Sunday, June 1, 2008

Bad States, Bad

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has at last spoken and the states of Michigan and Florida have had their hands slapped for breaking the rules. But what about Hillary? She broke them too.

All the other candidates when the DNC decided to censure these two states from jumping ahead in the primary slate removed their names from the ballots. But not Hillary. She even campaigned in Florida knowing it would not count. Sorry, folks but this reminds me a lot of G.W. Bush who feels the rules are not for him.

Well, she whined enough that the DNC decided to hold a meeting and see if the could come up with a compromise that would satisfy all parties. I think it did rather the reverse but such is the nature of compromises at times. And it is not like Michigan has not tried this before. Or that the Clintons have shown a tendency to follow the rules if it does not benefit them. But as a trainer of dogs I know if you don't make them sit when you say sit the first time they will take it as meaning they can sit when they damn well want to sit. I see that rather too much in our politicians as it is.

In fact there is in this country a growing tendency to not make people, organizations, businesses, Presidents, states, kids or even dogs suffer the consequences of their actions. We are so afraid of how it will look, or the potential for lawsuits that we tip toe around and just mumble under our breath how bad this or that was. We never even tried to impeach G.W.Bush for lying about Iraq and its WMD. But we impeached Bill Clinton for lying about sex with Monica. Our rules and the degree to which we want to enforce them seems all to flexible.

There seem to be different sets of rules. In the court system there is clearly a set of rules for the rich (O.J.Simpson among others) and another set for the poor which are nameless and numerous. Politics seems to also have different sets of rules for those that whine and for those that try to play fair. And Florida and Michigan clearly backed the DNC into the corner by threatening to go Republican. And Hillary won some of the illegally obtained delegates by whining (something I find particularly reprehensible in women because we get accused of it unfairly at times). But she did not get them all. And it did not put her ahead of Obama that played by the rules set by the DNC.

So just let me add: Bad States, Bad; Bad DNC, Bad; Bad Hillary, Bad. Go to your crates until you can behave like good dogs. Nobody report me to the SPCA please.

4 comments:

  1. You see it too: the flexible rules system! Funny how it doesn't seem to kick in for those of us down in this tax bracket.

    I've seen Hillary use many, many Republican tactics during this campaign; for example during yesterday's DNC Rules meeting there were a large group of her supporters screaming and shouting at the DNC Committee members, not unlike what Republican operatives did in Florida in 2000 during the recount. But then, she was Republican before she met Bill Clinton.

    That sense of "entitlement" that Gov. Richardson spoke of smells bad on her...I'll never support a Clinton again. Not even for dogcatcher.

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  2. I saw that reluctance to hold individuals accountable way too many times as a teacher. Talk about a Catch-22...make sure the students succeed, but don't you dare hurt their precious "self-esteem" by giving them consequences for not working. The final straw was when I was beat up by a student and the principal decided it was easier for her to blame me than to deal with what hapened. And then there was the principal in Baltimore who told a teacher who was assaulted in class that her comment to the student that she would defend herself was "inflammatory." Maybe it's time to put the animal trainers in charge - at least they know how to get results.

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  3. Seems to me that it's a case of don't do as I do, do as I say.
    But I learned yesterday that Hillary was a Republican until she met Bill! Whoops!

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