It was bound to happen, now Obama throws… his Papa under the bus…

Hillary Clinton: Not a Bitch, Not an angle, but a legendary woman!

During the Iraq war, I was completely astonished with the bias of the American media. There was a sharp contrast with the rest of the world. They had managed to have a truly simplistic coverage of the events, as if the media and their so-called pundits knew the truth, and the pure evil was there in its horrible and scary disguise. They were calling the verdict firm and loudly: The war was justified. It was like yet another Hollywood story: good vs. bad; pretty vs. ugly, and rich vs. poor. As a young woman, a mother, a doctor and an activist, I found the whole treatment of the war by the American media including those who claim to be liberal, was completely insane. There was no variety of ideas reflected in the media, as their world was not so magnificently colorful, and as their vision was merely black and white. And, now we fully know how wrong they were, and what a poor job they performed.

This is exactly how I feel again regarding the media in their coverage of the democratic primaries. Though they are not alone, there is indeed another culprit – the non-democratic actions of the leadership of the Democratic Party. It is as if I am again in another nightmare, and this time I am even a bit more disgusted and disappointed to see how human beings in 21st centuries can behave in such a primitive manner and show the lack of respect for democracy. Indeed how little the American media had learned from their own mistakes.

Well, let’s start from the end. Hillary has won the popular vote! I would like to make this point crystal clear. Hillary Clinton obtained 18,046,007 votes, and Barak Obama obtained 17,869,542 votes. It is a difference of +176,465 votes*. This is considering the caucus estimation according real clear politics that already considers advantages of Obama. It is true that Obama himself, without any pressure from the DNC, took his name off the ballet in Michigan, along with some others including John Edwards. To be fair, all non-Clinton votes were however given in the category of uncommitted that obtained 238,168 votes in Michigan. Indeed Obama and Edwards supporters were very active in Michigan to encourage people to vote for this category. Clinton had systematically a double-digit lead of c.a, 15%. The average of the polls (within +/-4%) were telling us that Edwards was around 15% of the total vote and Obama had around 30%, meaning if we distribute all the votes of uncommitted amongst these two gentleman based on what they were supposed to get, by being very generous towards Mr. Obama and giving him around 70% of uncommitted votes, he should obtain within the error bars, 158,778 more votes from Michigan. If we add this number to the above-mentioned number, he would have obtained 18,028,320. It would mean, Hillary has still obtained more votes (+17,678). One interesting point is that during the last three months, she had an advantage of over a half-million votes and was leading more states, as the Americans had a feeling of the buyer’s remorse in regard to Barak Obama. My point is that Hillary is the winner of the popular vote and not a “real” loser than most American media is talking about. If this situation had happened in Europe or even in Canada, this point was not missed, or just occasionally mentioned, in the US media or by the leaders of the Democratic Party. People would have made a big deal out of it, that the presumptive nominee does not have the popular vote advantage, or the advantage on the large electoral rich states, or even the important swing states. Your media did not put much fuss about the fact that the decision was made by a group of people called superdelegates who did not choose to follow the voice of majority of their constituency. Otherwise Clinton could have won, as she won overwhelming the major states with the exception of Mr. Obama’s home state of Illinois and North Carolina. Did we hear often such arguments in the US media? Rarely yes, but more we heard about coronation of Obama. Well, I forgot! They had already chosen Obama as the superman, long time ago, and of course, they have been wrong in many occasions.
The media along with the “old” men and women of the Democratic Party who had not been particularly amongst Clinton fans, were too harsh on Hillary during the campaign. It was tiresome and indeed boring to hear the so-called pundit comments. Most Figures that they represented were incorrect, and one had to question if they were representing Obama’s camp or they were indeed independent and free spirited journalists. The body language and comments of DNC officials such as Ms. Pelosi were disgraceful, and of course, articles published in mainstream media from CNN, MSNBC, to Washington Post and New York times were astonishingly homogeneous. They portrayed the scenario as we had a heroic gorgeous black man, and of course, that old bitch! Yes, all comments about her “bottom”, her “cleavage”, her “wrinkles”, her being every man’s “first wife”, to of course their all-favorite title, the “bitch”. It was a sad confirmation of why women of any color in the united states of American had obtained their right to vote, after the black men. It is was another example why many developed and developing countries have women as their head of state, but not the USA. It was evident that misogyny is more tolerable than racist remarks. I was not surprised to see many women aligned themselves with Obama and were amongst the harshest critics of Ms. Clinton. Unimaginative clichés comments such as “I love to vote for a woman but not for Hillary Clinton?” or “I could have never tolerated to stay with that cheating man”. I could not stare at their remarks with disbelief thinking “was not women movement around the world, about the choice for women? Was not the freedom to choose to stay or leave? Should the women be punished for the mistakes of their partners? Or should they be judged by it?” I ask to those women a few questions: Why were you so harsh on your own gender? Well, “cat fights” were always pleasing to men, but many women have evolved beyond this point and had understood their own worth and the value of sisterhood and friendship. My question is to them: were you as critical and objective towards all other the male candidates? If it was for the sake of quality, I would have not minded it much, but I think that it was never the case. I never thought “sweetie” calling Mr. Obama was intellectually very impressive. Well, I do not find condescending remarks, appealing. They merely illustrate the weakness of the character of the speaker. The interesting part was that the media basically ignored his name-calling women as “sweeties” and in one case, when he sent his apology to prevent a backlash, the radio moderators were so kind to him, calling him “such a great man who apologizes”. I never applaud for a man or a woman who calls an African American, a Niger, and I definitely do not respect a man of any race who calls a woman “sweetie” along with very condescending manners, as exhibited by Mr. Obama many times in the course of this campaign.
There are many other examples of media bias. One of the worst alleged mistakes of Hillary was her infamous sniper attack in Bosnia during her visit in 90s. However, as pointed out very nicely in the UK journal of the Guardian, this misplaced statement of was exaggerated by the media to undermine her, and indeed the situation was very dangereous and her plan was warned for sniper attacks. The examples are numerous, one of them is during the “faith forum” by CNN. The female moderator, Campbell brown talked down to Hillary, while giving a heroic welcome to Obama. Of course, we should not forget about MSNBC gangs who have successfully managed to conceptualize consistently what uncivilized manners can be at its worst. My point is that the media chose their candidate, Obama, and tried hard to eliminate the competitor, Clinton. The Democratic Party leaders also tried to push her out since February 2008. They knew full well that she would lead in the popular votes despite their illogical comments. They definitely did not want her to win, their last act on June 3rd was like a “coup d’etat” than a final primary and it was largely played with the help of the media. The Associated press, in the morning of June 3, had the headline that Clinton had conceded, when the voting in two states were still ongoing. Despite, it, Hillary won by double digit in one of those two final states that were called consistently by “obama” supporters as his, but due to the coup on June 3rd, he had already reached the magic number with the help of superdelegates. Hence the discussions regarding the popular votes, states won, and … were not explored by the media. Of course, the coup by the DNC leaders was in making for several months. Indeed their decision on Michigan and Florida votes were quite consistent with their support for Obama. Perhaps, for their own power territorial reasons, though I give them the benefit of having other objectives, but I hardly think that it had anything to do with winning in November, as she was doing much better in the swing states, and there was no evidence for better performance by Obama. After all, was not Hillary’s husband the only democratic president that was elected twice during the last 6 decades? The DNC leaders knew full well that Hillary along her husband possess qualities that they deprived, winning instinct being one of them.

The undemocratic caucus system in the DNC led Obama to get more delegates, but not enough to reach the threshold. The caucuses are quite time consuming and hence hinders people with disabilities, elderly, young parents, and many people working in weekends to participate. Indeed, a big disadvantage for Hillary, as she led the votes amongst women, elderly and working-class democrats, those who could not participate in large numbers in caucuses. The number of people assisting the caucuses is significantly lower than primaries because of these long hours of commitments. Although historically, there were some logics for their existence, but in today’s world, it is totally outdated and undemocratic as it eliminates the participation of the majority of the voting population. To illustrate some shortcomings of caucus system and unfair assignment of delegates, I will give example of Texas; similar trends are observed in states such as Washington and Nebraska. In Texas, over 2.7 million people participated. Hillary obtained over 101,000 votes (4%). The same people who participated in primaries were given the opportunity to cast vote in caucuses on the same day, only this time less than 43,000 (not 2,700,000) people voted, and Obama led by 12%, giving him a total of 5 additional delegates than Clinton, as the votes of hundreds of thousands of people were not counted. If Democratic Party believes in democracy, they should revise their system in future.
The most important issue is the comparison of the quality Hillary Rodham Clinton to her opponent Barak Obama. I researched both candidates immensely, even going through uninteresting legislations (or mostly lack thereof work, in case of Mr. Obama). Although I am not American, I have to admit, I was touched by Obamamania. I have been a fervent antiwar activist and I naturally was thus inclined towards him. The first astonishing discovery was that he did not do much prior to the war to stop the war, or being an active part of the movement, not at all, in comparison to the regular people in the roads of worlds’ major cities including the normal antiwar activists in the states. Ambassador Wilson and his wife were right, in the antiwar movement; Mr. Obama was an unknown, when standing for what is right was not a la mode in the US politics. This discovery was cold water on me, as I thought that he was honest, and I found a large discrepancy between his claims and the reality. Still I thought that no one is perfect why should we expect perfection from politicians when as I once heard, the first ranked people do not usually run for politics. When I found out about Dr. Alice Palmer, and how he managed to get her out of the race so that he runs with no real competitor was a real blow to me. I started asking myself that this gentleman who is full of passive-aggressive moves does lack major qualities, honestly is one of them, along with conceit and the lack of respect. I truly discovered his unimpressive performance in Illinois senate even in comparison with his several other democratic colleagues. Of course, as soon as he arrived in the US senate, he started to run for president and he has not accomplished much. This is a clear contrast with Clinton who had accomplished tirelessly so much through unselfish bi-partisan initiatives providing solutions for her state and for the US in general. Is it a sharp contrast with the image of “bitch” that media portrayed for her? She has shown an immense and in-depth multifaceted knowledge. No body can deny her mastery of subjects during her debates and her active mind and her superior knowledge on wide range of subject showing a superior intellect in comparison to Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama is much more natural speaker with great oratorical skills, but his content is often borrowed from the historical and/or literarily texts (of course, without giving credits to them) and lacks originality. It is quite expectable that people make mistakes during the long campaigns and they misspeak, I can fully understand it. Though there were a few occasions his errors were not tolerable. One was a during a TV debate about Pakistan, the moderator inquired Mr. Obama about his another earlier naïve comments regarding this strategic but not very stable country that is equipped with nuclear bomb. He opened up his mouth with his usual overconfidence, closing his eyes to demonstrate some wisdom, adding that he would talk seriously with Musharraf, and he continued with his sermon-like speech. His comments were clearly showing that the had absolutely no clue that the Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s opponents had won recently a big election victory and voters had rejected his former ruling party, raising doubts whether this U.S. ally could keep his power. Hence, the offer of such talks would be looked with suspicion in the whole region. Of course, his gaffes regarding the language of Afghanistan being Arabic (it is indeed Pashto and Dari!), or missing the population of India by about 40%, 57 US states, and many others, were quite indicative of his lack of knowledge on variety of simple commonly known subjects by the elites in most societies in industrial and developing world. People cannot be kept away from information forever the truth can be imprisoned for long. A large portion of the human population has seen wars, been discriminated, and they have seen many nice orators such as Mr. Obama or much better, they can distinguish between the rhetoric and substance. It will not take long that the façade of novelty of Mr. Obama will fade away, as it was shown in the democratic primary, when most people in later states voted against him despite the media and the support from DNC leaders. We never know everything but when you run for an office, however, you have to have the judgment to recognize what you know and what you do not. As a philosopher once said that if you do not know and you do not know that you do not know, you are heading for trouble.
My title was about Hillary, and I finish with my praise and thanks to her. I started my journey as many other women by distrusting her for the crimes she had never committed. I respected the Clintons economic, development planning, and international peace initiatives. I knew that she is different but she was intellectually equal to Bill, and her contributions to Bill Clinton administration was not drinking tea and biscuits as Mr. Obama unkindly referred. As with a good friend, as I got to know her work better, heard her speeches, studied her works, my respect for her increased. I have never met her in my life, she is not from my country, and I should not personally get attached to a primary election in the states. But the American election is not just an election, it is also my election. It affects the humanity; it affects its economy, its environment, its development, and its stability. It can bring peace or start wars, it can kill and it can build. By following Hillary during the last year, I hoped for Americans to go beyond just word. For God sakes, the Hollywood movies are just movies, get real. I hoped that the American choose a person, who never claimed to be a saint, who took responsibilities of her mistakes, but above all, I loved the fact that no wind could push her around (well until the coup on June 3rd), no harsh action could shake despite her having a big heart. She believed deeply in her principals. Her character was shown to me not only by the words she said but also by her actions, by her determination, by her strength of character, by connection to people, by her love, by her feistiness and her zest for live. She has become a legend, and every single 18,000,000 people who voted for her are her witnesses. I have always been very strong but Hillary, by her perseverance, showed me to be even stronger. This time, people voted for her but system was not ready for her. I will be however look forward to seeing Ms. Clinton as a future president of the US, I truly hope that the Americans can see it next time, and the Democratic party and the media treat Hillary Rodham Clinton, and all women who come after her, with respect, fairly and justly.

Just wondering how Obama will throw his current supporters under the bus when he loses the election in November. Or will they sojourn together to a new utopian village, Obamatown, Guatemala?

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