Michael Gerson is a pimp (I hope I don't get fired for saying that)

I have to say that while I have thoroughly enjoyed many of Michael Gerson's columns, I was not enamoured of his idea of "Heroic Conservativism" and have been a little skeptical of his thinking since his recent book publication.

But Michael Gerson knocks one out of the park, today, with his column on Hillary Clinton.

Hillary's Unappealing Path

An extended series of gems from that column:

"Hillary Clinton's attempt to define a narrative of her own has been hobbled because her campaign is defined by the rejection of rhetoric. Obama's eloquence and idealism are dismissed as "abstract" and a "fairy tale" in contrast to Clinton's experience and policy substance. It is difficult for a campaign to inspire while using "inspiration" as an epithet.

This theory has other drawbacks. As a lawyer, first lady and senator, Clinton has had little actual experience running anything -- except for a White House health-care policy process that was a spectacle of arrogance and ineffectiveness. And on a purely political level, this argument for experience comes at an odd time, when Americans are generally disillusioned with both Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

The challenge for Clinton is that her other options -- the other narratives for her campaign -- are equally flawed:

First, there is Hillary the Fighter. In recent interviews, Clinton has come out swinging with negative attacks -- what she once referred to as "the fun part" of politics. Obama has "questions to answer about his dealings with . . . a big nuclear power company" as well as with "Mr. Rezko." But it is hard to imagine American voters thinking: "If only the Clintons were a little more ruthless, I'd finally support them." It is this very trait -- after a series of racially charged attacks -- that many Americans, including many liberals, found more repulsive than "fun."

Second, there is Hillary the Comeback Kid. One campaign official commented, "We're taking a long-term approach to the campaign and look at it as a delegate game. This is not like the playoffs, where if you don't win you don't advance." No -- my mistake -- that was not a Clinton official, it was Rudy Giuliani's campaign manager speaking last year. Giuliani tried -- as Clinton is trying -- to disprove an iron rule of politics: When you lose a lot, you eventually look like a loser.

Third, there is Hillary the Tested. "I've been examined one side up and the other side down," argues Clinton, while Obama has not. Well, it is true that the Clintons have been endlessly vetted -- but mainly because their shared career has been an endless string of scandals. Stuart Taylor of the National Journal recently took a depressing stroll back through the derelict funfair of the Clinton years: the deceptions about Gennifer and Monica, the Travelgate firings, the prosperous trade in cattle futures, the questionable transactions of Castle Grande, the strange case of the misplaced billing records. In the midst of these colorful controversies, Taylor observes, Clinton has developed "a bad reputation for truthfulness and veracity."

It is not enough to be vetted. The goal is to be vetted and found clean.

Though it is increasingly unlikely, Clinton may still have a path to the nomination -- and what a path it is. She merely has to puncture the balloon of Democratic idealism; sully the character of a good man; feed racial tensions within her party; then eke out a win with the support of unelected superdelegates, thwarting the hopes of millions of new voters who would see an inspiring young man defeated by backroom arm-twisting and arcane party rules.

Unlikely -- but it would be a fitting contribution to the Clinton legacy of monumental selfishness."

Wow. How fuckin' more dead on can one evangelical get?

Michael and I have many disagreements. He is a conservatives who is, ironically, more enamoured of big government than I am. And while I respect his pro-life and anti-gay marriage social conservativism, I'm a big believer in letting people run their own lives and make their own choices as the best path to people learning to do good in the world.

But one thing that Michael and I have in common that I think helps explain both of our aversions to Ms. Clinton is that for all of my disagreements with Michael, he is a really decent guy. He's a nice guy. A good guy. Charles Krauthammer is smart as all shit. But as his "see only evil" column on Barack Obama demonstrates today, Charles is a serious prick, much of the time. And what Michael and I both don't like in Hillary Clinton - along with our policy differences with her - is that Hillary Clinton is kind of a prick, too, of a quasi-feminine variety. She is a vindictive and nasty bitch. And God knows why anyone would think that such people are safe people with which to invest power.

And Michael Gerson is a serious pimp for calling out Hillary Clinton on her bullshit.

As an aside, is it wrong to say that Chelsea Clinton looks about 100 times better now that she has been publicly compared to a prostitute?

OK, now I know I'm getting fired.

Honesty and politics

Andrew Sullivan gets to the heart, for me, of what is so disgusting about the current political era.

Obama, Clinton, and the war

What disgusts me in how the politics of this war have played out is the dishonesty. How so many in Washington who supported this war without enough thought to its consequences, who cheerlead policies that are clearly failing, and who stick by their policy of pressure, force, and aggression as some kind of engine for democratic progress, how all of these people cannot give it up, will make tragedy of as many peoples' lives as necessary to maintain it, all because of an intellectually and otherwise dishonest resistance to admit when they are wrong.

It is wrong to use power and to explicitly advocate the use of power as a smokescreen for one's mistakes and failures. It is wrong to make tragedy of the lives of others because you cannot face up to those failures. It is human to ignore the evidence contrary to your sacred notions as a means of avoiding your mistakes of judgment and failures of policy. But it wrong to do so when it means ruining, ending, or otherwise seriously fucking with the lives of others because you are too stubborn to face the greatest pride of people in politics: that they might be wrong, about anything.

And every excuse that I have ever heard on this one is one long self-fulfilling prophecy of why pressure made me do it and pressure is the wave of the future and pressure is the force for democratic change and pressure is why I am not responsible for my votes or my policies or whatever the political case may be.

Force is power. Force is freedom. Force is honesty. Force is progress.

Force is everything but me having to admit that I'm wrong. Because that may reduce my power, my ability to use force. And without me having the capacity to force change, where would this world be?

Put this political period on fast forward for 70 years and you might understand the depth of the deception that was Soviet Communism. Put it on fast forward for almost 40, 50, 60 years and you might understand the depths of the deception of Saddam Hussein's Baathism, Fidel Castro's Cuban Communism, the North Korean Communism of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong Il, or Mao Tse Tung's and subsequent generations of Chinese Communism.

It's dishonest is what it is. Intellectually and otherwise. It is the essence of what people like George Orwell, Lord Acton and the like warned us about power. And there is no opportunity for us to shed its ugly legacy until enough people call it out for what it is.

As someone who doesn't covet power, I seriously underestimated what people will do to have and keep it.

I only hope that I haven't underestimated the ability of more honest folks to see through it.

Madeleine Albright is on a roll

Toward a true dialouge

"First, it is a mistake to conceive of this region or the world as divided between people who do no wrong and those who do no right; between moderates and extremists, secular and religious, evil and good.

A simplistic and triumphal mind-set cannot guide us through a complicated reality. Blame for past mistakes and current disputes must be widely shared; and answers will not be found unless the interests of all are taken into account.

Second, America's enemy is not Islam, nor any subset of Islam. Nor is it Islamic terrorism, for terrorism is by its nature un-Islamic. In the fight against Al Qaeda, Americans of every faith and faithful Muslims of every description are on the same side.

Third, neither America nor any other country can be considered above the law. Every nation is obliged to respect human rights, observe global conventions, and abide by UN Security Council resolutions. Power unhinged from law lacks legitimacy and will inevitably be opposed.

Finally, America must pursue peace in a determined and even-handed way. No U.S. president will waver in supporting the survival and security of Israel. Every U.S. president should respect the dignity and legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.

Together, we must strive for agreements that enable all who desire peace to live as neighbors. For that to happen, we must not only talk of the need for security and justice; we must move toward a common definition of what those terms mean.

As an observer of world affairs, I readily acknowledge that the United States must think more deeply than it has in the past about why its intentions have been misunderstood.

True dialogue is incompatible with ignorance, hypocrisy, and condescension, nor can it be based on the premise that one people or civilization is superior to another. America has a responsibility to learn more and lecture less."

I can't say that I will ever have much faith or confidence in a law that treats Roger Clemens the way he is being treated today. But I'm fairly convinced, at this point, that many of those who make or enforce or interpret the law could care less if they earn that kind of confidence from people like me or not. They certainly behave as if they could care less. Which will always breed contempt for the law from otherwise decent people.

And that will be a problem for them, for America, and for the liberal democratic and not-so-liberal-and-democratic world, at large, until we face it honestly.

Until then, some very nice wisdom from Madeleine Albright.