Submitted to a Candid World

Small warning: this post represents the views of Ames, and probably Tim. But, it doesn’t represent a new contributor we’ve just added.

For years, I’ve defended Hillary Clinton as a good Democrat, worthy to be the next President. While I still think she’s better than McCain, she has entirely lost my vote for the primaries. Watch this YouTube clip to see why:

I recently posted about the tendency of American politicians to, when confronted with proof that their policies are wrong, decry the “experts” as “elitist” and stick to their guns on principle, seemingly arguing that objective reality is subject to their votes or vetoes. I have attributed this tendency more often to conservative politicians hoping to spin away the truth, and also leveled the accusation at creationists, the world’s most egregious factual relativists. Well, not so, or at least not exclusively. Now Hillary Clinton has joined the ranks of those who attribute well founded expert opinion to the “elites,” in an effort to dispel it.A summary. Hillary Clinton and John McCain are for suspending the $0.184 federal tax on gasoline for the duration of the summer, as a bit of a “thank you” to the American voter, and a bit of a “screw you” to the American deficit. While no economists think this is a good idea, Hillary disagrees. Not on principle or on logic, mind you: rather, she objects on the grounds that the “elites” somehow don’t know what’s best for the American economy. Why, Hillary?

I think we’ve been for the last seven years seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven’t worked well for the middle class and hard-working Americans… I’m not going to put in my lot with economists.

Wrong on both counts. First, America needs to get past the idea that our principles of universal equality and “anti-elitism” somehow entitle us to ignore facts. And second, Hillary’s little speech on elitism, far from being the opposite of the Bush administration, replicates the administration’s own integral failings – that is, the tendency to subordinate reason and facts to emotion, jingoism, pageantry, and politics. At least someone recognizes how ridiculous this is.

We need a Democrat in office. And we need a candidate who will fight dirty and play the spin game. But if our candidate will “fight dirty” by making Bush’s mistakes all over again, the price is too high.