the carpetbagger

i'm quite happy that recent polls have found incumbent democratic connecticut senator joe lieberman to be falling behind his primary challenger. seems joe's embrace of republican agenda points like iraq and the late terri schiavo have caught up with him: said challenger's campaign has apparently even issued buttons with the kissing lips of betrayal, an allusion to a peck and embrace mr. lieberman received from president bush.

sadly, our own incumbent democratic senator hillary clinton has not yet been called to task for her own embrace of the republican agenda. it seems there will be an anti-war democrat as a primary challenger but his campaign has not caught the momentum of lieberman's challenger.

you know, I wanted to like hillary. she bravely campaigned for national healthcare during her husband's presidency until she was crushed by that vast right-wing conspiracy. she had a bad rep smeared all over her like so many powerful women playing second fiddle to powerful men: somehow even in the relatively insignificant monica lewinsky so-called scandal hillary was tarred with the same brush applied to her husband. sad, really. for all the defects of mr. clinton's presidency it seems like paradise in retrospect.

when mrs. clinton moved to new york to be senator, at first i thought, "cool." her opponents called her a carpetbagger and i thought, well, she's a progressive and wants to represent a relatively progressive region; no problem there.

well ok a, hillary is not a ball-busting shrill harridan uppity cold bit**h bulldagger, which is really what the republicans were accusing her of being. but she is, apparently, a carpetbagger.

a very intelligent woman, well aware of symbols, she has made anti-flag burning amendments her own cause celebre. she has embraced the israeli lobby at its worst. she has failed to distance herself from the war. and while she was tragically far from alone in voting for bush's war at the beginning, she has had many opportunity to join the democrats leaping from that sinking ship and express her regret. no go. she used the platform provided to her by new york's progressives to further her own right-of-center agenda. she betrays the feminists and progressives who see in this outspoken and strong woman the hopes shattered back in the day of geraldine ferraro.

her campaign brags how she now focuses so much attention on the needs of upstate new yorkers. beware, I say. apparently mrs. clinton feels that if she can get herself reelected to the senate with a stronger showing among more conservative upstaters, she can use this to deflect critics who--shockingly--portray her as some kind of unelectable ultra-leftist should she run for president in 2008. in the end she's just using upstate new yorkers as she once used those of us in the city.

i am really not in the mood for president rudy giuliani and the apocalyptic police state he would foist upon us. let's get rid of this carpetbagger hillary rodham clinton now before we open that bag and find a very nasty surprise.