dissent, or lack thereof?

From CNN:

Sen. Hillary Clinton on Monday blasted the Bush administration as "one of the worst" in U.S. history and compared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to a plantation where dissenting voices are squelched.

How does she know? Did Dennis Kucinich or Maxine Waters *tell her* that dissenting voices are squelched? Probably not, since Clinton likely sees having a conversation with legitimate progressives as being too great a political liability.

At any rate, interesting that Clinton is limiting her remarks to the status of dissent in the *House*, because she certainly can't make claims about what it's like to be a dissenter in the *Senate*. Has she dissented on any major issues? Certainly not Iraq, a subject about which she's towed the (GOP) party line. I had profound respect for Hillary Clinton in '92-93, when she told the truth, loudly, about the health care crisis in this country. A few years later she had the courage to call a right-wing conspiracy a right-wing conspiracy. But since her election to the Senate, she's bravely spoken out on...violence in video games.

Clinton will probably be the next "democratic" presidential nominee, a prospect that would have thrilled me ten years ago. But today, such a prospect seems ho-hum. The Kerry nomination proved the dems are too myopic to go after disenfranchised non-voters. The Kerry loss proved you can't out-republican the republicans. In 2008 the dems will probably learn those two lessons again.

RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said: "On a day when Americans are focused on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Hillary Clinton is focused on the legacy of Hillary Clinton."

I wonder what the H. Clinton legacy will look like. Early years, growing up in a conservative community with a conservative family...she's a conservative. Academic years, enmeshed in leftist youth culture at elite institutions, she becomes a leftist. Family years, married to a moderate, she becomes a moderate. Post 9/11 years, building a political career during years of conservative restoration, she moves farther and farther to the right. And she's speaking about dissent?!

Sorry for the vitriol. There's so much hatred for Hillary Clinton, the vast majority of it rooted in the ugliest sexism the culture has to offer, so I hate to disparage her. But I can't help but look back with nostalgia on the early 90s, years when she represented hope that a progressive voice might someday lead.