What do you mean 'Hillary is not likeable'?

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

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"Why don't people like me?" asked Hillary Clinton, fixing her campaign staff with a piercing stare. "You'd better (expletive deleted) find out, and quick, or you'll all be competing with illegal immigrants for jobs no American wants to do.

"I'll destroy you, understand?"

"But the people do like you!" exclaimed campaign aide Amy Handleman. "Of course they do. They love you, just as we all do."

Clinton softened a bit, then set her jaw grimly.

"All right," she said, "They love me. But the polls! The polls all say I'm not likeable. It's because I'm a woman, isn't it? People still don't cotton to the idea of a strong woman in the White House. They're still stuck in a '50s mentality. Why, it makes me want to destroy them!"

"Maybe it isn't the people, but the way the poll questions are phrased," suggested another aide, Jill Poke. "Everybody knows pollsters can manipulate responses by the way they write their questionnaires. Maybe they're slanting things against you."

"The pollsters," Clinton mused. "You could be right! A lot of them simply don't like me because of the strength I showed as first lady … I mean, as a United States senator. You really could be right, Jill.

"When I'm president, I'll take care of those (expletive deleted) biased poll takers. I'll destroy them!"

"Meanwhile, why don't we let more of the real you show through?" suggested Handleman. "I mean, meeting poor people and such worked for Princess Di. She'd take a few hours off from sun bathing, go to a hospital and hold a poor sick kid, and the whole world loved her."

"OK," said Clinton. "We'll try something along those lines, but I'd better look as warm and charming as I really am, or I'll destroy you."

"Yes, yes!" said Handleman. "We'd deserve that if your true sweetness didn't come across."

And so, Clinton followed a hospital nurse around for a third of a shift, trailed by TV cameras. The next week she spent an hour and 16 minutes watching workers on an assembly line, and two weeks later she expended 41 minutes watching farm laborers pick strawberries.

All the while she smiled sweetly for TV reporters, but she wasn't happy with the results.

"My wrinkles!" she exclaimed. "Men get wrinkles and nobody cares, but if women get wrinkles, they're old crones! Why wasn't I properly made up, like for the television debates? Why didn't somebody think of this?

"Get me the name of whoever planned these things, the name of whoever forgot I needed makeup."

"But Mrs. Clinton," said Poke, "you looked so warm and friendly and … and real."

"I wanted warm and friendly," snarled Clinton, "but I never said anything about real. Now get me that name. I'll ... I'll destroy him!"

An (almost) honest statement from Hillary Clinton:

"You know, (liberal) is a word that originally meant that you were for freedom, that you were for the freedom to achieve, that you were willing to stand against big power and on behalf of the individual.

"Unfortunately, in the last 30, 40 years, it has been turned up on its head, and it's been made to seem as though it is a word that describes big government, totally contrary to what its meaning was in the 19th and early 20th century.

"I prefer the word 'progressive,' which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century.

"I consider myself a modern progressive, someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms, who believes that we are better as a society when we're working together and when we find ways to help those who may not have all the advantages in life get the tools they need to lead a more productive life for themselves and their family."

This is pretty straightforward, apart from the fact Clinton is in favor of big government. It also glosses over the fact American society already offers people the tools they need to lead productive lives. ("Fulfilling" lives would have had less of a statist ring.) Anyway, the candidate is mostly telling the truth here. This truth should remind us of a definition from the Blind Partisan's Dictionary:

progressive – n., adj., socialist.

Enough already: "Peace activist" Cindy Sheehan may have been unhinged by her son's death in Iraq, but now she's a real politician and no longer gets the "grieving mother" pass.

Predictably, she had her hero son's picture at the announcement of her candidacy, and figuratively waving the young man's bloody shirt was way over the top.

Nevertheless, we can hope Sheehan actually gets to debate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose congressional seat she covets. The idea of these two debating which of them is the more liberal is just too precious.

Sheehan's platform of universal health care, cheaper college and better legislative ethics may never get much of a hearing, however. She says she won't take corporate money, so don't look for much in the way of campaign spending.

We're sure corporate America is devastated to know she doesn't want its money.

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Tom Kuiper is the author of "I've Always Been a Yankees Fan: Hillary Clinton In Her Own Words."