This Shit Gets Really Old

I'll just say, straight up, that I love LA. I love LA and I love the surrounding area -- the San Gabriel Mountains, Duarte, Rosemead, Hollywood, Santa Barbara, and the city where, were it not for the presence of an earthquake line there and of Grandson here, I'd probably live, Pasadena. So it's always a bit of a shock for me how disappointing the LAT can be.

Today, the LAT disappoints bigtime. Like the WaPo and the NYT, they say shit about Hillary Clinton that they'd never say about a man. What's weird, and we've now seen enough of these articles to call this a trend, is that the articles have to start off by admitting that she basically rocks and has the political skills that most men only dream off. Check out the first few paragraphs of the LAT article that quote one-time determined foes now voting for her and community activists who can't say enough good things about her, after she's been in office for only one term.

But then, since she's, you know, a (ewwww! scary!) powerful woman, they have to try and turn that into a negative. I love the quote from a bobo in the south who says there isn't enough money in the world to get out the good word on her between now and 2008. Dude, in 1996, I'd never HEARD of Bill Clinton. And she's, you know, raised a shitload of cash and has, you know, a lot of star power. But, hey, she's a chick, so no way can we just admit that she's done an amazing job of almost every task she's ever attacked.

I get tired of the double standard that many liberals apply to Hillary Clinton. As the LAT points out: her voting record places her to the left of 80% of her Senate colleagues, according to [what the LAT terms] the nonpartisan National Journal. Almost half of the those colleagues are Democrats, but I don't hear many of them coming in for the kind of criticism from liberals that Hillary gets. That said, she, just as was John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and every other Democratic candidate for president in my lifetime, is to my right.

Yet, "The bad news is she's not going to prove a whole lot running up the score in a strongly Democratic state in a strongly Democratic year." You know, fuck you, LAT. Fuck you. It's clear that Hillary Clinton is a skilled politician, a skilled campaigner, someone who -- as you touted for George Bush when he first ran for office and as turned out to be completely untrue for him -- can reach across the aisle and work with former enemies to get things done. But, fuck her. She's a smart, powerful woman and that scares the crap out of everyone in this country.

Bah.