Are We Stuck With Hillary?

The closer we get to primary season and actual votes being cast by actual voters, the less enthralled I am by the prospect of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee.

Don't get me wrong. I like Hillary -- sort of. I'm not one of those people who hates her guts and I'm also not one of those people who think she's a goddess. I fall in the middle of the road where Hillary's concerned. I voted for her twice to be Senator for New York, after all. But do I want her as my president? And, far more importantly, do I think she can win?

Whether Hillary can win depends on who she runs against. If she runs against Rudy Giuliani she's got a real shot -- the best shot she has, actually. It's been said that 40% of Bush's vote in 2004 came from Christian evangelicals, and those people will not vote for Giuiliani -- and they might vote for a Perot-esque third party candidate on the Christian right. So Hillary wins in that scenario.

But if she runs against Mitt Romney, I think the evangelicals will swallow hard and vote for the Mormon -- and against the idea of another Clinton in the White House. If the Republicans put Romney up against Hillary, I think Romney will win.

A lot of this depends on what happens in Iowa. If anyone else other than Hillary Clinton wins in Iowa -- even more so if they win convincingly -- then it's anybody's ballgame. John Edwards did surprisingly well in Iowa four years ago and it helped him win the vice presidential nomination. Could he win Iowa in 2008? Because whoever wins Iowa and New Hampshire (assuming the same person wins both) is the odds-on favorite for the nomination. If Hillary stumbles in both places, she's toast. After New Hampshire the race is like a snowball rolling down a mountain -- there's no time to make up for mistakes.

So I'll be watching the last few days before Iowa very carefully. If Barack Obama or John Edwards can manage to win in Iowa, then Hillary's nimbus of inevitability is gone, and it might be too late at that point to get it back.

Tom Moran

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

Sometimes a person says something so well, in fact so perfectly, that all you can do is sit back and appreciate it.

Let's appreciate the words of Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA). He's a brave man saying the unsayable, who will no doubt be blasted by the Right Wing Noise Machine for telling the simple truth:

"They sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fund the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you gonna get that money? You gonna tell us lies? Like you're telling us today? Is that how you're gonna fund the war? You don't have the money to fund the war or children. But you're gonna spend it to blow up innocent people if we can
get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Can't get much better -- or more honest -- than that.

Tom Moran

Ann Coulter, Incomplete Muslim

You've probably heard of (if not already seen) Ann Coulter's infamous TV appearance (timed to coincide with her latest book -- what a striking coincidence that is!), in which she claimed that Jews need "perfecting" -- that is, they need to become Christians.

Of course, the first Crusaders believed that as well, so they "perfected" the Jews of Jerusalem by burning them alive in their synagogues.

But I digress.

It's not, however, her notorious anti-Semitism (which has been pointed out by David Brock among others) that I want to discuss here. It's her logic -- and the consequences of it.

But first, take a look at what she has to say (and the delightful way she gets bitch-slapped by Donny Deutsch):



Still with me? Stopped vomiting yet?

Now, Coulter thinks that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians since, in her opinion, the New Testament takes the Old Testament one step further and is the culmination of it. Therefore, by her standards, a Jew is merely an incomplete Christian.

And yet, Muslims believe that Islam is the perfecting of both Judaism and Christianity, that the Koran takes both the Old and the New Testaments one step further and that Christians and Jews both need to be "perfected" by converting to Islam.

Therefore, Ann Coulter is an incomplete Muslim. As well as an idiot.

Tom Moran

A History Lesson for Mets Fans

My father had a story he loved to tell.

In the Fall of 1951 he was in the Naval Reserve on manuevers somewhere out at sea, and he and a couple of his crewmates were in the wardroom trying to get the first game of the World Series on the radio. It wasn't easy because the reception was lousy but they kept trying and finally they managed to get Armed Forces Radio through the static.

"Welcome.. [crackle crackle] to the first game of the 1951 World Series... [crackle crackle] between the New York Yankees..."

At this point my father took a big sip of coffee.

"... and the New York Giants."

My father spit the coffee all over the table and probably on a few of his fellow officers as well.

"The GIANTS?" he yelled. "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THE DODGERS?"

The Brooklyn Dodgers, you see, had been in first place by a dozen or so games when the ship had left port, some weeks ago, but after one of the biggest swan dives in baseball history, capped off by Bobby Thomson's "shot heard 'round the world" in a one-game playoff (which was 56 years ago today) they blew their chance to be in the World Series.

I would like to remind Mets fans, who are still grieving over the fact that their team blew a seven-game lead with 17 games left to play, that it's not the end of the world. There will always be a next year.

And in point of fact, the Dodgers were in the World Series four out of the next five years -- something Mets fans should keep in mind right about now.

Tom Moran