Ed has skewered the republicans over at his site, Debt is Slavery. He´s really got a knack for this blogging thing.

Dave is back from his honeymoon. I haven´t checked to see if he has any new material up at his College Football review  since I have come off a double loss weekend. The lack of quality football to which has forced me back into the politics.

I was asked today, over a delicious fish and chips and mushy peas lunch (these mushy peas put P´cheen's mushy peas to shame), who I voted for. "Bush, twice," I said. They asked if I was disapointed. I said I was, but I would vote the same way if I had to do it over again. Bush has done one-and-a-half things right in 7 years-- He fought the war, and Lowered Taxes. (any Republican shlub would have got those judges in). I´de rather someone do the right things poorly, than the wrong things well.

Anyhow, talk turned to Hillary.  I feel she might be decent, for a democrat. Her campaign has been sober about the war, but even if it was as looney as most of her competition, I get the impression that Hillary would throw a campaign promise or two under the bus once she got elected. Which brings me, rather clumsily, to what I really wanted to talk about...

I became a Republican shortly after Bill Clinton was elected, the moment he renigged on on his campaign promise to lower taxes on the middle class. (My step-brother's back-issues of the National Review may have prepared me for the tranformation). Bill´s explanation was something to the effect of "I want to do it, but once I got elected, I looked closely at the numbers, and there just isn´t any way we could afford it".

Now, I have brought this up many times before, and each time I was told that "Bill Clinton did not campaign on lowering the middle class tax burden". I was tempted to believe these doubters, since they were legion, and quite frankly it does sound kinda batty. But I remembered it vividly, and I am in fact now a republican. Finally, today after thinking about the odds that Hillary might renig on some of the wackier promises she may make to get elected, I did a quick google on Bill´s tax flop. Here is what I found:

That was the lead in of a New York Times article. This is from someplace called the New Book of Knowledge

Ok, so what is my point? Not too much. Except that I was right, and you were wrong. (You know who you are). There really arn´t a lot of parrelles between Bill and Hillary. Bill did a lot of good things because he had to, in order to stay popular. Being popular is that guys only motivation. The dude says "I" more than Al Swearengin says Cock-Sucker. (You don´t have to go far down my list of things I like about Bush before you get to "He NEVER talks about himself, or frames issues in terms of US vs Them, where Them is other American Politicians".)

Hillary, on the other hand doesn´t have a big psycological defect dominating her life. So she´s got that gong for her. But also, for some inexplicable reason, her rightward drift during the last few years rings true to me. Even though it´s surely just shrewed calculation on her part, I can´t help give her credit for it. Look, she´s a lefty through-and-through, I´ll grant you that, and I certainly don´t WANT her thunderous thighs wrapped around the yoke of government, but I can´t help but think that her time posing as a centrist, combined with her time in New York, combined with the success of all the conservative policies Bill had to enact on behalf of his pants and Newt´s revolution, means that´s she may actually see the light on many issues,  even if she won´t admit it.

Crazy thoughts for sure. I ask myself, if I am going to get all naive all of a sudden, why don´t I just buy into this Barack-as-savior meme going around. I dunno. I think I think that the pressures of the presidency would cause Barak to 'fail open', meaning that any reluctance to legislate he may have will be washed out quickly. I think Hillary ´s experiences with the right will cause her to 'fail shut', just like Bill did.