Those Who Don't Remember The Past Are Doomed....UPDATED

(Photo courtesy NoHillaryClinton.com)

Quite inadvertently I stumbled over this old piece written by Peggy Noonan while reading that global warming is a hoax (which was a good read, itself). In the essay, Noonan critiques Bill Clinton's last speech as president and also gives some perspective on his legacy. I felt nauseous reading it.

What made me sick wasn't this horrible prophecy:

His second point, and a long one it was, was that global poverty "requires more than compassion." I think a deconstruction of this thought is: It requires programs, i.e., liberal programs. In other words: When Osama bin Laden and his henchmen blow up an American city, it won't be my fault, it will be President Bush's. [no emphasis added]

No, what made me sick was this little throwaway:

That the speech was lacking in grace or largeness goes without saying, that it offered seemingly wise and even avuncular words with a subtext of political aggression and competitiveness was in its way perfect. That is what Mr. Clinton's career has been, aggression offered as sympathy.

"Aggression offered as sympathy" perfectly describes Hillary Clinton. Bill and Hillary are united about this: the country is to serve their agenda. They are a pathological pair and the notion of them taking up residence in the White House makes me feel physically ill. Imagining them taking us back to a mamby-pamby pre-9/11 world where evil is dismissed and the solution is always one anti-poverty campaign away.

Here is what Noonan said about the liberals and the Clintons:

There is a great cliché in America, among conservatives, that the American elite like Mr. Clinton, while the good common people are more likely to deplore him. But in my experience, no one has contempt for Mr. Clinton like sophisticated Americans, particularly sophisticated and accomplished liberals. I think it is to some degree snobbery--they do see him now as a low-rent oaf with a squat and grasping wife--but it is more than that. They understand what he has done in letting foreign nationals buy U.S. foreign policy, and deep down they are not amused. They think he is a weak egomaniac, a man who'll do anything from fear and hunger. Also they've all been in therapy, and they see his sickness. They know who he is.

They know he is and yet their hatred for the right is even greater. They would prefer the "squat and grasping wife" to any Republican. Having Hillary actually gives them some intellectual cover. She's not a good old boy. She's a social-climbing feminist. Well, she has ovaries. Never mind that her only credentials come via a man, a man they hold in contempt. That will be ignored for expedience. Again.

Noonan ends talking about the cleansing the White House needed after the Clintons:

All White Houses have them. But in the one just ending the imps ran wild. It would be a very good and important thing if Mr. Bush invited in a fine and good priest, a wise and deep rabbi, a faithful and loving minister, and had them pray together in that house, and reanoint it, and send the imps, at least for a while, on their way. Perhaps they could include the prayer of old John Adams, that only good men serve in this great and stately mansion.

It's good to start out clean. And it's good to begin any great enterprise with prayers, which seems to be something the Bushes know well.

I remember the feeling after the Clintons left that the whole house needed to be cleaned and painted. Steam it. Don't. Touch. A. Thing. I had hoped that Bush would clean house metaphorically and get rid of noxious personnel; that he wouldn't allow himself to be touched by the tainted stench left behind. One of his biggest mistakes was keeping some of the hold-overs in some critical positions. Those decisions, CIA Chief Tennet comes to mind, left Bush smelly, too.

Now imagine for a moment, watching Hillary, "the squat and grasping wife", being sworn into the Oval office--this time in charge. Imagine bringing this pathological couple back to the leadership of our country. America faces innumerable concerns both economic and military and the next president could be a Clinton who is guided by one principle: expedience.

The thought makes me sick.

UPADATE: The Anchoress remember the Hymn for Hillary. And I said this in her comment section:

Here's the thing, I'd like to feel more neutral about the Democratic candidates, to consider all sides with thoughtful detachment. And mostly, I do. Except with Hillary. Her plodding determination, naked ambition and disregard for anyone or anything but her goal coupled with utopian and socialistic zeal...it's a disturbing combo that terrifies me. I literally feel sick thinking about her making foreign policy decisions or leading our military.

And what makes me even more nervous is how polarized our country already is today. And yet, I don't think I could abide a Hillary Clinton presidency with equanimity. That bothers me even more.

We don't need another four years of a polarizing figure. We need a unifier and Hillary Clinton is not that person.