Author: Cheri DelBrocco

In the minds of the American public, Kennedys do not grow old. Or sick and infirmed. John and Bobby are forever young. But last night, we saw the youngest and last of the Kennedy brothers slowly totter to the podium to deliver an emotional farewell, for he is quite possibly dying.

Introduced by niece Caroline, Ted Kennedy’s swan song was one for the ages. Although his delivery is usually thunderous, brain cancer has reduced his voice to a lower key that at times was almost a whisper. The trademark thatch of white hair was thinner and completely gone in places. The usually pink Irish skin was pallid.

Teddy’s presence reminded us once again of the passionate idealism that his brothers inspired in a time when hope and optimism was allowed to flourish. But most importantly, Teddy’s role was to pass the baton of the family legacy to Obama family. And indeed, the baton was passed as Michelle Obama, accepted it with a style and grace that channeled Jackie Kennedy. Her touching speech about her life, her husband, and their children was truly Kennedy-esque. The legacy had come full circle.

For a man stricken with terminal cancer to leave his sick bed against the advise of his doctors is a testimony of determination that exemplifies a will stronger than forged iron. His promise to be at Senator Obama’s inauguration brought tears to the eyes of thousands in the crowd. “The work begins anew. The hope rises again. The dream lives on”. It was the measure of a man who has the heart of a lion. In Denver, the lion roared for the last time.

DENVER — If you believed the pundits on the national networks and
in the conservative blogosphere, you would think the Democrats here in Denver
were ramping up to enter the Pepsi Center on Monday night for a session of
WWE Smackdown. Poltico.com reported today that “mistrusts and resentments are
boiling over among top associates of the presumptive nominees.” On MSNBC,
Norah O’Donnell asked the Democratic governor of Minnesota, “What can you tell
those Pennsylvania Democrats, who backed Hillary Clinton so strongly, about
Barack Obama?”

I hate to burst their bubble, but this Hillary vs. Barack
b.s. is a complete and total contrivance manufactured by those in the
media who are determined to define this party as one that is divided. But
according to the “boots on the ground” at the Marriott Tech Center, where the
Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut delegations have gathered, nothing
could be farther from the truth.

David Eisenhower, grandson of the 34th
President, appeared with several students from the University of Pennsylvania
this morning at the Pennsylvania delegation breakfast. Mr. Eisenhower, whose
wife Julie Nixon Eisenhower is an Obama supporter, explained that the media
rumors swirling about fighting and bitter feelings were overblown. “I can
tell you right now, there is not going to be a fight,” declared Eisenhower,
who will also be attending the Republican convention with the same Penn
students.

Clinton delegates and superdelegates from Pennsylvania
are angry at the media for presenting them as “Japanese soldiers in the South
Pacific still fighting after the war is over”, as a reporter for a
conservative website alleged an Obama representative had called them.

Rena Baumgarten, the Pennsylvania Committee Chairman, and
Clinton superdelegate, said that although she had been firm in her committment
to Hillary, she is now supporting Barack Obama “100%”. She wished Senator
Clinton had released her delegates before this week so that they could declare
more publicly and unequivocally their support of Obama. Ann Bursis, State
party Treasurer from Homesdale, PA said that not only was she enthusiatically
for Barack Obama, but that she was elated over his selection of Senator Joe
Biden as a running mate because, “Joe spends weekends in Scranton and is like
our third Senator.” Evie McNulty, a Hillary delegate from Scranton admitted
to having been distraught and of going through a grieving process when her
candidate did not become the apparent nominee. “I believed it was time for a
woman, and I was disappointed, but you know, there’s always tomorrow. Right
now, it is time for us to address the serious issues facing this nation, and
Barack Obama is the man who can get us back on track.”

Perhaps Clinton Superdelegate Marcel Groen, Party
Chairman from Norristown, Pennsylvania and the most outspoken and passionate
member of the group said it best: “I first got involved in Democratic party
politics in 1968. This has been the hardest campaign I have ever witnessed.

But in the end, this is not a race between Hillary
Clinton and Barack Obama. This is a race between a party that espouses that
government is evil and unneccessary and a party that believes government is a
necessary tool in preserving the public good. The media is not being honest
because they love to see a fight. But contrary to what the media wants, we
are united here in Denver, because Democrats know what’s at stake for America
if we are not.”

Republicans are campaigning on their own Audacity of
Hope. They are hoping no one will have the audacity to bring up the
unmentionable: John McCain is The Adulterer and Cindy McCain is The Other
Woman. They are hopeful that voters are so consumed by their struggles of
filling up gas tanks and putting untainted food on the table, that the memory
of that atrocious summer of self-righteousness from ten years ago has long
been forgotten. But what goes around comes around.

It was the Summer of ’98, that the Gladiators of Virtue
were riding high. They were strutting their stuff with Ken Starr and his seven
million dollar witch-hunt. They had Bill Clinton just where they wanted him.
He had done the hot and nasty with a young intern, and was lying about it, so
by God, he was going to pay for his sins. Many of those sultans of sanctimony,
who are now surrogates and staff for the McCain campaign, have strangely
become as quiet as little church mice when it comes to discussing the fact
that John McCain has always had a reputation for being as horny as a
three-balled tomcat. Loving the sinner, but hating the sin, the Moralizing
Crusaders in the Republican party have suddenly laid down their swords.

It is downright hilarious to hear Senator Lindsey Graham
wax rhapsodic about the personal integrity of the senator from Arizona. His
pronouncements of McCain’s principled, virtuous wisdom are as convoluted as a
stand-up routine on The Comedy Channel. This is the same Lindsey Graham who
rose to prominence in 1998 as a manager in the House prosecution and
impeachment trial. Never hesitating to intone with umbrage the moral
malfeasance of Bill Clinton, Graham possessed high-toned puffery that was
legendary. Forced to discuss every subject from thongs to fellatio in the
House impeachment hearings, poor Lindsey shouldered the burden of more
righteous indignation than any one man should ever have to bear. Ten years
hence, however, he stands reverentially beside his buddy McCain, as if fooling
around and family abandonment have simply ceased to be biggies.

After the infamous Senate floor blistering of the
President for his sexual affairs, one might conclude that Senator Joe
Lieberman, a Republican by any other name, would be much too ashamed ever to
support a candidate whose moral compass had directed him to cheat on his wife
and leave his family. Yet, Lieberman, seemingly ever-present on the campaign
trail, advises McCain and lavishes him with such obsequious praise that the
affair between John and Cindy seems considered to be nothing more than a dusty
memory that is gone with the wind.

Imagine, for one moment, that it had been Barack Obama
instead of John McCain who had cheated on his wife by having multiple affairs.
Suppose it was Barack Obama who had married his mistress, a younger heiress of
a billion dollar beer empire only a month after the ink was dry on the divorce
papers. Pretend it was Michelle Obama instead of Cindy McCain who had been so
addicted to painkillers that she stole money from her own charity and had been
investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The vilifications, smears, and berating from
conservatives would be louder than a 747 takeoff. The castigating and
crucifixions by the Limbaughs and O’Reillys of the world would never end.
Faux piety and bellicosity from the pumped up blowhards in the religious right
would flow harder than the flooding waters of the Mississippi.

But the Family Values Party has made new rules that even
Woody Allen could love. “The heart wants what the heart wants.” Judging the
awful personal misconduct committed by a Republican is distasteful and off
base. Judging the awful personal misconduct committed by a Democrat is the
necessary application of social cost. It’s the same Pharisaical stuff we should
always expect, because when it comes to hypocrisy, Republicans are in high
cotton in any season.

The singer Jewel
wrote a song a few years ago entitled, “In the End, only Kindness Matters.” It
would have made a nice theme song for Hillary’s speech last Saturday. At the
end, Hillary was magnanimous…. and kind. I still like Hillary. Really. But I
could not vote for her.

My admiration for her started when I met her
at a Women’s Leadership Forum in Washington in 1993. She gave a brilliant
speech, much like her historic concession speech, featuring topics on making
women and families healthier and more economically secure. Afterwards, she
generously made herself available to the packed room and chatted for hours with
the other women. As a friend took a photo of us together, Hillary warmly
commented on how thrilled she was to see such a large delegation from the
Mid-South, a region close to her heart. She was sunny and sweet.

Ten years later, the first installment of
this column was written in Hillary’s defense. On the morning of the release of
her biography, Living History, the Commercial Appeal did a front
page hatchet job on both the book and its author with the clear implication that
no one in Memphis had enough admiration or respect for Hillary to read it. Later
in the day, as I stood in a long line at the bookstore with others who were
purchasing several copies, it made me angry that the only daily newspaper in
this city had painted such an inaccurate representation of its citizens.
Ironically, the book hit number one on the best sellers lists locally, as well
as nationally.

The ridiculous silliness Hillary had to
endure was hard to watch, at times. From the idiotic cookie recipe contests, to
the moronic focus on her hair style changes and pantsuit choices, sexism was on
definitely on parade in the media, but she took it well and often displayed a
remarkable sense of humor about it.

However, when it came to supporting
Hillary’s efforts to become president, something difficult and piercing had been
realized. Although painful to acknowledge, Democrats were reaching the
understanding that the compromises that were committed during the Clinton years
ultimately had damaged the Democratic Party. The DLC/Third Way/Blue Dog style of
politics was nothing more than an excuse to call weakness a strength.
Negotiating, settling, sucking up and triangulating had undermined the party by
sapping its strength and by failing to demonstrate the courage to fight for
convictions that were too important to compromise.

And so it was with Hillary. It was that lack
of conviction that did her in. It was—- that vote. After five long years of
the March of Folly called the Iraq War, Americans were no longer going to be
satisfied with an “if-I-knew-then-what-I know-now.” The country wanted a
full-out realization that pre-emptive war is wrong prima facie. We now
know that the Iraq war was started on a pack of lies and that voting to go to
war was not a matter of being misinformed, it was a matter of willfully
upholding, for political expediency, George W. Bush’s disastrous doctrine.

That Hillary Clinton either could not or would not recognize her wrongfulness in
doing so was stunning. It rankled then, it is baffling now and it will forever
bewilder those who were ready to give their support. Her refusal to renounce the
war and apologize for her part in helping sustain it was truly unforgivable.

Pundits and pollsters are claiming the
economy will be the deciding issue in this election. It very well may be, but
Bush’s repulsive legacy, especially the Iraq war, will ultimately be the factor
dominating the minds of the voters because the appalling and ruinous Bush war is
the reason we have the appalling and ruinous Bush economy.

In 2004, Bill Clinton explained the Bush
re-election by claiming voters would rather vote for someone who is wrong and
strong than someone who is right and weak. Four years later, that theory sounds
as compromising as other Clinton conjectures because the people know that a vote
by any Democrat for the war in Iraq was in fact, a sign of political weakness,
not strength, for clearly, it was wrong.

This year, Democrats have chosen wisely by nominating Barack Obama, for he is
both strong in his convictions and right about the issues, most especially the
war. Unfortunately, Hillary, who knew what was right, but chose to defend what
was wrong, paid the price. Because until it ends, it’s still the despicable war,
stupid.