<p>Melanie Thernstrom wrote her senior thesis about the murder of her best friend, Roberta Lee, allegedly by Lee’'s boyfriend. The senior thesis was turned into a book, * The Dead Girl* which received a great deal of praise. Lee’s parents, however, sued on behalf of their daughter’s estate for infringement of copyrights, though I believe that they were upset about the publicity surrounding their daughter’s death and the rekindling or their pain rather than about royalties. I believe they won the case.</p>
<p>I’m just uncomfortable with it. When it comes to college letters than don’t involve illegality, rampant racism, etc., I just think they should be off-limits till the person has bowed out of public life.</p>
<p>My D. gets emails from a couple of young men she’s known since preschool who are serving in Iraq. Once in awhile she lets me see a note or two. What they’ve written certainly reflects well on the boys, but I just can’t picture her releasing them while one of them had a high-profile career going. Seriously, who needs 300 million people pouring over “103 degrees and it’s only March” for subtext?</p>
<p>I totally understand people not liking Senator Clinton. We all have politicians we like and dislike, and politics is a dirty game. But I don’t understand the "I hate Hilary"s that I hear from people on both the right and the left. Each time I hear it I think it says more about the speaker than it does about the senator.</p>
<p>And it’s never about issues. It’s always personal. </p>
<p>In this country only a strong, opinionated woman is deemed deserving of such sustained invective.</p>
<p>I have met Hillary Clinton in a small social setting. I was prepared to dislike her, primarily for her support of the Iraq War. However, she totally won me over. There were no crowds, no potential voters, just a small gathering. She was warm and personable and, it goes without saying, brilliant. Later, at a more public venue, she gave a stirring speech. </p>
<p>If her letters introduce the person I met I am grateful they were published. I don’t think the Clintons have much privacy to protect, and it is her dearest wish to be in the public arena. If her private thoughts illuminate her rather cold persona I think it is to her advantage.</p>
<p>BTW: Most of us New Yorkers are satisfied by her representation.</p>
<p>"I have met Hillary Clinton in a small social setting. I was prepared to dislike her, primarily for her support of the Iraq War. However, she totally won me over. There were no crowds, no potential voters, just a small gathering. She was warm and personable and, it goes without saying, brilliant. Later, at a more public venue, she gave a stirring speech.</p>
<p>If her letters introduce the person I met I am grateful they were published. I don’t think the Clintons have much privacy to protect, and it is her dearest wish to be in the public arena. If her private thoughts illuminate her rather cold persona I think it is to her advantage.</p>
<p>BTW: Most of us New Yorkers are satisfied by her representation."</p>
<p>Oh, so that makes it all okay that she voted for a war with over 3,000 US soldier deaths and at least 68,009 Iraqi civilian deaths. You can allow an unjust war to occur, but as long as you switch your views around election time and speak well, it’s all okay.</p>
<p>On the Democratic side, if you want to support a candidate who voted for the war authorization in the Senate, you have the following choices:</p>
<p>Biden
Clinton
Dodd
Edwards</p>
<p>If you want to support a candidate who co-sponsored the war authorization:</p>
<p>Edwards</p>
<p>If you want to support a candidate who voted against the war authorization in the House of Representatives:</p>
<p>Kucinich</p>
<p>If you want to support a candidate who wasn’t in a position to vote on the authorization one way or another, you can choose from:</p>
<p>Gravel
Obama
Richardson</p>
<p>That’s the great thing about a Democracy. You get to make your voice heard at the ballot box.</p>
<p>BTW, the biggest block of voters in the 2008 election (about 40%) supported the war in 2003 and are against the war in 2007. About 30% of the voters still support the war and will presumably vote Republican or right wing third party. About 30% were against the war in 2003 and will presumably vote Democratic or left wing third party. The election will be determined by the 40% who have changed their minds about the war.</p>
<p>You are absolutely correct. The question that will remain unanswered until election night is about the exact percentage of the electorate that is prepared to trust the democrats leaders who supported fighting Iraq in the past three administrations mostly because the focus groups confirmed the questionable intelligence. Following that logic, we should consider making our tough decisions by licensing the technology of American Idol. </p>
<p>In the end, the decision will hinge almost entirely on the personalities (multiple in some cases) and the popularity of the candidates. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I do not really agree that sustained invective are only reserved for strong and opinionated women. Aren’t there plenty of rather negative comments for our current President on this board, let alone in those cesspools of misinformation some affectionately call political blogs.</p>
vs. the repuglican leaders who concocted that intelligence to support their neocon wet-dream regime change fantasy. Following that logic, we should consider delegating the tough decisions to the Halliburton board of directors.</p>
<p>Didn’t read the article. I haven’t read the second through fourth pages of this thread. Just some inside baseball analysis, anything published by an old friend of a presidential candidate six months before the big primaries is either 1) trying the help their friend, or 2) cashing in by dishing dirt. Since the article was apparently largely favorable, I’m going with option 1. For presidential candidates, honest time ended years ago. Game on – it’s part of her campaign strategy.</p>
<p>However, the question posed by Rasmussen was about national security issues. My comment, “The question that will remain unanswered until election night is about the exact percentage of the electorate that is prepared to trust the democrats leaders” was about trust in general. Please note that I did mention the role of potential candidates during the past THREE administrations. This obviously includes the Clinton/Gore II.</p>
<p>Fwiw, I do agree that with the poll result and I would also pick Hillary Clinton as the best equipped to handle national security issues, at least from that short list of candidates. </p>
<p>I don’t think that the visceral dislike for HRH is based on her stand on national security issues.</p>
<p>I agree. Just like Clinton’s call this week for her Senate Committee to hold hearings on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, a move that generated the following newspaper article about the ultra hot-button issue in early primary state Nevada:</p>
<p>Or how 'bout this slick move. Clinton was the keynote speaker Saturday night at the national convention of African American hairdressers and beauty parlor owners. A thousand beauty parlors across the country gossiping to their customers about Hillary Clinton. She distributed one of those posters that beauty parlors hang up to show hair styles, only this one had photos of all of Hillary’s styles over the years. I don’t think Obama knows what hit him:</p>
<p>"“I have met Hillary Clinton in a small social setting. I was prepared to dislike her, primarily for her support of the Iraq War. However, she totally won me over. There were no crowds, no potential voters, just a small gathering. She was warm and personable and, it goes without saying, brilliant. Later, at a more public venue, she gave a stirring speech.”</p>
<p>Idi Ami was a fantastic public speaker. So is Hillary’s hubby.</p>
<p>I’m of the opinion that it is impossible to overestimate the impact of 9/11 on the American psyche. Combine that with the fact that we are at war and I see “trust on national security issues” as the whole enchilada for the 2008 Presidential election. If not the deciding factor, at least a very high threshold that every candidate must cross to even get in the game.</p>
<p>Many folks on this board are going to be surprised to find out the coming elections won’t be fought out over one issue and that the American public is much more conflicted about this war than the average Daily Kos reader. It would be easy to run against George W Bush but his name isn’t going to be on the ballot nor will anyone from his administration be on the ballot.</p>
<p>Well, I guess that depends on effectiveness of the Democrats’ campaigns, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>Let me ask you a question. Why do you think Reid and Pelosi are forcing the Republicans to cast votes in support of George Bush’s war, week after week after week? A few more Republicans worried about their reelections announce that “they are breaking with the President”. So, three days later, here comes another vote where they are forced to show that they aren’t breaking from bupkis.</p>
<p>The Republicans are in a real bind. The deadenders who still support the war are the Republican base who have their candidates by the you know whats. Meanwhile, 70% of the electorate looks on in disgust.</p>
<p>“Well, I guess that depends on effectiveness of the Democrats’ campaigns, doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>Not really because the Republican candidate will be running against Bush too.</p>
<p>The Democrats misinterpreted the mid-term elections as a vote on the war. It wasn’t. It was a vote against a party the percieved had become corrupted by power - and that perception might have been correct.</p>
<p>What they got was a San Francisco liberal, harry reid, and a congress that is despised even more than the president. Call as many votes as you want on the war the issue that fired voters up was illegal immigration. I am frankly surprised that it took as long as it did for people to wake up on what is going on, but now it is hee and it is going to move way more voters than the Iraq War will.</p>
<p>It is actually the Democrats who have themselves locked in with no wiggle room for possibly changing circumstances and they have now effectively taken responsibility for the consequences of defeat. The eventual Republican candidate can blame Bush for getting us in and the Democrats for surrendering to Al Qaeda - again if the Dem candidate is named Clinton.</p>
<p>Wow! Comparing Hillary to Idi Amin. A bit of inflated rhetoric. Yeah, Clinton’s pro-war stand is really disturbing. But as a member of a consortium of college teachers who went on masse to lobby Congresspeople to oppose any US presence in Iraq I can tell you there were no representatives we visited of either party willing to even entertain the policy of an anti-war stand. I still don’t know whether tom attribute this to political opportunism or Beltway hysteria. So yeah, HRC is a politician. I guarantee that no candidate with my political point of view could be elected in this country. But I don’t think supporting Nader and ending up with W. instead of Gore was a favorable outcome either.</p>