OK, I’ll admit it - I wish I had voted for “Give ‘Em Hell” Hillary

The bottom line is that we must fight back against the rising right, and, sad to say, Hillary simply has more balls than our current president.

Yes, I know that Billary/Hillbilly are as odious, opportunistic and blindly ambitious as ever. And the Clintonian “third way” triangulation often frittered away opportunities to build a solid case for progressive positions. But I also saw how quickly the technocratic Mr. Obama sacrificed the public option that could have brought down health-care costs while leading the way to a single-payer system.

It’s not that Hillary stands further to the left than Obama, though it increasingly looks like that is also true. But at least she knows how to fight and is good at it.

Remember, during the debates, when Hillary’s eyes would gleam at the prospect of bashing the bullies who tried to take down Bill? Whitewater. Gennifer Flowers. Travelgate. Vince Foster. Hey, Barack, that Muslim socialist stuff is tame in comparison to being called a murderer. Our pant-suited Madame DeFarge has spent years taking names, in preparation for the day when she would serve up a an array of cold-cut revenge.

Mama Grizzly, my ass. I cringe in the corner in fear at the mere thought of Mean Mama Hillary striding into a child’s room and snarling, “Put down those toys and go to bed.”

Just think of how she would eviscerate Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Those manicured millionaires, who make their fortunes playing the aggrieved Common Man on radio and TV, have had a field day trashing the current prez. Meanwhile the urbane and unflappable Mr. Obama has done little more than laugh them off.

Just imagine if that same smarmy trio tried sexist tactics on Hillary, no matter which hairdo she was sporting at the time. I suspect certain pairs of their ovoid anatomical structures might never descend back into place if the Firstest Lady President decided to give them a piece of her mind and even more of her tonque. Go back to your room, boys. Now. And pick up those toys while you’re at it.

I think many people actually voted for Obama and not Hillary because they feared she would subject us to unsettling bouts of what can only be called high-pitched ballbusting. Yes, she has the tendency to screech when she’s upset. But I would rather spend four or eight years listening to her peel the bark off the painted and sometimes plastered saints (yes, Mr. Limbaugh that means you) than to listen to Obama apologize for the previous administration’s failures - while continuing them.

To avoid looking like the angry black man, Barack Obama has developed a coping mechanism where he lets the vitriol and racism flow by him. It’s as if he’s standing on a cliff, watching a turbulent river below that he views as too far away to pose any danger. But what he’s failing to realize is that this relentless pounding is eroding the ground underneath him.

When times get tough, people want change. Whether they lurch left or right depends on whether their leaders offer hope or fear. We all hoped we were electing a Black Roosevelt. Instead we have an African American Camelot, with fresh organic garden veggies, but without the lessons learned from the Bay of Pigs.

We chose Obama because we thought Hillary would give us the same old Robert Rubin-Larry Summers version of Republican lite elitist economics that robs from the poor to give to the rich. But if we are going to end up with the same Wall Street cabal no matter which Dem we elect, then we should have chosen Hillary because she would be more fun to watch. I think she has the cojones to blister the corporatist and racist Tea Partiers with one withering glance.

My fear is that the left’s never-ending timidity makes it easier for this country to lurch further and further right. Each time I think the crazies have discredited themselves (beginning with Goldwater, then Reagan, then Bush), it seems a new crop of even crazier right-wingers (Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, Sharron Angle) make the previous generation’s conservatives look mainstream.

Indeed, it is the progressives who should be taking to the streets, to demand an end to torture, a new jobs program, reinvention of the WPA for artists and musicians and a New Green Energy Deal with a heavy-duty carbon tax to fund innovation. But ever since the days of Tony Coelho, the turncoat who persuaded the Dems to court corporate cash as the expense of average wage-earners, no one with Roosevelt’s passion for people need apply for the top job.

Now that politics has been reduced to a contest between the two wings of the same Corporatist Party, at least the spectacle would be more entertaining with the vengeful Ms. Rodham-Clinton at the helm, lusting for the chance to settle a few old scores. Give ‘Em Hell Hillary deserved my vote, and I apologize to her for failing to see that.

Hillary in 2012?