Camille Paglia: Clintons Have Dirt on Obama?

Though an unabashed liberal, Camille Paglia of Salon.com is always ultimately fair--a rarity for liberals, I am aware.

But Paglia never minces words when she goes after Democrats and Liberals. And she is 'liberal' with her praise for Republicans and Conservatives when she feels they merit it.

This is why I always take Paglia's views seriously, though I strongly disagree with her ideology.

Normally when I hear of rumors that the Clintons did this or that behind the scenes, usually involving scandal, I have to admit I take it with a grain of salt. And I am self-aware enough to know that this is due either to overkill ('scandal' and 'Clinton' are like two parts of the same word), or to the relentless determination of conservatives to 'catch' the Clintons in a new jaw-dropper, whether there is any merit to their charges or not.

But when I heard that Paglia, of all people, had actually suggested that the Clintons have some dirt on Obama, I stopped and paid close attention.

Here is a sampling of Paglia's comments:

Given Obama's elaborate deference to the Clintons, beginning with his over-accommodation of them at the Democratic convention in August, a nagging question has floated around the Web: What do the Clintons have on him? No one doubts that the Clinton opposition research team was turning over every rock in its mission to propel Hillary into the White House. There's an information vacuum here that conspiracy theorists have been rushing to fill.

To be sure, Paglia does not say that she herself believes that such an assertion is the undisputed truth. But the mere fact that she would bring up the issue lends merit to the questions.

Sarah Palin Remains in Top News Headlines

Despite the pronouncement by several members of the mainstream TV media that she would be only a 'brief phenomenon that Americans will quickly grow tired of hearing about,' Sarah Palin remains in the top news headlines.

Palin is now clearly a star of the GOP, perhaps its greatest hope of resurgence, in addition to other rising stars such as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

As a fresh face with a fresh voice with a charisma that made John McCain look as if he were nearly a corpse, Palin is still the talk of Washington and the news media.

Even Camille Paglia of Salon.com likes Palin.

And clearly the venom directed at Palin from the entirety of the mainstream media is indicative of a deep-seated fear that she will come back and trounce Obama in 2012, given that her popularity remains incredibly high and she draws massive crowds that rival that of Obama.

Michael Barone joked at one point during the campaign that the reason the mainstream media hated Palin so much is that she failed to abort her Downs Syndrome child.

While such a theory, if it were serious, totally discounts the real reason for the hatred, such a notion may not be quite so far fetched. The Left detests conservative values, such as the sacredness of human life.

But the hardcore Leftists within the movement go much further. They think that it is an unstated assumption that any woman who discovers she has a baby with Downs WILL have an abortion, as if such a move denotes some sort of moral obligation to save society from the costs of caring for the imperfect.

However, it is Palin who deserves the accolades for sending the Left into a frenzy over the fact that she would dare give birth to the imperfect and care for the child lovingly and honorably as any moral, ethical human being would.

If Americans cannot embrace the natural goodness of someone like Sarah Palin, then perhaps we do deserve the government we just voted for ourselves.

As for Palin's frame of mind these days, post-election, she says she is ready to put the brutal Campaign '08 behind her and look forward to 2012.