I CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH ~ BUT NOT PRETENDING TO BE TRUTHFUL

PUBLIC LIFE AND THE TRUTH ~ IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?

I was taught to not hate the person, but to dislike their behavior. Well, that is what I was told, anyway. It took me into my adult life to find it liberating to allow myself to not like someone. It’s a need for clarity for me to be able to figure out why I don’t like someone or why I do.

The internet has some blogs and sites that are filled with loving and compassionate people. But there are people who are jealous, resentful, hateful and covertly bigoted who spread their dark qualities online. Anonymously. When I read their comments it always throws me some. It is not comforting.

Because I dislike Hillary, but it has been an acquired dislike, I typed “The truth about Hillary Clinton” and googled. And I couldn’t believe the wealth of links, that led to a list of other links and eight pages of books and publications to purchase at www.Amazon.com

I also googled “truth about Barack Obama”. Although one really negative site came up, upon reading it ~ I found it was delighting in being searing by the unidentifiable person behind it. He said this is going to be "fun" when picking at Senator Obama. But it was heavy on the hate and transparent on the lack of substance. The internet opens us all up to deep resentments and hate. And it is a wonder that any self-respecting human being would want to run for President and be able to maintain or keep equilibrium in the life of his or her family. I still trust Barack Obama. I believe he is running for President because he wants to serve.

Hillary, for me, is pretending to want to serve, but it is all about power and control. The type of controlling that comes from not feeling control within so the effort is made to fill up that need from without. She doesn’t appear comfortable with herself. So she works so hard at being someone she isn’t. And I have seen her lie during this Presidential campaign. That doesn’t sit well with me.

I never thought much about narcissistic people before a couple of years ago. But understanding the traits of narcissist has been helpful. A lack of empathy and not being truly able to put yourself in someone’s “shoes’ are not endearing qualities. And this is how I see Hillary.

I read a sample of a book The Case Against Hillary Clinton by Peggy Noonan, published articles, a long list of Hillary Clinton quotes from various books, and websites dedicated to bashing Hillary Clinton at worst and at best making one wonder if there are this many people criticizing her, is there some real validity here? Or are they just picking on her?

I googled the authors to get an idea of what kind of people they are. And found the few that I looked up were conservatives and appeared to be Republicans. But the long list did raise my antenna, in that anyone who gets that much reaction, and it was all negative energy, must have some mojo worth being aware of.

Here is one of the most neutral reads I found, although on the critical side:

Hillary’s Baggage Just Too Heavy

February 5, 2008

By Richard Cohen

At the most recent Democratic debate, moderator Wolf Blitzer referred to "a dream ticket for the White House" - either Hillary Clinton for President and Barack Obama for veep or the other way around. Both candidates demurred, giving me the opportunity to describe my own dream ticket: Obama for President; Clinton for chief of staff.

That's the long and the short of it. Just about everything Clinton says about herself - her experience, her indomitability, her presumed ability to work long hours - says to me that she would make a swell chief of staff. Beyond that, she either lacks the qualities that would make a great - not merely competent - President or hides them from us, as she has occasionally done with her own pain.

My conclusions about Clinton, forced upon me by the need to vote in a Super Tuesday primary, come from her own campaign. Whether she meant to or not, she has presented herself as a model of caution, of experience hard-earned and not enjoyed and an inability to admit fault or lousy judgment.

Two matters stand out. The first, of course, is her vote in favor of the Iraq war. I, too, supported going to war, so I don't think this alone disqualifies her from the presidency. I do think, though, that her refusal to simply admit that her judgment - not simply her facts - was faulty says something about her. We all knew George Bush was going to launch the invasion and was not merely seeking permission to stare down Saddam Hussein. If Clinton did not know that, then her judgment was doubly faulty.

Her refusal - her inability - to simply confess poor judgment says to me that her vote was politically motivated. In that, she was not alone. All of her 2008 Democratic primary colleagues who were in the Senate at the time voted for the war resolution. Many other Senate Democrats voted against it - not on the basis of different facts but on the basis of a different judgment about the same facts.

If that were the only example of Clinton voting suspiciously like a presidential candidate, I would not be troubled. But in 2005, she co-sponsored a bill that would make flag-burning illegal. It just so happened that around that time I heard Associate Justice Antonin Scalia explain why he, a conservative so conservative you cannot be more conservative, considered flag-burning a form of political expression. It was therefore, he said, protected. Precisely so.

Look, I know what Barack Obama was doing when he refused to confront his minister about the latter's embrace of Louis Farrakhan. He was ducking an issue with no upside for him. He will not get my Profiles in Courage award for this, but the rest of his record overwhelms this one chintzy act.

Not so with Clinton. The fact remains that as a politician, Hillary Clinton is a creature of her husband. This is reality, not a putdown. In this respect, she is like George W. Bush or any of the Kennedys now out there telling us how to vote. Even the mighty Teddy is the product of nepotistic politics, and his adoration of Obama is, I suspect, partly a function of Obama's qualities and partly a function of the perceived slight of John F. Kennedy by Hillary Clinton some weeks ago.

But for Hillary Clinton, the Bill thing looms larger. He was a good President with bad associations - beginning with Jim McDougal of Whitewater fame and ending with Marc Rich of pardon infamy. Bill Clinton has a tropism for the faintly corrupt and his wife has more than a tropism for him. He would stalk her presidency as he has her campaign, and when she vows that she alone would rule the White House, she is talking personnel, not marriage. It ain't the same.

So I vote, as I must, for Obama and against Hillary. This is not an easy choice. But the time has come and, really, hers has gone.

Source: New York Daily News

TRUTH DOESN’T LIE AND INJUSTICE IS NEVER RIGHT