Hillary Clinton has just started doing an Indiana town-hall meeting being broadcast on ABC, and George Stephanopoulos asked her a direct question:
Could she name a single economist who agrees with her support for the gas tax holiday?
Hillary sidestepped the question, and tried to use the complete dearth of expert support for the idea to her advantage, pointing to it as proof that she's on the side of ordinary folks against "elite opinion" -- a phrase she used twice.
"I think we've been for the last seven years seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion behind policies that haven't worked well for hard working Americans," she said.
A bit later she added: "It's really odd to me that arguing to give relief to a vast majority of Americans creates this incredible pushback...Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that don't benefit" the vast majority of the American people.
"Elite opinion"? Does she mean the "elite opinions" she listened to when she voted for the Iraq War? Does she mean the people who were in her husband's Cabinet that she plans to recycle for her own? Who are these "elites", anyway?
If you want to argue that "elites" ought not to be regarded as elite, I'd be happy to include the men Bill Moyers quoted on Bill Moyers' Journal last week:
BILL MOYERS: Every year at this time for five years now, we're reminded of the armistice that never happened. On may first, 2003, the White House staged a spectacular photo opportunity for the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to announce the end of major combat operations in Iraq.
BILL MOYERS: You've been seeing these images all week...our president landing on the USS Lincoln, announcing peace was at hand.
REPORTER: President made history today. It was a historic day.
REPORTER II: This one could be called historic.
REPORTER III: The first sitting president to land on a carrier.
REPORTER IV: Congratulating them on a mission accomplished.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed!
BILL MOYERS: Unfortunately, that was not true. The war had just begun...Once again the official version of reality was false. The experts, remember, had all agreed: there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH ...of uranium from Africa
BILL MOYERS: ....Saddam Hussein had ties to the terrorists...
DONALD RUMSFELD: ...Al Qaeda members.
BILL MOYERS: The war would be a slam dunk...and quickly over.
DONALD RUMSFELD: It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
BILL MOYERS: No one had pushed the war more than vigorously than Vice President Cheney. He said..."I think it'll go relatively quickly...weeks rather than months."
BILL MOYERS: And, said the experts, it won't take many troops or require much sacrifice...Rumsfeld's deputy Paul Wolfowitz...
PAUL WOLFOWITZ: ...we can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark...
BILL MOYERS: And the cost to the taxpayer, the experts assured us -- practically nothing.
PAUL WOLFOWITZ: ...we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.
BILL MOYERS: Ted Koppel put the question to America's top aid official on Nightline:
TED KOPPEL: ...you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?
ANDREW NATSIOS: Well, in terms of the American taxpayers' contribution, I do; this is it for the U.S. the rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges...
BILL MOYERS: And now, mission accomplished, experts savored the triumph. The editor of The Weekly Standard William Kristol, "The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably."
BILL MOYERS: The neo-conservative warrior Richard Perle told doubters to get over it. The war, he said "...ended quickly with few civilian casualties and with little damage to Iraq's cities, towns or infrastructure...it ended... without the quagmire [the war's critics] predicted...relax and enjoy it."
BILL MOYERS: Said columnist Mona Charen of the Commander in Chief, "the man who slept through many classes at Yale and partied the nights away stands revealed as a profound and great leader who will reshape the world for the better. The United States is lucky once again."
BILL MOYERS: And columnist Charles Krauthammer said, "The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper West Side liberals and a few people here in Washington."
BILL MOYERS: The Iraqis, said the experts, were sure to rally 'round...
WILLIAM KRISTOL: "I think there's been a certain amount of frankly, Terry, pop sociology in America...that...the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular."
BILL MOYERS: You'll find these quotes and many others like them in this new book, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! OR HOW WE WON THE WAR IN IRAQ. It's an in-depth study and analysis of five years of expert commentary on the Iraq war. The authors have somewhat sadly, if not reluctantly, concluded that the most distinguished cast of experts ever before assembled reached a grand consensus on the Iraq war — and that all of them got it wrong. How did it happen? The whole thing is so tragic perhaps only satire can give us the answer.
But that's not what Hillary is doing. Instead, she's playing for the First Beer Buddy vote by claiming that anyone who knows anything about economics is just the kind of smarty-pants who always sat at the front of the class, wore plaid pants, and was always the first to raise his hand when the teacher asked a question -- when everyone knows that the cool kids sat in the back, passed notes, and didn't do their homework.
For eight years, this country has reaped the consequences of electing Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman, damn glad to meet you. You'd think that after eight years of the kind of mind-boggling short-sightedness, ineptititude, and just plain fuckupery that we've endured when we elect a First Beer Buddy instead of a president, that playing fraternity pledge would have worn thin for Americans and that maybe the Debate Club guys aren't so bad after all.
But when you're talking about depriving the Federal government of needed funds to repair and maintain bridges and tunnels in exchange for no guarantee whatsoever that oil companies won't just raise the prices and pocket the incremental bonanza, that has nothing to do with eschewing elitism, and has everything to do with craven political opportunism.
We don't complain when only the "elites" make it to the major league club. We don't complain when the "elites" win the Super Bowl. We don't complain (though we should) when legacies like George W. Bush are able to get into Ivy League colleges despite having a C average. We don't complain when corporate executives rake in huge compensation packages (though again, we should).
Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton said "It takes a village to raise a child." Today she's telling those very same children that they can go fuck themselves, because her need to be elected outweighs their need to live in a world that doesn't resemble Mad Max and in which they don't risk drowning in their car seats because Mommy's car fell into the river when the bridge over which she was driving collapsed.
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