The iPINIONS Journal

A SAMPLING OF THE ARTICLES IN THE IPINIONS JOURNAL:The Kennedys: Dissing Hillary, endorsing Barack I’ve been doing quite a lot of business travel lately. (No doubt this is why I am now stricken with the flu - despite getting a flu shot.) But I was surprised to find that the only thing anybody wanted to talk about was the US presidential campaign. And this, despite my best efforts to get Britons to talk about the Diana inquest or about the political travails of PM Gordon Brown; and similar efforts to get Africans to talk about the tribal warfare still raging in Kenya or about the criminal travails of ANC leader Jacob Zuma in South Africa. Therefore, I hereby modify my vow to shun the primary horse race to bring you this update: In a New York Times Op Ed on Sunday, Caroline Kennedy made the truly stunning and unassailable proclamation that Obama would be a “President like my father.” And there’s no denying that her proclamation is tantamount to a slap in the face of all politicians (like Bill Clinton) who, for decades, have been touting themselves as heirs to the political legacy of her father, JFK. Here, in part, is what she wrote: I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans… That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama. Given that, I invite you to recall the hissy fit Bill threw after Obama merely suggested that Ronald Reagan was a more “transformative” president than he. Because only then can you appreciate what a devastating injury Caroline’s endorsement must have inflicted on his fragile ego. Not to mention the blow it delivered to Hillary’s imperial candidacy.... Far more important, however, is the insult that followed on Monday when Caroline’s uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), endorsed Obama as well. An insult, incidentally, which must have been exacerbated by the fact that, according to the Times, Bill pleaded with Sen. Kennedy for days last week to either endorse Hillary or stay neutral. Of course, his desperate pleas are understandable - given that Kennedy is the only person in the Democratic Party whose influence rivals Bill's; especially amongst poor whites, blacks, and Hispanics. It's time for a new generation of leadership... Through Barack, I believe we will move beyond the politics of fear and personal destruction and unite our country with the politics of common purpose... And I know he's ready to be president on day one! (Sen. Kennedy endorsing Obama in Washington, DC on Monday) It’s interesting to note, however, that close friends say Kennedy had become so disgusted with the Clintons’ race-baiting campaign to marginalize Obama that he regarded Bill’s pleas as nothing more than a pathetic attempt to spin him. But far more troubling for the former president is the cognitive dissonance developing in Democratic circles that he is showing himself to be little more than the white equivalent of Al Sharpton. [So what] Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Indeed, it could only have reinforced Kennedy's disgust when Bill uttered these cynical words after Obama won a landslide victory in the South Carolina primary on Saturday. Because it was lost on no one that Bill was trying to foment racial resentment amongst whites and Hispanics against Obama to get them to vote for Hillary. Frankly, what he was really saying to blacks in South Carolina, and implicitly to blacks all over America, is “ya’ll can kiss my white ass cuz we don’t need you to win!” And, given that Hispanics now outnumber blacks, he might be right.... At any rate, this begs the critical question: If Kennedy’s racial conscience has been so offended by the way the Clintons have played the race card against Obama, what does it say about the racial pride of blacks who continue to support them? And I respectufully submit that no black had a greater duty to address this question than Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. After all, she is primarily responsible for injecting into black consciousness the oxymoronic notion that Bill is “the first black president of the United States.” White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. (Toni Morrison in 1998) Therefore, I am pleased that Morrison joined the Kennedys on Monday in announcing her endorsement of Obama - as not only naturally but also politically far more worthy of this honor. I just hope that the many influential blacks who parroted her self-abnegating praise of Bill will now follow her commendable lead by eating their words too. Meanwhile, nothing could have been more dispiriting for the Clintons than their efforts to counter Sen. Kennedy and Caroline’s endorsement of Obama by trumpeting the support Hillary has amongst the children of Robert F. Kennedy (RFK). Because their efforts were summarily undermined by a report in the Times last weekend, which revealed that: Ethel, the widow of RFK, referred to Mr. Obama … as ‘our next president’ and likened him to her late husband. Now, with the Kennedys proclaiming Obama the only legitimate heir to the political legacies of both JFK and RFK, let us pray that their endorsements do not turn out to be as much a blessing as a curse.... NOTE: I doubt anyone cares that President Bush delivered his final State of the Union Address on Tuesday. But, anticipating that the drama of this year’s campaign would eclipse his lame-duck presidency, here’s what I wrote in my commentary on Bush’s 2007 address: The only thing on anyone’s mind listening to Bush [during his 2008 address] will be: 'I wonder who'll be standing there next year…Hillary or Obama?' [Bush’s all-too-familiar State of the Union Address, TIJ, Vol. III, p. 16] Was I right or what?! January 29 With Hillary, the truth depends on catching her in a lie Everybody in politics lies, but [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling. (David Geffen, Entertainment mogul and former Clinton fundraiser, in February 2007) When former Senator Bob Kerry, a Democrat from Nebraska, called Bill Clinton “an unusually good liar” in 1996, he might have been motivated as much by political envy as by moral indignation. Yet not even Kerry could have fathomed the depth of Bill’s pathology for telling lies. After all, this was before Bill wagged his finger at the American people and declared “I did not have sex with that woman ... Ms. Lewinsky;” and before he compounded this lie by dissembling under oath that having sex “depends on what the meaning of is, is.” But what no one could have fathomed is that his saintly wife Hillary is even more afflicted with this pathology. Indeed, there’s an obvious reason why Bill’s nose is so big; whereas Hillary reeks of such self-righteousness that one can be forgiven the impression that every word she utters is the gospel truth. Therefore, it seems a case of divine retribution that she was caught telling a whopper about her mission to Bosnia that would make even Bill blush. Because Hillary has been claiming throughout this campaign that her landing there was “harrowing.” In fact, just last week, here’s how she reiterated her self-aggrandizing version of events to burnish her Commander-in-Chief bona fides (i.e., as an example of why she would be “ready on day one to answer that 3 a.m. phone call at the White House”): I certainly do remember that trip … to Bosnia… There was a saying around the White House that if a place was too poor, too dangerous, the president couldn’t go so send the first lady and that’s where we went. And, ah, I remember landing under sniper fire. It was