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Word this week that Hillary Clinton's campaign bullied GQ Magazine into pulling a story about squabbling inside her campaign's organization is further incontrovertible proof that the line between Republicans and Democrats has essentially vanished.

Since the 2000 election, when Ralph Nader made the claim vociferously, the idea that no fundamental difference exists Democrats and Republicans has been debated again and again. With the mid-term 2006 election, it appeared the Democrats were finally succeeding in differentiating themselves, but their subsequent ineptitude in seeing through what the nation elected a majority of Democrats to Congress to accomplish - end the Iraq war - showed they have learned nothing.

Now comes Hillary Clinton's strong-arming tactics. Her campaign reportedly threatened GQ that Bill Clinton would not make himself available for a cover story on him that it was planning for December if the magazine went ahead with the story on the campaign's internal squabbling.

In a pathetic display of impotence, GQ caved. If the story was solid, the magazine should have printed it. And on top of it, GQ should have made the threat from the Clinton campaign part of the story. The magazine also should have explained that Bill Clinton was the planned cover story for December but that the story would have to be written without his cooperation because of strong-arming by Hillary Clinton's campaign.

You might expect this type of thing from the Bush administration, which has a track record of secrecy and trying to bully anyone who disagrees with its positions. And like the Bush administration would, Hillary Clinton's campaign bungled the whole thing. With all the masterminds and public relations aces hired by the campaign, you would think someone would have had the presence of mind to foresee that strong-arming a magazine was likely to blow up in their faces.

As it has. Hillary is riding high, but this incident is likely to hurt. It gives her opponents a reason to attack her. In addition, if her campaign is capable of taking a misstep this bad, chances are more will come.

And what are we to expect should she become president? More bullying? More secrecy? More attempts to silence opponents? We might as well make George Bush a dictator for life. Why bother to change the face in the White House if the tactics are the same? Despite the oft-repeated claims that Hillary is an unabashed liberal, her record certainly belies the claim. She voted for the Iraq war, as did many other Democrats who should have stood against an unnecessary, unjust war.

But she didn't and they didn't. Which, yet again, is more proof there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats. After all, their campaigns are funded by pretty much the same corporations and special interest groups.

Learn more about this author, Pedro Pereira.
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