By Jill Chapin
June 4, 2008
Hillary, Hillary, what were you thinking at your “concession” speech the other night? Didn’t your mother teach you to be a gracious loser, to accept defeat with dignity, and to give credit to your worthy opponent?
What kind of chutzpah did you invoke when you said you haven’t made any decisions yet? Unless you were still undecided on what you were having for breakfast the next morning, or what color jacket you were going to wear the next day, what decisions exactly were we the electorate supposed to be anxiously awaiting?
Because when it comes to running for president, you need to unlace your Nikes. You are no longer running, Hillary; the race is over. Could you have plotted to be more disrespectful when you had your campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe introduce you as the next president of the United States?
Can you imagine your outrage and disbelief if the situation had been reversed, and you were the candidate who had just surpassed the magic number of 2,118 delegates? How would you have responded if you were the first female nominated to be a major party’s presidential candidate, and at one of the most historic moments in our nation’s history, your losing opponent tried to steal your limelight by insinuating that he was somehow still running the show, and the race won’t be over until he says it is?
Adjectives previously attached to your name always included brilliant, intelligent and savvy. What came over you in that bizarre faux victory speech that are having people add deranged and delusional to that list? These were words actually verbalized on the air, from people who have heretofore always spoken of you with profound respect.
Your not-so-veiled threat from your podium of withholding your unconditional support of Senator Obama unless he gave you the VP slot smacks of a strings-attached endorsement of his run for President of the United States. Are you really a loyal Democrat, or just a disloyal party girl?
Because if anyone had any doubts about your real motive in running for president, they are now dashed. This contest was all about you, Hillary. You, and how you dreamed of this job in elementary school. It was your turn, your time, you earned it, even if someone else unexpectedly took center stage with a better message and a better demeanor. You never saw it coming. At the beginning of this adventure, you were the presumptive nominee. Back then, you had the polls on your side and could well afford to be gracious and magnanimous. But as your numbers began to slip, so too did your tongue, and the real Hillary reared it’s not so pretty head.
White, female and middle-aged, I belong to one of your strongest voting blocs. But I’m also a mother, and I would have sent my daughter to her room if she was as arrogant and as disrespectful as you were on the one night that you could have gallantly showcased your more well-behaved, better self.
The Hunger Site
June 5, 2008 at 7:48 am
Arrogant? Imperial? Dismissive?
Although it has only become apparent to some since last Tuesday, a lot of us knew years ago that those adjectives described Hillary quite well. Her modus operandi is, and always has been, “whatever it takes and it don’t matter who gets hurt along the way.” If nominees were chose like in the old days, you can bet that Hillary would have told us that her grandfather taught her how to smoke cigars at an early age.