SoS Hillary Clinton, via Al Jazeera English … and a segue into musings about friendships …

(speaking for myself only)*

Of note to Steve Markom who’d spoken with me about this via e-mail, Hillary Clinton’s support for Israel is important in this new administration, as the video narrator points out.

That man’s remarks are dreadful.

Then, of course, there’s Christopher Hitchens yesterday on MSNBC. Joan Walsh of Salon, thank god, put him in his place very authoritatively.

See “Media Matters – Hitchens makes another unsupported accusation against Hillary Clinton on Hardball.”

It is a shame to see such a bright, learned man allow himself to become a lying buffoon.

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* We will be adding this phrase to the top of our stories, except for Larry Johnson:

(speaking for myself only)

This is solely to ensure that what we write in our articles does not reflect, necessarily, an overall blog viewpoint or single opinion.

We choose to be a diverse community of writers with diverse, often conflicting, ideas and perspectives.

I think it is so unimportant for us to agree on everything. Some of us are thrilled that Hillary will be SoS, and many of us are worried for her and what Obama will do to her. But instead of force-feeding you ONE point of view, we’re going to allow our writers to express ALL of their concerns as well as both their negative and positive feelings about her new job.

There’s nothing more boring — to me — than going to a blog or magazine where I know exactly what it will be writing.

While I got a kick out of some of his shows, Sean Hannity’s programming suffers from its utter predictability. I still DVR it, but I fast-forward through most of it because I know exactly what’s going to be said. Only if Karl Rove is on — or perhaps Newt Gingrich (and only depending on the topic) — do I bother to listen.

That’s because Rove’s ideology doesn’t trump his ability to speak his mind.

Anyway, our goal is to surprise you, to edify you, to anger you, to make you think about something in a new and interesting way, to challenge you.

But we’re not so consumed by hatred and mistrust of Obama that we cannot be pleased, at times, by some choice he has made.

I’m sorry he had to give ANY position to Bill Richardson, who’s a sorry excuse of a man who’s had far more than his fair share of opportunities that he’s squandered. An ambassadorship to Outer Mongolia would have been too good for Richardson, imho.

Predictability is a snooze. That’s why Dick Morris — who has quite a mind and a good bit of political cunning — is so BORING when he’s talking about the Clintons because he’s so consumed by hatred that his brain no longer functions.

And that’s why Christopher Hitchens — who’s so learned, so gifted in both writing and oratory — is a boorish bore when he talks about the Clintons because he too is consumed by hatred of the Clintons.

In Hitchens’ case, I sense it is a repeatedly warmed-over rehash of the catastrophic break-up of his long friendship with Sidney Blumenthal who has remained steadfast in his allegiance to the Clintons. Those two were very close friends but had a highly publicized break-up during the Lewinsky days. It’s clear to this amateur shrink that Hitchens still hasn’t gotten over the loss of that friendship, and is still obsessively talking to himself and an imaginary Blumenthal day and night about the Clintons. Since one rarely hears about or from Blumenthal, I can only assume that he has moved long past that break-up, and is doing rather splendidly. Winning the Oscar for the Best Documentary of 2007 for Taxi to the Dark Side is no small achievement. And his productivity with his books, which are such great reads, is impressive.

The break-up of friendships can be devastating. But I think it is always harder on the one who knows, deep deep deep down, that he is the one who made the fatal step too far. And that’s clearly Hitchens.

We ALL lost friends during this election season of 2007 and 2008. Many of us lost longtime, dear friends. It says something about the true quality of those friendships, however, that a mere election could split us up.

Earlier today, I wrote in a comment about a friend who called me last spring and tore me “a new one” for not backing Obama as well as for the profane language on our blog — we’d published one of our beloved Sugar’s more, um, frank posts that day. That Sugar is one wild woman! I knew it was risky to publish her writing “as is” but I couldn’t resist — sometimes I just love wild, unruly writing. And Sugar is so good at it.

But, while it bothered me for a few days, I moved on. I realized that that friendship couldn’t have been as dear as I thought it once was if such simple matters could be the final straw for this other person. Life goes on. Friends come and go. And through this blog I’ve made some marvelous new friends who brighten and enrich my life in ways i cannot begin to describe. I love those new friends. And we do NOT agree about everything.

The other day, I had a touchy exchange with a writer here who means the world to me. I could have said nothing, but my heart told me that I had to. It was very difficult, and it hurt me so much because I feared that she would be hurt by what I wrote. I feared she would feel defensive. But it was better to air it than hide it. We’ll get past it.

Friendship. Tell me about yours. Tell me what has happened with your friendships during this election season. Tell me all.

It will be curative for all of us to bare our souls about those damaged or destroyed friendships, and to rejoice in our new friendships.