Opposing Hillary’s Corporate Campaign: A Response to Joe Conason

Editor’s note: The following is a response by Truthdig contributor Scott Tucker to a recent column by Joe Conason published in Truthdig.

Joe Conason’s article is not just a partisan puff piece, it is specifically a piece of Clintonista campaigning.

Conason charges The New York Times with a “longstanding animus against the Clintons,” and on this premise Conason questions the “liberal” reputation of the paper. Extraordinary!

Does Conason really believe the Clintons inherit the legacy of FDR and the New Deal? Or is he simply an apparatchik trying to sell Hillary as the next candidate of hope and change? Besides, the presence of a neo-Keynesian on the op-ed pages, namely Krugman, does not prevent the Clintonistas from getting some well-placed puff pieces in The New York Times.

Conason would do better to say in the first sentence, “Hillary Clinton deserves a chance to make history in 2016, and I’m here to give you the reasons why.”

But he doesn’t. Issue by issue, point by point—what is the best Conason might say of Hillary’s policies toward labor, immigrants, the unemployed, the marginally employed and the poor? Nothing of the kind. Instead, readers get this from Conason:

Humble? She usually went out of her way to meet with friends and colleagues, rather than insisting they come to her. Self-deprecating? She joked constantly about herself and her foibles. Concerned? She repeatedly sought ways to help a young girl she had met in Yemen—and she admonished John Podesta, an old friend who now serves as her campaign chair, to “wear socks to bed to keep your feet warm.” Generous? She often expressed gratitude to staff and kept close track of births, illnesses and other milestones affecting friends, acquaintances and employees.

Yes, of course, a young girl in Yemen is precisely the first concern of Hillary Clinton when she thinks of Yemen.

I don’t give a damn if Hillary thinks Podesta should wear socks to bed to keep his feet warm. I do care that Hillary will be sold as a “feminist” candidate of war and empire. And “liberals” such as Conason will thereby prove they have learned nothing from Obama’s career in the White House.

Civil libertarian principles oblige wide discussion and free publication, so the career politicians of the big corporate parties also deserve fair coverage. For those ready to break from corporate politics entirely, other opposition candidates deserve front and center coverage, too. Many readers of Truthdig will be interested in the campaign of Jill Stein and the program of the Green Party. Here is a link to an article on her campaign from Common Dreams.