Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

The house was is a little turmoil over some homework matters so I didn’t catch the Clinton hearings.

The Reclusive Leftist was much more impressed with Mrs. Clinton than she was with Ms Magazine.

Of particular concern to me is the plight of women and girls, who comprise the majority of the world’s unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid. If half of the world’s population remains vulnerable to economic, political, legal, and social marginalization, our hope of advancing democracy and prosperity will remain in serious jeopardy.

I think one of the great failures of feminism particularly over the last decade has been the ignoring of the plight of women in societies such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The reflexive hatred of President Bush and the unwillingness to critique Islam has been a huge weakness. I’m hoping this speech will be the sign of a change along those lines. We are of course going to disagree on Abortion but that shouldn’t stop us from working together elsewhere particularly on items like honor killings.

Christopher Hitchens as you might guess disagrees on Mrs. Clinton:

Why is Sen. Clinton, the spouse of the great influence-peddler, being nominated in the first place? In exchange for giving the painful impression that our State Department will be an attractive destination for lobbyists and donors, what exactly are we getting? George Marshall? Dean Acheson? Even Madeleine Albright? No, we are getting a notoriously ambitious woman who made a fool of herself over Bosnia, at the time and during the recent campaign, and who otherwise has no command of foreign affairs except what she’s picked up second-hand from an impeached ex-president, a disbarred lawyer, and a renter of the Lincoln Bedroom. If the Senate waves this through, it will have reinforced its recent image as the rubber-stamp chamber of a bankrupt banana republic. Not an especially good start to the brave new era.

This might have been a fair assessment in 2000 but after 8 years in the Senate Mrs. Clinton is certainly qualified for the office. This doesn’t make the charges concerning the Clinton years and her husband’s connections irrelevant just less relevant.