was quickly turned into a joke that conservatives enjoyed embracing. The thing is, it was true.
Yes it was.
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Gayle says:
I’m not an Obama supporter, but I cut him a break on the RR comment. He said Reagan “changed the trajectory” of the country. I did not hear him say it was for the better.
But then I heard him on NPR discussing his stimulus package. After accusing HRC’s package for being too spendy, he said he would stimulate the economy through tax cuts and rebates. I gasped as that’s always the Republican solution!! I’m pretty sure that’s what Bush’s lame stimulus package is based on!!
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Christian says:
How is:
“Reagan was a great president, bringing Morning in America to a country weary of the intellectually bankrupt Democratic politics of pork and sloth.”the same as:
“Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it,” Obama said. “I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10 to 15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.”
I guess paraphrasing for your own needs is better than cutting and pasting a quote. Evidently, Obama should only talk in slogans and soundbites, because nuance and context are just too much for some people.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Talk about cutting and pasting. This is the full quote:
“I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
But hey, I guess cutting and pasting for your own needs is better than actually reading what the guy said.
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Christian says:
I couldn’t find the full quote, just the paraphrased one on the original paper’s site and everyone who has commented on it since has truncated the original to the point of making finding the full quote difficult via search.
Regardless, how does that quote translate to “Reagan was a great president, bringing Morning in America to a country weary of the intellectually bankrupt Democratic politics of pork and sloth.”
He’s citing the method of how they captured the attention of the country, including long-term Democrats, to their own ends, in a way that Bill Clinton really wasn’t able to. That impact that Reagan had, which was clearly for worse, lasted much longer than his administration. A good example is when Clinton signed in welfare reform, much to the disgust of progressives. It seemed very much like the legacy of Reagan’s continued assault on the poor.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
My statement is a slighly snarky nutshell version of the Republican narrative, the same narrative Obama was employing in his talk in Reno.
The problem with it is that it’s not true. That’s not what the 1980 election was about or what Reagan’s popularity was about. Reagan was elected on the basis of extremely reactionary politics. A huge amount of it was racism, and a second big chunk of it was sexism, and tied up with all that was the rise of Christofascism, the same spectre that haunts us today. And instead of it being “a return to responsibility,” as Republicans pretend, it was in fact a flight from responsibility, a flight into a Hollywood fantasy version of America. Jimmy Carter had talked to Americans like they were adults, and he was up-front about the complexities of our international situation. Reagan offered a complete flight from that into a 1950s fantasy of big-shouldered men with strong jaws, America the Good, John Wayne rides forever.
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Christian says:
I don’t think Obama is in any way complimenting Reagan’s goals, but his ability to bring registered Democrats to the voting booth for him. It’s the methods he’s complimenting, not the madness.
This is something that polling shows Obama is capable of: getting people who don’t consider themselves Democrats to vote Democrat. We have yet to see evidence that Hillary can draw those same numbers and in a race against McCain, that could put us in a rough situation. I don’t want the margin so tight this time that they can steal it from us.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Imagine it’s 2028 and some Future Obama says,
“Bush was able to change the trajectory of America because the country was ready for it. There was that sense that we were fed up with the lies and the corruption of the Clintons, and it was time to restore honor to the White House. People were ready for a godly man to lead our nation back to Christ and stand tall against our enemies. We wanted that respect for life and a return to true American values.”
Think you’d have any trouble with that?
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T.O. says:
If you want the full quote, you can watch it here and here. (Unfortunately I couldn’t find a single video with both parts. The first one includes commentary from Meet the Press.)
Hillary Clinton has also praised Reagan’s communication skills, according to her own website. The main difference, as far as I can tell, between her remarks and Obama’s, are that she actually went so far as to praise some of his actions as President and say that he understood the concerns of the working class.
Do you have a problem with that too, or is it okay coming from someone closer to your demographic?
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T.O. says:
Oops - the main difference is that she actually …
Sorry, couldn’t let that go uncorrected. -
The Ghost of Violet says:
Do you have a problem with that too, or is it okay coming from someone closer to your demographic?
As it happens, I’m almost exactly the same age as Obama.
Regardless, I can’t imagine why you would think I would simply reflexively vote my age demographic, and I’ll thank you not to insinuate.
I haven’t read what Hillary said about Reagan, but it bothers me when anyone plays into the rightwing propaganda about Saint Ronnie. As for “the great communicator thing” and his popularity, those are just facts. And it’s a fact that he pulled a lot of Democratic and Independent support.
What I object to with Obama (and with anyone) is the endorsement of the Republican propaganda. I think you can talk about being a centrist candidate and pulling folks from across the aisle without also reiterating the wingnut narrative of the past 20+ years.
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Christian says:
Your madlibs version doesn’t really correlate and is oversimplified. You’re assuming the “excesses of the 60s and 70s” is a reference only to Democrats? Nixon wasn’t in there somewhere?
And Bush has never had the support numbers that Reagan had with Democrats. Not even close.
Still, your statement that Obama is basically saying “Reagan was a great president” is a ridiculous interpretation.
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the ignorant one says:
This is off-topic from the current comments, but who is this former feminist you refer to at the end?
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The Ghost of Violet says:
You’re assuming the “excesses of the 60s and 70s” is a reference only to Democrats? Nixon wasn’t in there somewhere?
“excesses of the 60s and 70s” is code for the sexual revolution, women’s rights, integration, the Great Society, and basically everything progressives stand for. If you didn’t live through it I guess you don’t know the code, so that makes it hard for you. But no, it doesn’t refer to Nixon.
And Bush has never had the support numbers that Reagan had with Democrats. Not even close.
Irrelevant. The Future Obama in my example is repeating the wingnut narrative about Bush.
I guess if you’ve never heard of any of this before you don’t get it, and so you can imagine all you like that Obama was talking about Nixon and so forth and whatever you want to plug in there.
The fact is he was repeating verbatim the standard wingnut narrative.
I’m finding this exchange a little pointless.
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Christian says:
Yeah, I’m sure Obama was laying this out not to illustrate the method that Reagan used, but because Obama doesn’t like integration or women’s rights. Or was he illustrating Reagan’s method to power? Are you seriously believing the former rather than the latter?
Gee, thanks. Way to encourage discussion. I guess you’re right that Obama thinks Reagan was great and integration was a bummer. He’ll just have to stick to happy sound-bites from this point on so as not to confuse anyone.
In the meantime feel free to pretend that Hillary hasn’t made seriously complimentary statements about Reagan, nor has she voted over and over for Bush’s war and still doesn’t think it was a mistake. Right. Not a mistake at all to bomb Iraq into the ground. How progressive.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Christian, here at this blog I employ the stick test. It’s like at the fair: you have to be smarter than the stick to take this ride.
You’re welcome to discuss, but you seem to be having trouble with the stick.
I guess you’re right that Obama thinks Reagan was great and integration was a bummer.
Exactly. Just like I said in the original post, “Obama admires Reagan because he’s opposed to integration and hates women!”
In the meantime feel free to pretend that Hillary hasn’t made seriously complimentary statements about Reagan, nor has she voted over and over for Bush’s war and still doesn’t think it was a mistake.
By all means, knock yourself out finding where I’ve ever said any of that. Ever.
Are you from DailyKos?
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Christian says:
Wow. Insulting the intelligence personally of those you disagree with. Nice tactic. You should change “leftist” to “elitist”.
As for your take on what Hillary said about Reagan:
“I haven’t read what Hillary said about Reagan”
Is ignorance part of your stick test? -
The Ghost of Violet says:
Tiresome child. Go away.
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Christian says:
Oh, and no I’m not from DailyKos. I’ve never posted there.
I had added you to my feed reader some time ago due to a previous post on feminism that I appreciated.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Look, Christian, I’m gonnna try this one more time. I dislike explaining a post that I think is already pretty clear, but what the heck, it’s better than the real life thing I’m supposed to be doing and putting off.
The theme of my post is about the danger of propaganda. Particularly, about the danger of the right-wing propaganda in this country. I’m bothered that Obama is choosing to exploit the conventional (false) wisdom about Reagan and so forth, though I understand the political expediency of it.
To put this in perspective, some people on the left are interpreting Obama’s remarks to mean that he really is a Reaganite. I don’t believe that at all. Obama impresses me as an extremely smart man. In fact, I think of Obama as the new Bill Clinton. Smart and savvy and ready to triangulate his way to power.
The Clintons made a similar mistake in the 90s when they chose not to expend political capital on fighting the growing wingnut narrative and instead to triangulate and pursue their own agenda. This was a mistake because the beast didn’t die; it only grew stronger. Now it’s damn near destroyed the country.
Obama is in my view making the same mistake. He may get elected, but the hydra — the beast — will still be alive, and it will destroy us.
Right wing propaganda is dangerous. It has done so much damage to my country, to our country, and it must be stopped. We have to stop coasting on the wingnut-created “conventional wisdom” about what really happened in the past 30 years.
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T.O. says:
I am sorry I resorted to being snarky in the last line of my comment. I respect your intelligence, and I’ve agreed with you on pretty much all of the posts of yours I’ve read except those on this issue. There’s more to demographics than age, but it’s not worth pursuing that point because I regret the whole line anyway.
I noticed you were really careful not to speak in absolutes about young Democrats and young feminists - making it very difficult for me to claim you insulted my intelligence first. ;)
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therealUK says:
Good post.
right-wing lies are dangerous.
Yes
I recognize the pattern because that’s exactly what happened in the feminist movement.
Yup.
I know this stuff has gone on through history - and the propoganda saturation of current US media/culture is a prime example - but I’m still continually struck by the contrast between just how GLARING the bullshit and lies are, and the ease with people take them on board.
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simply wondered says:
obama thinks reagan was the shining beacon of governmental accountability….maybe my idea about all holding our breath and waiting for the rapture wasn’t quite such a bad idea.
so to take the standard reductio ad absurdam exampe of everyones fave, adolf, imagine a politician says:
‘he really knew how to unite the groundswell of public opinion, to get a demoralised country marching as one and gave people a pride in their national identity which previous flabby administrations had utterly failed to do [sadly he did so at a cost of murdering millions of jews, socialists, gypsies, homosexuals, writers, liberals and other people pretty much at random]
2 questions:
1) what do you think of the politician who says the bit in brackets?
2) what do you think of the politician who doesn’t bother with those last few tiny details?or as some dead dude said above:
‘I think you can talk about being a centrist candidate and pulling folks from across the aisle without also reiterating the wingnut narrative of the past 20+ years.’ nail … head… -
B. Dagger Lee says:
Commenter Privilege Alert!
Zoom in on:
The greatest grandest privilege: to be able to choose wholeheartedly to whom one will deign to cede power, and do to so without having to examine the narrative for elements of propaganda i.e. where it is benefiting from riding a wave of emotional fantasies. It’s great to so big, so universal, as to not have to straddle the ambivalent divide of double-consciousness!
Double-consciousness, it always plays the race card, or gets its panties in a twist! Double-consciousness means always having to interpret the narrative; it’s so tiring.
Well here’s a tart, salty toast to double consciousness! The dialectic of skepticism and from which is pieced together the closest semblance of truthful reality. I’m pretty sure both Obama and Clinton are chock full of the fruits of its knowledge; would that others were too.
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anna says:
Let’s name names! Who is the professional anti-feminist?
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Ann Bartow says:
Hey Violet,
I don’t have much time but I wanted to say I like the post. I’m not sure I agree entirely about Obama but you are spot on about feminism. Sorry I can’t offer more support at the moment
Take care,
Ann -
Gayle says:
“Let’s name names! Who is the professional anti-feminist?”
I can name three different people who fit that description without giving it much thought. One thing they all have in common: They thrive on attention.
Do not feed.
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B. Dagger Lee says:
The Ever-Incredibly-Envious Camille Paglia?
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blondie says:
[Not to be a suck-up, but] You just get better and better, The Ghost of Dr. Violet Socks. The afterlife must not only exist, but must agree with you.
Keep on haunting in the free world!
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Carrie says:
The thing is, you can’t compliment Reagan’s method and not compliment his madness. His method was madness. His ‘great communication skills’ were always used in the service of making a small group of Americans feel good and unified at the expense of another group of Americans. Those skills, and the warm fuzzy feelings they produced, can’t be separated from racism, smug exceptionalism, and a shocking contempt for the poor, especially poor women. It was because he was communicating those values, which a horrifyingly large number of voters shared, that he communicated so effectively and won so handily.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
There’s more to demographics than age, but it’s not worth pursuing that point because I regret the whole line anyway.
That’s strange, I read your comment as “age demographic.” But I see now I hallucinated that. You just said “demographic.” At any rate, thank you for withdrawing the remark.
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Apostate says:
Just to give you some hope in the young feminists, dear Violet, I’m 25, I am a feminist, and I don’t buy the prude-antisex-LarryFlynt narrative of feminism. I consider myself closest in ideas to second wave feminists — not third wave, which is where my age puts me.
And I find you the sanest voice on feminism and politics out there. I only wish you wrote much more often. I find your writing inspiring, spot on and trenchant.
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Infidel says:
One thing that irks me is how “trickle down economics” never equated with “don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.” after all the movie “The Outlaw Jose Wales” had been out for a number of years by then.
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simply wondered says:
yeah - trickle down economics was fucking brilliant in eighties britain; the only problem was the substance trickling down was brown and smelled of shit. and that’s what we at the bottom (or even half-way down) got.
ps - think i lost your comment at my place, fidel. can you help? -
Chris says:
To compliment Reagan’s political communication skills is to endorse sustained lying and scapegoating of the disempowered as a political tool, period, end of discussion.
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julia says:
I’m so happy to find a truly feminist blog! What Reagan taught us: that homeless people on the streets are there because they’re lazy. They don’t want to work.
And in the background, they cut, cut, cut social services. Now we have 3.5 million people living on the streets, things you do not see in any other industrialized nation and often not even in ‘developing’ nations. And what we don’t have: health care, affordable education, unions, LABOR LAWS, etc etc.
When will Americans look deeper, look under the rug? -
Daisy says:
And the more I see of Hillary, hollering for her hubby to go beat up the black man on her behalf, the more disappointed I am in her. Is she or the old man running for president? I’ll vote for a woman and a feminist, but I think I’ll wait for one whose husband is not so nakedly ambitious AND who isn’t the ex president!
Consequently, Obama gets my vote.
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octogalore says:
Violet: great post.
Yeah — quite upsetting the standards to which women are held who aspire to political (or any, really) power. If they’re not completely unblemished, how easy to say “I like the idea of a woman, not THIS one” and run into the arms of a man, albeit flawed himself.
I have no problem with Bill being involved in the campaign. Hillary was with his, and if Michelle Obama had a longer political resume, she would too. I don’t see a need to see this as weakening Hillary any more than her participation weakened Bill.
And yeah, the increasing popularity of abandoning the “feminist” appellation is irritating as well. Why is it so easy and liberating to abandon a label about women’s rights when not everyone who uses it is completely aligned? When it comes to our interests in sports, books, fields or work, etc., we don’t run away when others who call themselves a similar name don’t agree with us. Why, with women, is it so easy to cut and run?
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lightly says:
Great post. Depressing to think about how propaganda has rolled back so much. Even more depressing to have to live in a world shaped by it. At least a relief to find spots online where the non-brainwashed congregate.
I’m not too fond of either of the surviving Democrats. I don’t think either of them will give us real healthcare or help anybody who isn’t already rich and corrupt. I hope we aren’t headed into a Shock Doctrine meltdown like the one they foisted on the Russians, but I won’t be surprised if we are.
I’m glad I didn’t have children, even though doing without that has been such a painful hardship. Bad as I feel about all of this for myself, I could not stand to be leaving some beloved child of mine to deal with all of this after I’m gone.
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simply wondered says:
last night on uk tv ‘question time’ said the most asked question was about the us election.
at least it has caught our imagination - the next uk election may not manage to do that with the clash of bland centrists echoing hollowly for all of 10 yards from westminster. and all around me young people are now openly admitting to practising conservatism. our equality laws have surely gone too far.
bonnie greer (who i like and think is a pretty cool thinker - ready for someone to come up with something particularly noxious she has written and prove me a fool - actually she gave me a couple of nice reviews in plays and i am easily bought…) likes both hilary and obama, claims to know obama and is from his state and wants hilary to win on the ’substance’ ticket.
there was also the notion (not from bonnie) that hilary was riding on bill’s coat-tails (funny! when he was president we were hearing about the eminence grise who had pushed him into power - i forget her name now.)
and if more of a clincher were needed, the vile amanda platell (in a former life a disgusting feet-in-the-trough tory lobbyist now radically transformed into a disgusting feet-in-the-trough ‘political commentator’ - excuse me!!! - who writes for the daily mail - for our us readers, perhaps the most entrenchedly Conservative uk daily newspaper) ‘hopes to god’ hilary doesn’t win. my enemy’s enemy is good enough for me, so if hil scares the scum that write for the mail she has my non-existent vote.
but i would love to see barack in there. thank god i don’t have to choose. could they do a job-share?
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