"People in power with privilege don't want to be challenged at all," Hillary told me recently as we discussed the repetitive rhythms of history. "FDR's policies rescued capitalism, thereby saving the fortunes and restoring the incomes of so many of the same people who would curse his name over the dinner table. They somehow still felt threatened because they don't like to be questioned."

The problem with Hillary is that she is, IMHO, on the same side as the "People in power with privilege [who] don't want to be challenged at all,".  Viz., her presentation of the poisoned chalice of "advisers" and "help" to Ned Lamont last year, the same crew who tried to remake Lamont into another of the consultant-driven, poll-guided timid Corporatocrats of the DLC.  And, kept him invisible while former Democrat Lieberman, pride of BigPharm, BigGuns, and BigOil both got his legs back under him and, with Bill's (and Hil's) and Rove's help, got back in the race and collected millions in corporate donations.  And, lately, we've seen HRC and Lieberman, publicly BFFs again, carping and wagging their fingers about violent video games and pushing sanctimony (though, oddly, not about that fundie "Left Behind" game with it's "convert or die" rules).

Or, from the 90s:  "How can you be a lawyer without representing a bank?", when her work at Rose Law Firm came up.  You mighta forgotten that, but I haven't.

"They [the VRWC of the '30s] somehow still felt threatened because they don't like to be questioned."

Here's a core error, and core BS.  A lot of the hatred directed at the Roosevelts by their wealthy contemporaries (who benefitted from his policies, as RFK, Jr. posits) was driven by the sentiment encapsulated in the phrase "traitor to his class".  It was not so much that the plebs were questioning the wealthy (they never really crossed paths) but more that the plebs both were receiving more than the bare subsistence (or even less) they'd received previously, both in economic terms and in terms of their rights being respected.  And that the plebs' calls for change were being listened to.  What galled the Roosevelt-hating elites most was the idea that those filthy garlic-eaters* were to be treated as beings equally deserving of both respect and a piece of the pie as the elite.  The idea that people whose names ended in a vowel were "Equal" really galled the 30s elite.  And it still does, today.

*(cf.  "It's a Wonderful Life", Mr. Potter's term for the people who were housed in George Bailey's development of nice, little houses out at the edge of town.)

In this regard, HRC does not propose to change the status quo in the manner that FDR did when he took over from Hoover.  Her labor-management policies will be a pastel version of Bush's full-saturation union busting - otherwise, why have Mark Penn, whose firm does union-busting on staff.  Her civil liberties and wiretapping positions will be informed not by the Fourth Amendment, but by a haze of "important considerations" and "intelligence requirements".  And nothing I've seen from her proposes to change the base course of the ship of state when it comes to Iraq - partition and reduction of the independent state of Iraq into three colonies of the US, feeding us oil, guaranteed by a continuing presence there.

"And there is something of the same going on today. If you challenge the pharmaceutical companies, the health insurance companies, if you think investment fund managers should be taxed at the same rate as nurses and firefighters, you run into this vitriolic response."

Um, HRC's health care plan, as I understand it, boils down to making sure everyone has the opportunity to buy insurance from an insurance company.  On top of paying taxes at the same rate.  Wow.  And, as to increasing tax rates on investment fund managers - I haven't seen anything like that in her position papers.  If the current Congressional leadership's reaction when faced with obstructionism (not even vitriolic) is any guide, that tax disparity is an issue we'll never see addressed.  She doesn't challenge the right- she presents a bigger target and sells out her own.

Irrational hatred was the powerful drug that intoxicated the Gingrich Congress to impeach President Bill Clinton at the time when he enjoyed 65% popularity with the American people and had steered the nation through eight years of peace and unprecedented prosperity.

Roosevelt was hated because he brought change and it cost them a few coins off the edge.  HRC is hated by the right because it serves their interests to stir up their base through hatred, even though she is still a Goldwater Girl.  And that hatred was hardly irrational, at least at the level of the people stirring it up.  They knew exactly what they were doing, and guided their actions accordingly.  Gingrich and the house leadership were not intoxicated on hatred - they were pouring it to their base by the kegful.

RFK, Jr.'s piece is a masterful piece of misdirection and misinformation.  I'm not buying.

Hillary's supporters should be heartened by the fact that intense hatred is often accompanied by equally strong support.

The hatred for HRC has caused progressives to lose their mind. None of them even tries to gravitate towards Kucinich or Edwards.

She is not Bill Clinton.  She doesn't have the charm or the charisma to make up for the fact that like Bill Clinton she will govern and make all decisions by polls and focus groups.

I don't know what makes BTD and Jeralyn oblivious to the obvious and brings about these ridiculous posts.  Granted it's her site so they can do what they want.  But it does undermine their credibility that they are willing to ignor so much and pass on the company line on Hillary.

I predict this dirty trick will backfire.  It's meant to divide Democrats between the foaming-at-the-mouth liberal progressives and the rational third-way triangulating Democrats that are winners, i.e. Clinton  supporters. But this false, Rovian, preemptive smear will be hard to pull off in a Democratic primary.  Hillary's supporters are basically drawing the line in the sand and saying you're either a crazy Hillary Hater or on the winning side--you're either with us or against us.  It unnecessarilly alienates people to Hillary's left.  She should treat those to her left with respect and listen to their concerns.  Jeez, she's more solicitous of right-wing criticisms of her than she is of those to her left and she never goes on the attack against the right-wingers like she does the left. That's a heck of a strategy in a primary.