Hillary for Presidentby
Fred Reed
OK, at some point you have to take the manly course, stop equivocating, and set the helm of your country in wise directions. I’m going to do it. I am for Hillary. I don’t do this casually. I know that throwing the full weight of this column behind a candidate will alter the majestic currents of crime and moral pusillanimity that give direction to government everywhere. The fixed stars may deviate slightly in their paths through the sensorium of God. But someone has to do it. I know: I have said bad things about Hillary, as for example that she looks rumpled as a teenager’s room, that she probably belongs to some hitherto undiscovered arachnid phylum, that she is a cynical, calculating cold-blooded tax-and-spend virago with the personality of a walk-in refrigerator. These days that sounds pretty good. Strange times call for strange measures. At least she is not embarrassing. While she may be a walk-in refrigerator, she is an intelligent walk-in refrigerator. I say that if you are going to be ruled by an appliance, get a bright one. She speaks English, whereas the encumberment only hints around at it. (I don’t think a president should be permitted to make war on anything he can’t pronounce. But I’m a traditionalist.) There is every indication that Hillary finished high school. She is strong as distinct from fixated. And she suckered New York. What chance do you think the UN would have? Think about it. Hillary would be cheaper than Bush. All she wants is national health insurance, which would turn into a bloating financial disaster, a dead fiscal whale swelling rancidly on the beaches of government and attracting crooked doctors like blowflies. It would not, however, kill anyone. Not deliberately anyway. Note that Bush, continuing the Republican penchant for pricey entitlements, wants free pharmaceuticals, and wants me to pay for his wars. Does he pay for my hobbies? By the time he finishes conquering any country his keepers tell him about, Hillary’s bills are going to look like a breakfast tip in a rural diner. I note in passing that Hill has never killed a single GI. Hillary is the clear choice for conservatives, and the only choice for the intelligent, given that the Democrats chose not to field a candidate this year. I asked an ardent conservative friend what conservatives want. “Smaller government, lower taxes, avoiding foreign entanglements, and liberty,” he said. So much for the archliberal Bush. He spends in the manner of a tour bus of Boise matrons who just got to Cancun, tangles the country everywhere like kite string in a ceiling fan, apparently has never heard of the Bill of Rights, and we’re going to pay for his games with inflation. Which is just taxation without representation. Everything points to Hillary as the choice of conservatives. At one point during the Clinton’s sway in Washington, a minor scandal erupted because, according to sources in the great double-wide on Pennsylvania Avenue, Hillary had chased Bill around shrieking “Dickhead!” and throwing lamps at him. Now, given that conservatives hated Bill, should this not endear her to them? They never threw lamps at Bill. Again, she gets credit for forthrightness. Further, Hillary has a better military record than the other candidates. During Viet Nam, Bush used pull to get drunk in Texas while those who couldn’t escape that useful war died, and Kerry apparently used the three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule and some phony wounds to get out of combat. Nothing wrong with that. Most of the country wanted to do it. All the draftees of the time would have ducked if they could have. The difference between Bush and most of the draftees is that Bush had better connections. If you want to see how much the troops want to serve their country, in any war, give them the opportunity to come home without penalty. But Hillary didn’t dodge the draft, didn’t besot herself in the Guard, and has nothing whatever to lie about in her military record. Her time in combat equals that of most of Bush’s administration plus that of the entire staff of National Review. She must be up there with Audie Murphy. Notice that this supports the view of feminists that women can fight as well as most men. I’m hoping she will make Bill her secretary of defense. It’s a character issue. While Bush was pounding down shooters and waltzing Porcelain Mary in the Guard, Bill was forthrightly protesting the war in England. Like Eisenhower, he was against war, and had the courage to say so. Like George Washington, he didn’t want to gum the United States up in remote regions with bad plumbing. It’s true that he had a taste for chunky interns. I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and trust that as SecDef he would get sleeker ones. Another advantage of Hill is that she seems to a religious agnostic. Now, if Christianity means what CS Lewis did, I’m for it. But I worry about snake handlers, speakers in tongues, and those who regard themselves as the principal conduit between God and his wayward creation. When someone tells me that “the Almighty told me to do this,” I want to see the transcript. The rub is that if you figure God is sending you instructions, then you do whatever the little voices tell you without the least regard for common sense, observable fact, or human decency. Any stray thought that flickers through your mind becomes cosmic email from On High. It is a splendid way of avoiding responsibility for your actions. “I was only following orders.” It is what makes Moslem loons dangerous. Hillary may be an arachnid, but she isn’t a delusional arachnid. I do not worry that one morning she will wake up and think, “I think we need a land war with China. And yeah, I guess that’s what God wants to, or I wouldn’t have thought of it. Maybe I should nuke them first.”
Write her in. It is, astonishingly, the road of patriotism, or at least of lesser humiliation. November 1, 2004 Fred Reed [send him mail] is author of Nekkid in Austin: Drop Your Inner Child Down a Well. Copyright © 2004 Fred Reed |
