HRC GROUP POST - The wonderful Gene Lyons gives his opinion

[kristopher]

7. I'm not backing Hilary for the primary but...

I hope you don't mind if I share my experience of that time.

I'd been out of the country more or less continually for over 8 years when I when I moved back in 1995. I had never been very political - participating in the process for me was a shallow experience at best, and many times I barely paid any attention to what was happening until election day. In my defense, I was working 60-80 hours a week and had also become disconnected from events due to the prolonged absence. But no two ways about it, I now know that no excuses I can offer are acceptable and none justify the fact that I didn't take this fundamental civic responsibility seriously. I am now ashamed of the fact that I was unarguably a classic low information voter.

That is the way it was until I started seeing the treatment the Clintons were receiving during the impeachment. I was appalled at the baseless, obviously politically motivated attacks that were filling the news on a daily basis. The behavior and thinking behind the behavior of the GOP literally sickened me and turned me into a very engaged political participant.

I was particularly repulsed by the (new to me) right wing radio version of reality where the bounds of common decency were not only ignored by ridiculed in order to legitimize their disgusting attacks on the First Lady of the United State.

The episode made me a lifelong opponent of the GOP and left me with the belief that a strategy of unfairly attacking political opponents by anyone may seem effective in the short term. However, the long term consequences are inevitably not acceptable.