Red State/Blue State

Some will kick when she’s down, and others won’t

DAVE SIMPSON & GREG BEAN



A political discussion between Red State conservative Dave Simpson – a former reporter, editor, publisher and columnist – and Greg Bean, Blue Stater and executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers.

Dear Greg:

I heard some of your wild-eyed liberal friends on the radio last weekend, with their shorts tied in a knot about what will become of Hillary Clinton now that she doesn’t get to be president.

A wound like this takes time to heal, they said, and that explains why she couldn’t graciously accept defeat on the night of the last primaries and congratulate Barack Obama for his big win.

Even though most of us have to get used to the idea that we’ll never be the president, it’s different for Hillary, because being president is the family business, and now she’s been denied, thanks in part to you awful people in the news media. Why, you guys treated her like a REPUBLICAN, and she and her husband Frisky Bill aren’t about to forget it.

The hand-wringers fretted over how a luminary like Hillary can go on in life after a devastating defeat like this. Can she really go back to her dead-end job in the Senate, at a piddling $170,000 a year, with pension and health care benefits fit for royalty, and expect to feel fulfilled? I doubt it.

Why get out of bed in the morning when all you have to look forward to is the same old rat race, being waited on hand and foot in the Senate and fawned over by toadies? Where’s the meaning in life if all you have to show for your efforts is a puny $109 million in income over the last eight years, $20 million in the last year, the same old government job, and no 747 to fly around in? There are no support groups for this kind of depression, Greg.

She might just have to take some time off at one of her fancy homes in New York or Washington, and ponder the ingratitude of a country that is too stupid to elect her president. Like Richard Nixon brooding in San Clemente, she could draw the drapes, put a fire in the fireplace, turn up the air conditioning, and lick her wounds.

You guys in the media don’t have Hillary to kick around anymore, Greg.

The hand-wringers speculated on jobs worthy of Hillary- vice president; a seat on the Supreme Court; a cabinet position, perhaps engineering the takeover of health care by the federal government, or the confiscating of oil company profits. Maybe one of those jobs would put the spring back in her step.

From what I’m hearing, Obama isn’t about to make Hillary his running mate, and I think he’s right about that.

Having Hillary and Bill down the hall in the White House would be like living next door to a couple that has loud arguments all the time, parks cars on their lawn, and parties into the wee hours with God knows who. And with Bill, there would always be those young girls in tube tops and tattoos on their lower backs – "tramp stamps” I think they call them – hanging around, looking for a good time.

That said, as a compassionate conservative, I’m worried sick about Hillary, Greg, and what is to become of her. What say you?
Sincerely,
Red State Dave
[email protected]

Dear Dave:

In the interest of full disclosure, our readers should know that you send me your part of the column early in the week, and then I respond before it’s published.

And they should also know that when you sent your part of the column this week, I wrote you back to say that several strong women of close acquaintance told me last week that they were tired of us picking on Hillary, and that if we did it again, there would be trouble. I wrote, in part, that "as I frame my response (to your part of the column), the question I have to ask is: How much trouble can I stand to be in with these women? If I wimp out a little, it’s only self-defense."

And what, my old friend, did you write back? You said, "Cowboy up, pal."

In other words, you toldme to say what I had to say in spite of the cost, damn the estrogen backlash and full speed ahead. Get on that bucking horse and ride the full eight seconds, even if all your ribs are broken, your noggin aches so bad you’re seeing stars and you feel like a hundred miles of dirt road. Are you a man, or a chipmunk, you seemed to be asking.

To add insult to injury, you wrote that "you’ve become an East Coast girlie man (who reads Vanity Fair)."

Well, old friend, you better smile when you say that. I’m a man, gosh darn it, a manly and self-confident man, a man to ride the river with. Like all the jolly good fellows, I’m a ramblin’ wreck and I drink my whiskey clear. I still wear pants, and I always cowboy up.

So here’s what I have to say: How could you write something somean-spirited about this ground-breaking and historic woman, Dave? You Republican, Red State cad!

If you askme, your comments aboutHil (I call her Hil, an affectionate diminutive) are clear proof of the charge that you Red State Republicans are obsessed with Hillary-hating to the point of dementia.

When Rudy dropped out of the race, we let him go. You didn’t hear us wondering if he’d go back to cross dressing. When Fred Thompson dropped out, you didn’t hear us hoping they’d renew his contract on "Law & Order" so he’d have an income. When Mike Huckabee andMitt Romney dropped out, you didn’t hear us running ourmouths off for weeks about how they’d now have to go back to doing what people who get canned usually do, which is collect unemployment payments. Nope, once they said they were going, we let them go in peace.

But you just can’t let Hillary go, and you feel compelled to kick her when she’s down. Is that the behavior of a gentleman, I ask?

I won’t enable your unhealthy obsession, my friend. And I won’t say another mean thing about Hillary, until she announces her presidential candidacy in 2012, or does something else in public I disagree with. Until then, she’s a sleeping dog and I’m gonna let her lie.

That, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with being afraid of the women inmy life. Scout’s honor, no bull.
Your sensitive friend,
Blue State Greg
[email protected]