Bernie Huggers: Are There Any
Parallels on Holcombe?
Friday’s NY Times greeted
us with the headline that Hillary Clinton’s email fiasco may have risen to the
level of a felony according to some US Inspectors General. Her home server may
indeed have contained classified information, something she swore was not the
case. Then later that day, it was unclear if the former Secretary of State
herself was the target or even if the material (4 of 40 examined emails among
the 30,000) had been classified at the time that the information was placed in
email form. It’s a confusing mess.
The
one thing we know for sure is that whatever chaos ensued surrounding
Hillary’s Home Server, it was her fault and would never have happened with
anyone else. I worked for the same government she did. I was well aware of what
I could and could not use my US Senate email for and it wasn’t to tell my
friends what Senator Enzi said in the last staff meeting nor was it anything having
to do with MD Anderson. I retained my MD Anderson email address for the latter
and the former was absolutely not for email or any other form of communication
by me.
If a
novice like me could figure that out, you would think a former First Lady and
former US Senator would know this as well. And she did. She never thought the
rules applied to her in Arkansas, the White House, the Senate or when she ran
the State Department from Foggy Bottom.
What
people are forgetting is one of the reasons that Barack Obama is President of
the United States is that Hillary had a trust problem that partially undermined
her “inevitability” in 2008. It may do it again.
So
what if this really does trip her up on her run for the Oval Office? What do
the Democrats do then?
Joe
Biden is the obvious answer. He’s tan, he’s rested and he’s ready. He is also
well over 70, says silly things on a regular basis, and insiders in DC tell me
he is not all that bright, something very easy to believe. Joe may be great for
having his hand on a beer. Joe is not the man to have his hand on the 3 AM red
phone wake-up machine attached to the nuclear football.
Thus,
we have The Bernie.
I
watched Bernie Saunders (I-VT) in action for 9 months as he was a member of the
US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions upon which my
boss, Michael B. Enzi (R-WY) was the ranking member (senior Republican). Bernie
is passionate all right, but he often went off on wild tangents and I really
cannot imagine candidate Bernie having the staying power needed for a run at
the White House, although he could be our first outright Socialist President.
Nonetheless,
he seems to be garnering support from some of the same demographic as The
Donald, the young, enthusiastic, “anyone but another politician,” especially a Bush
or a Clinton, crowd of millennials and old hippies. Bernie’s backers have been
labeled the Bernie Huggers after the fact that many are eco-green,
ultra-liberal tree huggers, I guess.
So
if the Democrats can give us Bernie Huggers and the GOP has Donald and the
Quackers, both alternatives for politicians as usual, where’s the “Dr. X Huggers
of Holcombe?”
Surely
there must be someone amongst the masses of the 21,000 in MD Anderson nation who
would be a better President than The Ronald. Who is that man? Or woman?
If
The Donald can run from the border to the TV lights, and the Bernie can garner
support from his Huggers, surely someone can arise from the teeming masses of
long white coats, but not necessarily with a white or masculine face, and get
the ship righted. No?
