Hillary Clinton’s slutty embrace of Rush Limbaugh, who is hard at work goading his right-wing listeners into helping her defeat Barack Obama, borders on the pornographic in how she has yet again been willing to turn a cheap trick in a campaign that has determinedly put sleaze before substance.
Limbaugh, for those of you who have spent the last few months in a cave, is the man behind Operation Chaos, an effort to get Republicans to vote for Hillary in Democratic primaries because they don’t want no lefty Negro in the White House. Besides which, she is viewed as being the easier of the two to defeat.
So important is Limbaugh to Hillary’s campaign that her chief pimp took a star turn on his radio show on the day of the Texas primary.
The Rushmeister is taking credit for those one in 10 voters — about 230,000 in all — who say that they changed their party registration to cast ballots in the Pennsylvania primary. This was more or less the margin of victory for Hillary.
Limbaugh also claims that his Chaos operatives made a big difference in Texas and Ohio, and also will in Indiana, the latest but not the last home for Hillary’s oft-moved goalposts.
He recently chortled that:
“Ten percent of the vote is huge. That would be five times the past high for a crossover vote with a closed primary. That’s an absolutely huge number — and once again, ladies and gentlemen, that is Operation Chaos.”
Lest anyone think that Limbaugh has a man crush on Bill or is back on the hard stuff, he has made it clear that Chaos “Democrats” will vote the McCain-Romney ticket in the fall. And for good measure is exhorting his listeners to foment riots during the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Limbaugh’s claims that Operation Chaos has hurt Obama are unverifiable and even anecdotal evidence that these rump voters have helped Clinton is slim, but that is not the point. The point is that Hillary’s tacit approval of this Ann Coulter with a stogie is not merely cynical, it’s despicable.
Recall also that in the lead up to the Pennsylvania primary Hillary pole danced for Richard Mellon Scaife, the fruitcake Pittsburgh area gadzillionaire publisher who financed the Great Right Wing Conspiracy against she and Bill and famously accused her of murdering White House aide Vince Foster.
(And it’s not for nothing that Republican luminaries like Karl Rove and William Bennett have been saying nice things about Hillary. They know that John McCain, saddled with the albatross of a despised president and the baggage of years as a Washington insider, stands a much better chance against another insider.)
What is particularly despicable about Hillary hooking up with Limbaugh and Scaife is that they are generals in the culture war that has riven American politics since the ascendancy of the Republican right wing. For Hillary to claim that she is an agent of change while climbing into the sack with these agents of polarization is all that you need to know about what lurks behind her tight-lipped smile.
Obama sought to explain his relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright in a speech on race and religion. Methinks that Hillary should take a page from her opponent’s playbook and make her own speech.
This is what she could say:
“I can no more disown Limbaugh and Scaife than I can disown the right-wing community. I can no more disown them than I can my grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of right wingers who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered right-wing stereotypes that made me cringe.”
Some final thoughts:
This post should not be construed as the hankie wringing of an Obama supporter. All is fair in love, war and politics, and while I condemn Hillary’s determined use of the political equivalent of unprotected sex, Obama hasn’t been particularly effective at pushing back and staying on message, which raises yet another question in my mind about whether he is ready for prime time.
Is the language in this post intentionally provocative? Absolutely. Is it sexist? Some if not many people will think so, but I would use the same sort of imagery if Obama was engaging in such despicable behavior, and Hillary’s relationships with once and future sworn enemies of the Democratic Party and the democratic process has gotten far too little attention and virtually no condom . . . er, condemnation.
Broder-esque tut-tutting is neither appropriate nor will draw the kind of attention that her behavior demands.
And before Hillary supporters get their foundation garments totally in a knot, they should pause before shooting the messenger to consider this most salient question: Will the legs-wide-open amorality with which Hillary has campaigned — as in doing anything and anyone in the service of victory at any cost — suddenly disappear if she makes an encore appearance at the White House?
No, of course not. Because politically speaking, once a slut always a slut.