Hillary Clinton as ‘Consort’

Hillary Clinton’s current role in the Clinton Administration is likely to lead to bad government. I feel this is true for two reasons. Neither has anything to do with gender, the Constitution or bureaucratic competence.

First, Bill Clinton ran on a moderate “I’m a new kind of Democrat” platform. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, appears to be more of a Ted Kennedy-style liberal Democrat. As Bill Clinton adopted a “quota system” for his Cabinet and appointed more and more of Hillary’s liberal buddies to Cabinet posts, it became clear that, although we thought we had elected a moderate President, we were getting an old-fashioned “tax-and-spend” liberal Administration.

Strike two against Hillary is that she is a trial lawyer. The trial lawyers of America is a large and powerful lobby that has for many years thwarted tort reform legislation even though tort reform is strongly favored by an overwhelming majority of the electorate.

An example of how these two factors can combine to result in bad government is provided by Mrs. Clinton’s Task Force on Health Care Reform. The AMA has been told that they may not be a part of the task force because they are a special-interest group. This unfair liberal bias that doctors always care more for their wallets than their patients is reduced to simple hypocrisy when one recalls that the head of the task force is a trial lawyer--and therefore a part of a special-interest group herself.

MICHAEL G. McCALLEY MD

Orange