PRESENTING: THE NEW IMPROVED HILLARY CLINTON! by Tim Siggia

PRESENTING:

THE NEW IMPROVED HILLARY CLINTON!

By Tim Siggia

October 19, 2007

She's liberal. She's conservative. She's moderate. She's progressive. She's for the war. She's against the war. (Like another would-be president, she voted for it before she voted against it.) She's from New York. She's from Arkansas. She's from Chicago. Make that a suburb of Chicago. She's a Cub fan. She's a Yankee fan. When asked what team she would root for if the Cubs faced the Yankees in the World Series (a moot point now), she replied she would split her allegiance, rooting 4-1/2 innings for each team. (Well, as president wouldn't she do the equivalent of that at an Army-Navy football game?) Not only that, but while out on the campaign trail, she has a ready accent for every region of the country. Yes sir, she's all things to all people! Meet the New Improved Hillary Clinton!

The Old Hillary is out now. You know, the one who used to make snide remarks about staying home and baking cookies. Now she's Hillary Archway, if she thinks that's what it takes to get her into the White House. Unless she's speaking at a NOW convention, of course. There she'll continue to burn her brassiere with the best of the burners, though she'll also make sure she has plenty of spares. As with her Hubby Bubba it all depended on what the meaning of "is" is, with the New Improved Hillary it all depends on which audience she's talking to. In fact, when we speak of the New Improved Hillary, it tends to beg the question, "Which one?", because there have literally been so many of them. First she was Hillary Rodham. After she married Hubby Bubba, she was still Hillary Rodham. No Clinton yet -- until she became First Lady, that is. Then it was Hillary Rodham Clinton, or as I have written it, Hillary RODHAM Clinton. Then it was Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Then simply Mrs. Clinton. Hillary Clinton appears to be the identity of the moment for now, but that too could change even as I write these words.

Though she's a woman who's had more makeovers than Lon Chaney at the height of his fame, the perceptive observer will still note that certain things remain fixed, despite the constant repackaging. First of all, you'll never hear the phrase, "tax cut" emanating from the lips of Her Royal Most Imperial Majesty, unless it's to deride the Bush tax cuts and how they're hurting working families. Allow me to digress for a moment. I am a working man. I am not living off inherited wealth, do not own my own business, and do not sit behind a desk all day. The work I do is physical and often strenuous. So would somebody please explain to me, in language I can understand, just how it behooves me as a workingman to take the money I have worked hard to earn and hand it over to the government in the form of increased taxes? No Democrat has yet succeeded in convincing me that higher taxes are somehow in my best interest.

Second, with the New Improved Hillary comes the New Improved Hillarycare, which again looks suspiciously like the Old Hillarycare repackaged. As the old saying has it, no matter how you slice it baloney is still baloney, and the same holds true with billion-dollar boondoggles. Third, the old class-warfare rhetoric is still very much a part of the Clinton playbook, as witness her latest comments on the disappearing middle class. The facts are that the economy is sound, productivity is up, and unemployment is down. More Americans own their own homes now than at any other time in history. Yet Hillary rants on and on about how miserable conditions are for Working America. Old Hillary, New Hillary, Same Hillary -- they all have one thing in common: they all want the White House so desperately that they'll do anything, say anything, be anything just to get those votes to elbow her way in.

To date she's raised more money than any other candidate, Republican or Democrat. Like her husband, she's not above taking money from questionable sources, a.k.a. Norman Hsu. After all, following her husband's precepts, it isn't really wrong to do it, only to get caught -- which Hillary was. She's shored up her alliances in the news media. Witness a front-page article in the Hartford Courant which ran last week entitled, "Region Likes Clinton". The writer was written by the Courant's Washington Bureau Chief, David Lightman, whose opinion pieces are regularly printed by the Courant as news. (Does anyone remember who predicted this would happen? Remember, this is the publication that up until only recently was pushing Christopher Dodd.) Even at a local Borders Book Store, in the children's section, mind you, there is a book entitled, Hillary Clinton -- as if first and second-graders, most of whom are probably unable at this point to even spell "Democrat" or "Republican", are just dying to know everything about this remarkable political phenomenon! It is all reflective of a shamelessly ambitious, determined woman who will use any and every means at her disposal to get into that White House at all costs -- one who literally stops at nothing to gain not only riches for herself, but power and dominion over the lives of others.

Old Hillary wanted the White House. So does the New Improved Hillary. Pay no attention to what she may say now. Remember, like her husband, who promised a "middle-class tax cut" that instantly turned into the biggest tax increase in history once he was elected, she'll say anything just to get what she wants. The question on everyone's mind should be: After she gets what she wants -- what then?