In Time, Clinton Tries to Boost Self in Boosting Warren

Time Magazine recently released their list of the 100 Hundred Most influential people for this year.

The politicization in these rankings can rankle some people. House Speaker John Boehner praises Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Tennessee's US Senator Lamar Alexander praises Bob Corker. These glowing paragraphs praising this year's winners also reek of self-promotion. We tend to praise in other people the very things we either see or want to see in ourselves. A number of Presidential contenders or 2016 aspirants do not appear in these pages, most of them the conservative, Republican nominees. Where is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker? What about Maine Governor Paul LePage? Or even Indian-American female governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina? She has identity politics written all over, and she represents one of the Deep South States, the first to secede from the Union. Where was the glowing editorial on her behalf? One of the more telling examples of Time 100's "Praise yourself through praising others", Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touts US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in a unique column, filled with the same warm liberal talking points.

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In response to this article, critics contend that the progressive academic can make Hillary do whatever she wants. Warren supporters also believe that her record and rhetoric better match the tone of the Democratic Party, and that she should run instead of Clinton, whose campaign is struggling to gain momentum in the face of scandals, message failures, and outright boredom. What does Hillary's flattery of Warren say about Hillary? Do we find the former First Lady trying to bolster her sagging bid for President? The article begins with this title: Progressive champion   How anyone can describe deepening gaps in wealth and opportunity in this country, plus expanded government dependence, loose borders, a failing foreign policy, and race riots nationwide as "progressive" escapes most people, yet Hillary calls Elizabeth a champion of this cause. It was always going to take a special kind of leader to pick up Ted Kennedy's mantle as senior Senator from Massachusetts-champion of working families and scourge of special interests. It does take a special leader. Or does it take a village? One of the titles of Clinton's self-appreciations, "It Takes a Village" might take more than one reading to endure the collectivist liberalism she promotes. There is little truth that Edward "Ted" Kennedy was a champion of working people and pushed against special interests. His chief interest was his political ambitions, which permitted him an over-long stay in the US Senate. His immediate successor, Republican state senator Scott Brown of Wrentham, replaced Kennedy on a platform of stopping Obamacare. The signature legislation expanding government control into health care remains unpopular, except with the special interests who lobbied for then benefitted from the law. Elizabeth Warren never lets us forget that the work of taming Wall Street's irresponsible risk taking and reforming our financial system is far from finished. And she never hesitates to hold powerful people's feet to the fire: bankers, lobbyists, senior government officials and, yes, even presidential aspirants. About taming Wall Street, Warren better start defending her defense on behalf of Wall Street lawyers, if not the bankers. She also receives a large amount of her campaign funding from banking lobbyists, firms not as big as Goldman-Sachs, but much larger than the neighborhood bank on the corner of Main Street. Granted, Warren has pushed back against President Obama's push for Free Trade deals, but when will she explain why Obama's other policies (Stimulus, Obamacare, etc.) have hurt middle-income families and small businesses? Warren hesitated to hold anyone accountable for the failed Democratic agenda during her celebrated guest spot on "The Tonight Show with Seth Meyers". Will she ever? No wonder Hillary likes Warren, so far. She talks about accountability, but holds no one accountable, like President Obama and her less likely successor. So, the Former US Senator plays up the current US Senator's "outsider" status. Clinton has been trying to make herself an average Joanne, first with her claims of "dead broke" after leaving the White House in 2001, then driving around in her van "Scooby" for her first trip to Iowa after announcing her Presidential bid. Elizabeth Warren's journey from janitor's daughter to Harvard professor to public watchdog to U.S. Senator has been driven by an unflagging determination to level the playing field for hardworking American families like the one she grew up with in Oklahoma. She fights so hard for others to share in the American Dream because she lived it herself. Leveling the playing field has turned into skewing the game toward Big Government, and the big interests who can pull the levers and make the connections blocked or prevented from the little guy in the street. Warren, whether on purpose or unintentionally, has geared populism toward more cronyism. Warren may have started out as a janitor's daughter. What about Hillary? Does her fulsome praise for the faux-Cherokee academic spill into promoting her chances? Hillary Clinton: the Barry Goldwater supporter of the early 1960s, then came under the tutelage of Communist radical Saul Alinksy. Not very impressive, more elite than mainstream. Clinton's Time 100 praise for Warren does very little for her Presidential hopes. Everything she details in the Bay State US Senator, she wants other people to see in her. Inadvertently, for the Democratic Party's progressive base, Clinton has made the case for bringing Warren into the race. More importantly, the faux-populist hypocrisy of the Left has received its full airing, and should dissuade voters in 2016 from voting for either Hillary or Elizabeth.