Hillary Indecisive? Please

I have to laugh at the suggestion that Sen. Hillary Clinton displayed "indecisiveness" in the recent Democratic presidential debate. Clinton is about as indecisive as a Calvinist on the doctrine of election.

She knows exactly what she thinks about — as opposed to where she should stand for maximum political effect on — the issues. So when she vacillates on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, don't hand her the excuse that she is torn on a tough issue.

There's nothing difficult about this decision at all. It's a slam-dunk for anyone professing the slightest allegiance to the rule of law. Illegal immigrants should not be permitted to drive in New York or any other state.

But for Clinton, it's not that simple. While not torn on the issue, she's torn between two constituencies: ethnic pressure groups and the vast majority who oppose New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's irresponsible policy. The allure of this new ready-made constituency is too tantalizing to resist. Driver's licenses are but a baby step away from voting — and voting, she presumes, Democratic.

That's why Clinton and fellow liberals insist on violating our language in referring to illegals as "undocumented workers." "Undocumented" is not merely a euphemism; it is a wholesale distortion because it deliberately implies illegals aren't illegal at all but just a trifle behind in completing that annoying paperwork that will validate their legitimacy. It's as if the process of acquiring citizenship is nothing more than a bureaucratic formality, as if becoming an American citizen is no more sacred than filling out an administrative form.

Since Clinton had to be careful not to alienate this powerful new constituency, she was compelled, when pressed, to ask the enormously foolish rhetorical question: "What else is Governor Spitzer supposed to do?" — which reasonable people would take as an endorsement of his dastardly policy. Pressed again, she flat out denied endorsing it.

But boy did she resent being pressed on the matter by her rival candidates and by Tim Russert, icon of a mainstream media, which so far has been shielding her from such scrutiny. For the media to challenge her inconsistency, she claims, was to play "gotcha" politics.

And for her rivals to hold her feet to the fire on it was — according to her campaign website — piling on, negative campaigning and abandoning the politics of hope. One can only imagine the low opinion she must have of her supporters when she expects them to believe this tripe.

Meanwhile, one must scratch one's head at the staggering irony of some of Clinton's supporters demanding she be treated like a testosterone-filled masculine leader while simultaneously playing the gender victim card on her behalf, claiming the men are ganging up on her.

Pundits noted that Clinton's rivals exposed other inconsistencies, such as her promise that her husband would release the couple's private records at the Clinton Library while defending Bill's concealment of those records.

True enough.

But the senator's record of duplicity goes back much further. Remember when she was running for the Senate and said she supported clemency for FALN terrorists to ingratiate herself to Puerto Rican voters? When a public backlash followed, she demanded that her husband "immediately withdraw" his clemency offer — as if she had been at arm's length from him during the entire ordeal.

The magnitude of her deception and chutzpah were soon revealed when it was learned that the terrorists had accepted Bill Clinton's offer two days before Hillary demanded he withdraw it. Indecisiveness? Hardly. Rather, it was raw political maneuvering in furtherance of naked political ambition with abject disregard for the rule of law — just as with driver's licenses for illegals.

A more recent example is her absurd claim that George Bush duped her into supporting the Iraq War resolution by lying about the intelligence. No, she supported the resolution when it was politically expedient because she had to prove herself to be commander in chief material in anticipation of her presidential campaign.

The dirty little secret about Hillary Clinton — as some leftist e-mailers have outright admitted to me — is that Democrats know she's lying about her vote on the resolution but simply don't care. What matters is that she say what she needs to say to get elected, as the end justifies the means.

So please, spare us the nonsense about Clinton being indecisive. We know that Clinton is nothing if not studiously methodical, calculating and determined to say and do anything necessary to win.

Given her astronomical negatives, which could prevent her from receiving a majority in a two-candidate race, she's surely praying for a third-party candidate to split the vote and pave the way for her winning plurality.

Let us pray certain justifiably disillusioned Christian conservatives don't answer her prayer.

David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" (Regnery) was just released in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.davidlimbaugh.com. And to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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