4/22/2008

To Hillary Clinton Supporters: Your Candidate Just Said She's Prepared to Murder Millions of Innocent People:
Okay, good and honest Hillary Clinton supporters, men and women, let's have a little history lesson for some context. Back in 1984, our then President, Ronald Reagan, no doubt in the early stages of Alzheimer's, made a little joke while testing a mike. Not thinking anyone beyond the studio would ever hear, he said, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." When the quote got out, Reagan's lead over Walter Mondale slipped (very temporarily) by seven points. The Left was justifiably in an uproar over it. And Reagan was making a joke - a bad one, one that no doubt revealed his actual mindset, but, still and all, a joke.

For the third time now, Hillary Clinton, your candidate, has non-jokingly threatened to destroy Iran if that nation launches a nuclear strike on Israel. At the debate last week, she said Iran would face "massive retaliation." On Olbermann last night, she reiterated that and added, as if to clarify, that Iran's "use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States."

Today, she took it even further, into territory that, c'mon, admit it, Clinton supporters, if a Republican had said it, you'd be going nutzoid about the fearmongering and paranoiac fantasizing. Said Clinton on Good Morning America, "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Yes, she claims to be saying it only to offer deterrence. But, really, isn't that understood about the United States? That if we wanted to, we could "totally obliterate" most of the Earth? So, by saying it, Clinton accomplishes something of a pandering trifecta: she lets the Israel-humpers know she's willing to wreck shit for them, she lets the pro-military people know she ain't scared of shit, and she lets gun owners know she's willing to fire the largest gun of all. Who's got the biggest dick now, eh, Barack?

(Note: the above line is not unconscious and dunderheaded sexism. It is a deliberate and conscious use of feminist critical theory to demonstrate just how extreme Clinton has become in her embrace of the phallocentric policies of her male predecessors. Indeed, the entire trajectory of Clinton's campaign can be traced as a kind of reification of phallic power as a sad and unnecessary means of attempting to legitimize a female candidate to those enmeshed with the dominant patriarchy, those who might find such a candidate weak simply because of her sex. Such a tactic is bound to fail because by reifying such power, the female candidate merely justifies the perceived and false weakness. In other words, those who live by the Penn, die by the Penn.)

Sure, Obama said, "I have not ruled out military force as an option," but that's standard shit. Clinton took it to the limit: she said that if a nation that's not the United States has a nuclear missile launched at it by Iran - a possibility about as likely as a captured terrorist knowing where the suitcase nuke is that's gonna go off in five minutes and needs his knees shot out to give up the info - then she is ready not just to use targeted nukes against Tehran, but to go all in and to kill millions and millions of innocent people, many of whom don't even support the Iranian government.

The Rude Pundit's not sure, but he doesn't know that he's ever heard of such an extreme policy in support of an ally from a legitimate Democrat running for the Presidency. "Totally obliterate"? It's like the threat of a particularly demented child to an anthill if one of the little fuckers bites her.

Oh, and by the way, you stomp an anthill out of existence, chances are your foot's getting swarmed.

So there you go, Clinton supporters. Your candidate has told you what she believes about military force. She is willing to make the United States a target for nuclear retaliation and massive terrorist acts should Israel be attacked. Now that's a fuckin' way to tell people to take their hope and shove it up their asses.

Happy fuckin' Earth Day.