Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Pillory for Billary

Imagine, if you will, that a prominent corporation is holding final talks for its CEO position and one of the leading applicants invites her spouse to speak on her behalf at the last interview.

Welcome to the "Billary" campaign for Brand America.

To whomever coined the Billary term, my nod for the apt neologism. It should be a place of shame and public scorn -- for the Hillary Clinton campaign specifically and for women in politics in general -- that Frau Clinton cannot run a campaign for the most influential position in world politics without her husband holding solo press conferences that snipe at her political opponent.

In Monday's ABC Morning News interview, Obama responds, "You know the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling."

That's an understatement.

There's no doubt that President Clinton's time on the campaign trail has directly influenced the race. Indeed, CNN reports that yesterday's exit polling in South Carolina may have created a net negative effect that handed the state to Obama. And one Charleston reporter for the Sunday Times went so far as to say "Bill Clinton’s emergence as the leading attack dog for his wife raises the vexing question of whether Hillary can win and govern without him."

...a position that the Republican Party will be sure to exploit should Billary win the Democratic nomination.

Disturbingly, Frau Clinton's campaign remains not only unapologetic but defensive of President Clinton's meddling.

Enough already!

It is either time to put "Billary" aside and have Hilary Clinton re-emerge as a qualified candidate on her own merits or for Democratic voters to decide that she evidently doesn't have what it takes to become President of the United States of America.

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Bonus link: Bill Clinton says, "Screw it. I'm in." (The Onion, 23 Jan 2008)

Saturday, January 05, 2008

It's been 2 years

...and Berlin still holds me close. Do I dare leave? Even for a moment?

Homeward I go.

Home.

Where is that exactly?

Just 30 more days and I will fly back for my first visit in two fleet-footed years. I've seen Amsterdam again in the time since. And both Begur and Barcelona, although I neglected to blog of it.

But heading back for three weeks in D.C. seems practically unreal. How could I have been away for so long?

How can it be that as quickly as I will arrive, I will be gone again.

Friends here occasionally ask me what I miss.

Well, it sure ain't politics. (Although seeing Hilary Clinton eat crow on CNN in the post-Iowa fallout sure felt nice.)

I miss veggie burgers at the American City Diner with Vicki. Chocolate bread pudding, tofu-avocado salad, Tex-Mex-Salvadoran... And just yesterday, Meg, Kathy and I were chatting about RT's and the best calamari in town.

It will be a food tour!

And, no doubt, I will be craving a Berliner Currywurst by the time it is all done.

It's nearly 1:30 a.m. here. Alex comes tomorrow and we will paint my kitchen wall into a big ol' magnetized chalkboard. (Maybe that's it: Home is Where the Paint Is.)

Time for bed.

See you all soon.

No, no, really.

Soon.

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P.S. I miss you too.

Two years and I am still very much

Yours.