Hillary and Roger: Kissin' Cousins?

Any reasonable person who watched Roger Clemens testify before Congress this week came away with a couple of impressions -

1. Clemens cheated by using an unfair advantage to reach his greatness.

2. He lied about cheating, continues to lie, and believes he is justified in winning at all costs.

The same appears to be the case with Hillary Clinton and her attempt to "win" the Democratic nomination from Barack Obama. Quite aside from her attempts to discredit Senator Obama with questions of race, unscrupulous distortions, and negative ads - tactics that have failed as Obama continues leads in popular vote, pledged delegates, and states won, Hillary continues to try and secure the nomination that she believes is rightfully hers, irrespective of the will and choice of the voters. Hillary and her organization have increased pressure on superdelegates to vote for her even if she fails to win the majority of votes, delegates, and states.

But Hillary's strategy does not stop there. Consider the question of Michigan and Florida, where she, alone, campaigned and won delegates, in direct violation of party rules to which ALL candidates agreed and pledged, including Hillary.

Please read the transcript from Meet the Press this morning:

MR. RUSSERT: Besides superdelegates, another important issue is Florida and Michigan, and this is what happened. Back in August of '07, Howard Dean wrote this letter to all the candidates:

"As leader of the Democratic Party, I strongly urge you to adhere to the 2008 delegate selection rules. The 2008 Delegate Selection Rules. ... The 2008 Delegate Selection Rules adopted by the full DNC at its August 2006 meeting clearly provide that only four states - Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire," "South Carolina - may hold their respective contests prior to February 5, '08. The [Rules and Bylaws Committee's] finding of noncompliance included a 100 percent loss of pledged and unpledged delegates." If you tried to move your primary up, you've lost all your delegates. Florida and Michigan did it, they lost all their delegates.

The Clinton campaign put out this statement: "We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the" nomination "process." "We believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role. Thus, we will be signing the pledge to adhere to the DNC approved nominating calendar."

That was the Clinton campaign in September. Here's the Clinton campaign in February.

"With regard to Michigan and Florida, our position is clear. We're going to ask our delegates to vote to seat the delegations from Florida and Michigan. We do not think that" "many Americans should have" had "their votes and their voices and their preferences denied. "We had an enormous turnout, particular in Florida, the largest turnout in the history of the Democratic primary in Florida. And we believe that it is critically important that those delegates have an opportunity to express their preferences at the convention. "I don't believe that anyone seriously thinks we're going to have a national convention in which the delegations of Florida and Michigan are not going to have a say. So that is our position."

Like Roger, Hillary believes it is her right to win at all costs, by playing the game with rules that only benefit her, by cheating. This is a critical time for the so called Democratic Party - will it be, or will it not be?

But two things are clear to me, based on the question of character alone -
Roger Clemens does not belong in The Hall of Fame
Hillary Clinton does not belong in the Oval Office

Zachary Marcus