Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: Time to go, Hillary
By Michael Devlin
The Chronicle (Duke)
03/26/2008

(U-WIRE) DURHAM, N.C. — In 1996, then-President Bill Clinton urgently sought an elite team to quash burgeoning violence in Bosnia.

"There was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady," Sen. Hillary Clinton said in a March 17 speech.

But there was another part of that White House saying, one that Hillary Clinton never mentions: "Send Sinbad with her. If he's booked, go with Carrot Top. But, seriously, not Pauly Shore. This is Bosnia, guys-no need to break out the big guns."

Clinton says she faced unrelenting danger in Bosnia. "I remember landing under sniper fire," she said. "There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

But Sinbad disagrees. And, oddly enough, Clinton did have time to stop and kiss a young Bosnian girl on the tarmac, according to The Washington Post and a 1996 Associated Press photo.

Honestly, this is the weirdest political campaign I've ever followed. On March 21, Politico.com reported that a Clinton campaign adviser estimated her chances at winning the nomination to be 10 percent, prompting Politico to claw its way out of the rabbit hole by finally saying, "The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe."

But Clinton is still in the race, demanding victory based on murky claims about "experience" and a bizarre fantasy involving snipers, Eastern Europe and Sinbad, the world's worst comedian. She is tearing the Democratic Party apart while intentionally weakening Sen. Barack Obama.

Consider the silly uproar over the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ. Obama obviously hates white people-his mother and grandparents included-because his pastor made some dumb statements. But in 2006 John McCain patched up his relationship with the late Jerry Falwell, who said that God committed the September 11 attacks to punish America for the "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way."

So does McCain believe that America deserved the Sept. 11 attacks or that God is a terrorist mastermind?

Of course not. The Jeremiah Wright "scandal" has been fueled by Fox News' unrelenting belief in American racism. Religions are built around wacky speakers. Talk about a murderous God who crashes jumbo jets into abortionists, and you're good. But bring up race and you are dangerously un-American. And this is why Sen. Clinton's stubborn refusal to lose her nomination bid with dignity is becoming so destructive. Race will be an untouchable issue for the McCain campaign, because Obama's nomination will be an inspiring, watershed moment in the history of race in America. That's not a good electoral environment for a 71-year-old white Republican insensitive to issues of race. During the general election campaign, McCain would probably squash the Wright story himself to avoid the issue of race altogether. He has already publicly denounced a supporter who made an issue of Obama's middle name, Hussein.

But that watershed moment doesn't happen until Hillary Clinton drops out. Before then, the McCain campaign has little strategic incentive to stifle the controversy. And Americans don't yet view Obama as the first black citizen to become the presidential nominee of a major party. Unfortunately, I think some Americans will be influenced by nonsense like the Wright "scandal" until Obama is anointed as the Democratic Party nominee.

Every day she stays in the race, Clinton weakens Obama. She leaves him vulnerable to Fox News' talking heads, who try to create anxiety about Obama based on racial fears. And she makes her own attacks daily, of course. When her own campaign admits that her chances at winning the nomination are only 10 percent, her stubbornness is disloyal to the Democratic Party and to the American people.

So do the right thing and vote for Obama in the upcoming North Carolina primary. And rent "Houseguest," too. It has aged surprisingly well.

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