I don’t know if it’s been fully conveyed how dispiriting it was to watch the faintly peevish, baggy-eyed Hillary Clinton explain the Eghazi situation yesterday. I was “interested” and not unreceptive to her explanations for the most part, but at the same it began to hit me like a ton of bricks or a truckful of sand that she’s the same brittle, prickly Hillary I came to dislike and gradually loathe during the ’08 primary campaign. I’m presuming that a lot of lefties out there were, like me, suddenly going “oh, God…another 20 months of this and then, if she wins, four years of a sufficiently status-quo, center-rightish but far-from-inspiring, anything-but-forward-looking Clinton administration?”
George Clooney
Hillary Clinton
After years of believing that Hillary would be all but undefeatable if she runs in ’16, for the first time it occured to me that she could actually conceivably lose, and all of a sudden I felt the pangs of fear. Well, the tickle of nerves. She could lose, she really could. I feel a certain way when President Obama speaks and smiles and occasionally laughs, but when I think of that Hillary cackle…
But Elizabeth Warren, who inspires people on both sides of the fence because of her conviction and fervor about income inequality, is said to be uninterested in running, and Bernie Sanders, an honorable and very tough-minded Senator who gets income inequality as fully as Warren does, hasn’t an electoral prayer. Someone more dynamically appealing and electable than Hillary has to at least run against her in the primaries if not steal away the nomination, and so why not — I’m completely, 100% serious — George Clooney?
Yes, George Clooney — a smart, politically attuned, impassioned liberal-humanist, a son of a newsman who’s up on the issues and world-famous and has tried to do something about genocide and poaching and is, of course, charming and winning, etc. Electable, I mean. He has the vibe of an RFK-like guy. If Ronald Reagan could run and win and Arnold Schwarzenegger could become California’s governor why not Clooney in the White House? Yes, I know how silly this probably sounds to some and yes, how unlikely it is that Clooney would even joke about running for President (last summer he totally dismissed the notion of running for California governor or senator), but if he decided to really sit down and look at the possibility he and others would, I suspect, be surprised how receptive people would be once the idea settles in.
I know it’s not a welcome thought but a lot of people are suddenly very, very concerned about Hillary and scared silly that Jeb Bush or Scott Walker might win because enough people might eventually decide that baggy-eyed Hillary is not that likable or inspiring. You can laugh at my Clooney idea but this is not a joking situation. If Warren won’t step up somebody has to.
