Eighteen Million say “I told you so!”

Each day there are more articles being circulated entitled “Hillary would have made a better president” and “I should have voted for Hillary”. These high powered pen poised makers of a paper mache president are capitulating with rapidity as the test of the presidency of Barack Obama intensifies and he continues to disappoint his followers. Some commentators are now capable of admitting that they were so taken with his oratory that they failed to sufficiently consider his lack of accomplishments prior to his run for president.

When Hillary was defeated in the primary, the disbelief of the reality of this world was painful to endure. Hillary supporters met in groups, venting anger and pain in private safe places as we collectively worked through what had happened. Like many generations of women before us, we healed the gapping wounds of disappointment, collected ourselves and marched out to support the “winner” for the greater good of all. Hillary supporters rallied behind Obama, because Hillary not only said that was the right thing to do but she was working hard for the success of the Democrats. Her campaign magnified the hope, the pain and the disappointment, of generations of women. Many saw her grace, resilience and power, even in defeat, as a model for the next generation of women.

Now as Secretary of State, she has distanced herself from Barack Obama and yet found a useful and powerful place in which she can work productively for a country that disappointed her and a generation of feminist. She continues to be focused on her job with precision as this inexperienced orator, once so praised by all as their savior, flounders as many of us predicted.

It’s too late to elect Hillary. That bus left the station two and a half years ago. Now, the powerful commentators are bailing on Obama, just as they bailed on Hillary. They run away, not from Obama, but from their own failures. They too were weak, too weak to support a woman who was powerful and who had been tested by the political system. As the realization that Obama is weak and ineffective solidifies, as the savior’s image fades, the anger of being wrong turns outward as they look for a scapegoat for their wrong call.

So, we are doomed? I don’t think so. I wasn’t doomed before Obama and his failures certainly won’t define me. Now is not the time to throw Obama under the bus, it’s the time to understand that not only do we drive the bus, we are the bus.

For decades, I have decried the obvious, “Democrats have no backbone!” Now the staunch Obama followers are crying out “Lead us to the promise land!” He can’t. Congress can’t. It’s up to us to step up. Do we have the backbone to lead?
It takes more than, voting, contributing money and opining about the obvious flaws in our leaders to create change. We must change from the followers to the leaders. Remember the old sixties old bumper sticker “If the people will lead, the leaders will follow.” It’s time to change our focus from the lack of leadership, to creating the change we need in this country.

Abdicating our responsibility to participate in the change we want to create leaves a void for those who do have courage and a backbone to step to the front and take control. Thus, we are faced with talking heads that spew thoughtless mean spirited diatribes appealing to our base senses of fear and greed which are used as a wedge to further divide and decimate our civilization.

“They” can’t be silenced because their disruption is news; their stupidity is news; what they are not is news; and as we are beginning to realize, “the news” is the new porn industry and it sells. The news makers threw Hillary under the bus as their misogynist torrents filled the air waves, creating wave after wave of “news”. The media created Barack Obama and elevated him to his majestic throne and now they are feasting on his failures, just as some of us predicted two and half years ago. It’s not Barack Obama or the Democrats who need a backbone, we need a backbone. We are not powerless. We are powerful. We must not abdicate our leadership to those who have the backbone to stand up and speak to the fear that emboldens the speaker and seems to empower the fearful. There is no silver bullet. There is no magic pill that cures all our ills, and alas, no savior to lead us in creating the change we hoped was possible.

Each of us has the power to create what we need to live comfortably, not just for ourselves but for the rest of the world. The question is “Do we have the backbone to stand up and take responsibility for making our lives and the world a better place in which we can all live?” Can we follow the example of Hillary Clinton and go about our jobs with focus and persistence, creating the change we need? I continue to have hope.

Will We Be Good Girls and Fall In Line?

This race for the Presidency in 2008 isn’t about race or gender. It’s about blatant disgusting misogyny in high definition for the entire world to witness. Women across the world can see that women here in this country, touted to be the model of a democracy and land of the free, are as free as the white men allow and that it is white men who control the government and they will decide who will be President.

There is little difference in white men in this country and the Taliban in Iraq and Afghanistan. Women have soundly been put in their place in this country again. The white male media controls the politics and the slant of every story that runs over and over and over again. The media is saturated with their contempt of women evidenced by the tone and their inability to even begin to glean understanding of their blatant misogyny.

Will Obama win? Hillary can’t possibly continue to fight on so many fronts effectively. Her every action, taken or not taken is slanted to demean and belittle her as a politician. The crescendo from the white male press adds to the feeding frenzy around Obama and contributes to the mystic. He is a good speaker, but in reality no better than a lot of the Sunday morning pulpit lecturers. As the white boys sit and listen mesmerized by his accomplishments, i.e. being able to speak well, they see no deficits, only high praise for little substance. Meanwhile the public laps up the warm media milk like calves in the darkness.

Many women will abandon Hillary because the media says it’s over and the threat of four more years of the Republicans will in fact destroy this country, so let’s “heal the party” and moveon. We women are after all looked upon as compliant and healers of the “family”. We are expected to do what is right and best for all. We are expected to submit to the higher good, for all, except us!

Women have fought to regain our rights since we lost them thousands of years ago, when civilizations were matriarchal. The ancient memory of a different more peaceful way of life lies dormant in many our minds. Every now and then there is a bright ray of hope that manages to shine through the misogyny, warm us up a bit and even give us a glimpse of hope. Admittedly, it is difficult for many in my generation of wanting it all and thinking that anything is possible, to accept defeat, accept repression again and accept that little has changed in the minds of many over such a long period of time. These two concepts; Acceptance of Defeat Again and Understanding this Misogyny, are difficult for me to reconcile these days.

The assumption that all of the women supporters of Hillary will bow to Obama is grossly over estimated. Many may finally be able to see that neither party in fact stands for their values in a so called democracy. Many may be too busy to vote in the general election. Many may write in a name in protest in the general election. And, many may fall in line and be “good girls” because they believe they have acted independently reciting the media reasoning mantras for allowing them to vote for Obama: “We don’t have to vote for a woman just because she is a woman. We can vote for the “best candidate”; The candidate that is “best for the job” “The candidate that can unify the country”.

We can in fact vote for Obama in the general election, if he is the nominee. There is nothing to stop us and the milk is about the right temperature for human consumption. Slurp!

This Is What Leadership Looks Like!

The last few moments in the debate were important for Democrats and for Americans when Hillary captivated the audience in Texas and nationwide with her courage and her strength. It takes a statesperson to stop the madness of the press and the interest groups that are gleeful when we argue about minor differences in policy or lifting parts of speeches for use. It takes a leader to not attack an opponent but to leave the question for the voter. It takes a leader to reach not just across to her opponent and shake hands but to understand that the goal of unifying the party is paramount to her personal goal.


It’s interesting that both candidates propose almost identical agendas for the future. The male press, with their misogynist filters, attempt to throw Hillary under the bus, driven by the Obamacans, not because she is a horrible candidate but because they just don’t get it that a woman, yes, this woman, could be president. The press feed our fears about who is “electable”. That “code” leads the public, as press intends, to the inevitable “Bill Clinton” phobia. The male press feed the fears of re-living those years, when the Republicans, not Bill Clinton, made life for all of us miserable. It was the Republicans, not Bill Clinton who led the very public hunt for wrong doing that resulted not in deposing the president, but as I recall, the departure of several Republican elected officials when it was discovered that they couldn’t muster the high moral bar they had set for Bill Clinton.

Both of these candidates stand for change. Both are good people. Both are strong candidates. The questions are: Who can in fact bring the change we need and want? How can we, not the press decide that issue? If the press were fair, or even appeared to be fair and balanced, in their treatment of the candidates and the issues, the choice would be ours to make on facts not hype or a misogynist slant. But then, if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their behinds when they jumped.

Poll Tool:Reporting or Making the News?

I love watching the pollsters, journalists and pundits twist as they struggle to explain an unprecedented failure of their tool of persuasion, their polls. They don’t understand that the glass ceiling many older women have been bumping into for centuries is really a glass floor that all white men have been dancing on. Men have abused, suppressed and ignored women and have shaped public opinion by shouting down and dismissing women who disagree with them. (Watch Chris Matthews with women guests who disagree with his position.). Dan Abrams chuckled last night “The weather was warm and there were all of these old uh older women were coming to the polls”. Yep. Those old broads voted because it was warm enough for them to come out, otherwise the frail old women would have stayed at home.

I see this unprecedented poll failure as a great opportunity to reclaim the electoral process and force the media to report not make the news. Polling is the life blood of the pundits that gives them to power to speak for us and therefore, shape the outcome of elections. If we refuse to participate in the polls, they will have an opportunity to report not make the news. To begin to stop the spectacle of fabricating the news, hang up when a pollster calls; if pressed by a pollster lie, after all you’re not under oath; after you vote keep it private.

We shouldn't’t have been surprised by the results not being what we “expected” because we shouldn't’t have been expecting a result. Tom Brokaw was right when he said the press was trying to get in front of the news. We can insist that the press wait with the rest of us and do what they are supposed to do, report the news, not make the news.

Susan Herbst, the public policy professor from Georgia Tech., quoted in an ABC News article gave sage advice to the journalists, candidates and pundits; "I hope this is a wake up call for the journalists, candidates and pundits." I see the failure of the polls as a wake up call and an opportunity to take back the process of the voters electing our leadership; don’t participate in polls. Let’s see what the candidates, not the pundits really have to say about real issues.

We can vote for candidates based on what we see and hear from the candidates, not what the press thinks they see or hear about a candidate that they think we might want to see or hear. We don’t need more analogies and opinions from experts to explain what we see and hear. We know that “Father does not know best.”