Obdurate Opportunism: Hillary's Freudian Slip

I loathe political opportunism. Politics, at least in an ideal polity, is supposed to be about the benefit of the common good, not partisan groups and certainly not individuals. Unfortunately, in the real world this is not the case. Hillary Clinton's recent comments to a New Hampshire audience is a good case in point. Speaking on the effects another terrorist attack would have on the nation, Hillary only pointed out how it would affect her own campaign!?

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world."

Simply stunning. Another 9/11 and not a mention of victims, fear, massive infrastructural damage, further urban sprawl, economic upheaval!? Nope. But Hillary does see how damaging that would be to the Democratic party's popularity, and her own presidential aspirations. How sympathetic. When confronted with the large scale death and destruction of harmless victims, Hillary's thoughts are drawn inward to political jockeying rather than outward to psychologically distraught Americans.

At first I thought this must have been a miscommunication, but then I remembered Hillary's refusal to speak anywhere without a camera during the aftermath of 9/11 leaving terrorized New Yorkers with a bitter taste of her truly obdurate opportunism. To Hillary, events even as horrific as 9/11 are best seen as ways to advance her interests. She of course is not the only one guilty of swimming to such shallow ends. Karl Rove's fear mongering regarding 9/11 during the '04 election is just as deplorable. Nonetheless, Rove's equality in guilt is in no way redemptive of Hillary.

The point Hillary was trying to make was that she is better and stronger than Republicans on matters of national security and the war on terrorism. Why not just say that rather than reducing something as horrific as 9/11 to a purely political tool, and letting slip where her true concerns with terrorism lie: how it affects her, not fatherless children, widowed women, and jobless men. She along with Karl Rove are talking mockeries of the term "public servants" whose first, second, and third thoughts are all self-serving. You know the old idiom, somethings are better left unsaid. Well here's a new one: Somepeople are better left not to serve, and most assuredly not to be voted for.