House of Clintons

Bill and Hillary have a Kevin Spacey Problem.

It’s not just the Gruber “Smarter than You” Class watching House of Cards.

There are regular folks out there… or at least those who consider themselves ‘regular’ folks, watching.  Many of those ‘regular’ folks have jobs in the media.  And this presents the serious problem we are witnessing before our eyes in terms of how Hillary Clinton’s Presidential run is being covered.

For those that don’t know, or don’t watch, House of Cards is a Netflix drama set in D.C. in which a Sociopathic Politician, Kevin Spacey, manuevers his way through the political jungle to rise to the Presidency.  The show practically writes itself as it is based on actual, and rumored, events of the past.  Of course the names have been changed to protect…  the innocent?  Well, to protect someone…  Combine all of this with a little artistic license in order to maintain continuity between episodes, and sadly you have what most of America considers ‘History’.

Alas, there is the problem for Hill and Bill.

It has been posited that Frank Underwood (Spacey’s character) has been modeled on Bill Clinton, and Claire Underwood (Robin Wright’s character) modeled on Hillary.  It’s closer to the truth that Frank and Claire are Both Hillary and Bill as a mash-up of personality traits and behaviors.  Frank is both Bill and Hillary just as Claire is both Bill and Hillary… however the composites of the characters were crafted, you can quickly see how very, very, unhelpful the last two years of Cards has been for the Clintons.

Cards in now in Season 3… that’s two full years and counting of Americans viewing what they most assuredly believe to be ‘the way things are done’ in Washington.  The ‘regular’ folks see the show as real, the very same way they viewed the West Wing as real.  (This always amused me.  I’ve met a number of these ‘brilliant’ people.  I can attest to the fact they never think as fast as Sorkin’s characters, and in the rare instant they did the thoughts that escaped their mouths were on the far horizon from what most of us would consider intelligent.)

Viewing this, it becomes easy for the American public to see Hillary’s creation of a Private Server to hide communications from her employer… the U.S Government, Her Family Foundation accepting Huge amounts of money for speeches given by a sallow former President whose claim to fame is not inhaling and diddling the help, the corresponding use of her influence in favor of countries traditionally considered hostile to the United States as well as the promise of a future Presidency and the influence associated with that position which could benefit said countries, in an appropriately cynical light.

It has also been rumored that Bill Clinton has been repeatedly asked to make a cameo on the show…  even though Bill and Kevin are personal friends, one must seriously doubt Bill could survive what would be thrown at him should such a direct, unabashed, connection be made.  If it did, I’m sure Hillary would find something with a bit more heft than an a lamp to hit Bill with.

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I, Me, My.

All my life I have watched Presidential addresses and various speeches.  It doesn’t take much of a leap, or social Darwinism, to see the possibilities these speeches present for someone like me.

Drinking games.

Starting in college we would sit and watch these events with full cases of beer and creative minds.  Eventually we determined that too many rules left most of us unable to make it through the first half of the address, and the other half unable to remember who was supposed to do what.  So we simplified…

We adopted our own set of words.  All of the other participants knew what our words were and when uttered by the president were quick to make sure we imbibed accordingly.  The words I chose were “I, Me and My“.

I remembered from the Reagan days that his philosophy was; as a leader you didn’t employ the words I, Me and My unless you were speaking to some personally subjective state like “feeling”.  He also felt that it was an easy way to judge the character of the leader in front of you as the employ of these words exposed how the individual viewed the world.  In other words they represent the brilliance around them or, instead, they are brilliance for all to see.  Most often using these words exhibited insecurity more than anything else.

I always liked my words because for the most part they kept me sober… somewhat.  Leaders just don’t use these words.  This remained true until the Clinton Administration.  Seemingly, his biggest violation of this “rule” is his never-ending desire to remind all of us that the administration was “his”.  It was “my” this and “my” that.  I drank a lot.

I got a reprieve during Bush who moved to “us” and “we” for the most part.

Apparently Obama has caught wind of our little game.  Someone told him that we all still gather during the State of the Union and other addresses with beer in hand.  With this knowledge, he  seemingly has decided to step it up a notch.

During the first year of the Obama Administration he gave more televised speeches than any other President in history… and I had a hard time getting anything done as sobriety was a scarce commodity.

It slowed down until now.  If I were you, I would by stock in Budweiser.  Right now!

To illustrate my point I just pulled up a speech from a couple of weeks ago… Obama used “I” 28 times and “me” once.  Considering an honest pull off a beer is about 2 ounces this ends up being a 5 beer speech…. given at 10am… on a Tuesday.  You see the problem.  Yes, the first year was very difficult.

As of late, I have been struggling with the campaign and everything it seems the president has personally executed beginning with Osama Bin Laden.  From his making the call, to his personally pulling the trigger, to his personally flying the seals to safety, I have been drinking a lot.  There seems to be no end to the myriad ways to use “I, Me, My”.

It should be an interesting election year.  At least the parts I can remember.