Hellary: Machiavelli’s evil twin

Politics have no relation to morals.

The end justifies the means.

– Machiavelli

I’m not going to have some reporters pawing
through our papers. We are the president!

– Hillary Rodham Clinton (as first lady)

Machiavelli in the robes of a Florentine public official

This column is another in a series of articles I have written on the duplicity of
human nature. Other pieces I’ve written in this genre include: “Sen. Barbara Boxer and Secretary of State Condolezza Rice (“What is Plantation Liberalism?”); Ira Einhorn and Al Gore (The cult of Celebrity”); Oprah and Barack Obama (“Queen Oprah and her anointed squire“); Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe vs. Truth (“A letter to professor Laurence Tribe on Veritas“), among others. Here, I would like to explore some of the more seductive similarities between Hillary and Machiavelli.

Who was Machiavelli? He was an Italian Renaissance philosopher and writer primarily known for his magnificent treatise on political statescraft – “The Prince” (1513). Because of his radical theories on politics and the acquisition of power, his name has come down to us as an adjective – Machiavellian – “Suggestive of or characterized by expediency, deceit, cunning, duplicity or bad faith,” but also as a noun – Machiavellianism – “The political doctrine of Machiavelli which denies the relevance of morality in politics and justifies craft and deceit.”

Before I begin my comparative analysis of Hillary and Machiavelli, I must first state emphatically that the dominant political philosophy of the modern Democratic Party of which Hillary Rodham is the leading presidential candidate for – liberalism – is defined precisely as the separation of morality from public policy. In this sense modern liberalism = Machiavellianism, which “denies the relevance of morality in politics and justifies craft, deceit, cunning, duplicity, bad faith.”

Hillary unleashed

For the past 30 years, no candidate has ever won the presidency without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire. Hillary has all but lost Iowa, and New Hampshire and South Carolina are statistical ties. If Hillary looses the Democratic nomination to novice Obama, she will be ignominiously consigned to the looney-left Neverland of Edward Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry – her presidential dreams, caput! However, Hillary’s narcissistic ego would never allow this, so off come the gloves and on comes Machiavelli to the tenth power.

Machiavelli, in one of his discourses in “The Prince” stated, “If it is necessary for the prince to use the ways of beasts, he should imitate the fox and the lion, because the lion cannot defend himself from snares and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.” Hillary has mastered this duplicity for she loves to claim that America elected a “co-presidency” or “getting two for the price of one.”

And remember in 1994 when Hillary and her clandestine panel of “health care experts” tried to push socialized medicine down the throat of the American people (the lion)? But as soon as the conservative media shed the light of truth on her diabolical plans of stealing money from one group of people and giving it to another (which is classical socialism), she flees instinctively to her bedroom vanity, puffs up her hair, and puts on her softest, non-threatening pink outfit (the fox).

Bill Clinton’s former chief adviser, Dick Morris, in a prescient article written for RealClearPolitics.com last April foretold Hillary’s fall in the polls that we are currently witnessing:

 

Her overall decline is serious, but her slippage among her key groups – a 10-point drop among all women and an 11-point decline among single women – must be particularly troublesome for her advisers.

Worse, from her point of view, there seems no obvious cure in sight. Hillary is not about to clarify her position on the war as she seeks to straddle a general election strategy of being a moderate with a primary campaign emphasis on moving to the left. She has no national forum for new issue positioning, and the more she becomes exposed to public view, the more her negative ratings increase. And she can’t alter her personality more than she already has. In short, Hillary is in trouble.

Machiavelli stresses the utility of brute power where necessary and rewards by a Tammany Hall-style, patron-clientalism to protect and preserve the powers that be – by any means necessary. Likewise, Hillary will leave no garbage can unturned to find (or create) scandal, to heap garbage upon Sen. Obama, or on whatever presidential candidate stands between her and the White House.

Hillary touts herself as being this great feminist heroine anointed by feminist icons of past ages to deliver all oppressed women anywhere from the clutches of evil men everywhere. However, in my opinion Hillary isn’t a real feminist, at least in the classic sense of the word where a woman achieves great things in a man’s world on her own merits. In this respect, Hillary isn’t a feminist; she is an opportunist.

Conservative commentator, Rush Limbaugh, summarizes Hillary rise to power and her narcissistic worldview, “Bill got to the top; Hillary took over.” Rush further delineates Hillary’s Machiavellian tactics in his own inimitable manner:

 

The Hillary Clinton story basically is this – You’re a girl; you’re a young woman. What do you do? You go off to college. Why do you go? To meet your husband. That’s what she did. She wouldn’t be where she is if it weren’t for her husband. So she goes to college, finds some guy that she thinks is going somewhere, latches on to him. Maybe she steers his career as some women are prone to do. Maybe she followed. Who knows, but the point is that when he got wherever he was going, that’s when she moves in to take over.

Machiavelli says of the ruler that “It is better to be feared than to be loved.” I would love to be rid of the Clinton dynasty forever in January 2009. To this end, I hope we can put together a winning coalition of at least 40 percent legal Americans, 6 percent Chinese millionaire fry cooks and busboys from Chinatown and 5 percent illegal alien landscape workers and nannies from Mexico who will put us over the top.

 

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