Battle-Testing Hillary Clinton

Frank Rich used to wield an awesome power among Broadway's creative corps and financiers, able to close a heavily-financed show with the swipe of his fingers across the keyboard on West 43rd Street. But as a political columnist, Rich has moved from the knife's edge of powerful daily criticism to the backwash of a flabby Sunday Times column that regurgitates what we knew the week before last, applying a more-nuanced perspective to the political maelstrom. In truth, this can be valuable in longer, insightful looks at large issues, like the Iraq war or the economy. But in trying to write the elegy for Senator Clinton's presidential campaign, Rich looks like he's trying to close Les Miserables during previews.

Indeed, this weekend seems to be the time for the wishful political obituary where Hillary Clinton is concerned. But the Clinton haters in the Obama campaign and the Republican Party (a fascinating team of strangely-synced bedfellows of late) are whistling by the headstones before the calendar even shows 2008. Frank Rich may be the most elegant writer trying to close the Hillary Clinton show and consign it to the graveyard, but even he looks clumsy, ham-handed, and intellectually pathetic in reviewing a production that may well have more than 3,000 nights left to run.

Today, Rich joined the hypersexual fantasist Maureen Dowd in the Obama '08 propaganda bureau - otherwise known as the Times Op-Ed page minus Paul Krugman - in finding some pop psychology meaning in this year's polls, and you know, it just happens that this quackery tells him Clinton's experience may be trumped with the authenticity of Obama's calls for change. Disguising his last-minute salvo at Senator Clinton in a lead about McCain and Huckabee (like he cares), Rich quickly veers into the real reason for his column - a last pre-Christmas attack that may have some effect on the January 3rd vote in Iowa.

Experience, the experienced 60-something Times observer actually opines, is "toxic" in the 2008 election, linking both Bill and Hillary Clinton to the experience of John McCain and George W. Bush. Citing nothing other than his thumb in the wind, Rich then proclaims that if Bill Clinton hails his wife's resume, her knowledge of policy, and her travails in American politics as strengths, the 42nd President has pretty much lost his political touch.

Attention Bill Clinton: If that’s what this election is about, it’s already over. No matter how much Hillary Clinton, Mr. McCain or Rudy Giuliani brag about being tested and vetted, it’s not experience that will be decisive in determining the next president.

See how cleverly Rich links Clinton with two prominent Republicans? But Rich has a further linkage in mind - one that is almost an obscenity to the kind of Democrats who vote in primaries. Recounting the controversial statements of Bill Shaheen and Bob Kerrey, Rich spits on a leading Democratic candidate thusly: "The Clinton-camp denials that these tactics have been “authorized” sound like Karl Rove’s denials of similar smear campaigns against John McCain in 2000."

Hung up over the Clintons' marriage as Frank Rich is, just across the page his intellectual doppelganger (though you could also make that claim for Chris Matthews, Michael Goodwin and Andrew Sullivan) is the twisted, Gollum-like MoDo, caressing her Clinton hatred like "the precious." Of course, Dowd is back on her obsession with the "conjugal psychodrama" of the Clintons; it amazes me that the Sulzbergers pay her to write the same unoriginal sex column week after week. You know the drill: blind "friends of the Clintons" quotes, unsourced bimbo eruption libel, oh-so-clever references to skirts and cigars. For God's sake Maureen, put the robe back on - we've seen it all before.

This fall has been about a concerted effort of a large section of the national media to derail the Hillary Clinton express. You can see it in the spit that literally rises to the lips of Chris Matthews when he desperately - and with that shrill, feminine cackle of his - plays up any gotcha moment the campaign provides. You can see it the faux dese-dems-dose Archie Bunker populism of the effete, cuff-linked Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News. And you can feel it in the anti-feminism served up as commentary by Andrew Sullivan, who actually uses the "some of my favorite public figures are women" defense today on his blog, before serving up the names of Margaret Thatcher and Condi Rice as paradigms of political women, people whose example in public life whose inspiration now leads him to support Barack Obama.

Yet, Hillary is still on the rails. This weekend, John Sasso (who ran the Kerry and Dukakis campaigns and knows something about the right-wing attack machine) contributed a sober analysis of the campaign to the Boston Globe. His take? That Clinton's rough ride is helping her make the case for her Presidency, that she'll be a better, tougher candidate in the long run:

Today Clinton has forged herself into a formidable political leader. She has undergone a remarkable journey. In the face of unending autopsies on her personal and political past, unrelieved targeting at both Democratic and Republican debates, the punishing demands imposed on a woman candidate, she is still standing unflinchingly in place.

....Why the most electable Democrat? Because after a year of being tightly measured, Clinton has won a public acceptance that she has the intellect and inner confidence to do the job. She has reached beyond her political inheritance and shaped a political presence all her own. Hillary belittlers still abound, to be sure. She is still caricatured as calculating. But the senator has taken on some different markings. Gone is the defensive bite, on hand is a new openness to concede mistakes, often with glints of humor.

Comments

[Harriet]

Hillary is crazy bad for Democrats! She's insane. No way is she electable. Remember, my fellow idiots, Bill Clinton NEVER won a US majority election!! If Ross Peroit, the Independent candidate, would not have run TWICE, we could not have ever elected Bill. Hillary hasn't got a chance. But, most of all, even we dems can't trust her. She lies and lies and lies. Read the link below, from a repected Dem friend.

http://www.nohillaryclinton.com/2007/12/14/hillary-as-i-new-her-in-1974-hillary-for-president-by-jerry-zeifman-chapter-1/

[Harriet]

Hillary is crazy bad for Democrats! She's insane. No way is she electable. Remember, my fellow idiots, Bill Clinton NEVER won a US majority election!! If Ross Peroit, the Independent candidate, would not have run TWICE, we could not have ever elected Bill. Hillary hasn't got a chance. But, most of all, even we dems can't trust her. She lies and lies and lies. Read the link below, from a repected Dem friend.

http://www.nohillaryclinton.com/2007/12/14/hillary-as-i-new-her-in-1974-hillary-for-president-by-jerry-zeifman-chapter-1/

[Ozy]

Before we allow Hillary Clinton to be ordained as the Democratic primary winner we may want to consider some facts.

The primary season is about over. Now come the voters. They might decide who goes on to the general election but it will be the result of the caucuses in Washington State. Yes kiddies your vote does not count in this state. The primary which you would think you, the voter will decide who you want to represent you is nothing more than a million dollar straw poll. Who pays for this poll you ask? YOU AND I. Ouch!
The system in this state allows the party to pick it's candidate,through the caucus system, not the Voters. When I learned this I cried "Foul" but it's just the way it has been set up here. For more information you might try and "Wiki" it.
Enough of my not so educational rant.

Yes the voters will vote, but for the candidates that we are presented with by the power structure.

Hillary Clinton has the support of the Democratic Party leadership and has taken millions of dollars from corporate special interests to fund her national campaign.

Mit Romney has millions of dollars to run a national campaign.

Mike Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, is thinking about running as an
independent. He is reported to be worth 20 billion dollars.

All three can and do have the best chance to buy the presidency. It is a most undemocratic advantage over most Americans.

Maybe someday the people will rise up and rid the system of this corruption and set up a fair system so that anyone qualified will have a chance to be president.

A system that will recognize lobbying as bribery and outlaw the lobbyists and special interests from buying endorsements, media, staff and smothering the political process with millions of dollars. This shuts-out most qualified Americans from running for public office, the system where all candidates have a level playing field to compete.

Public financing only! No private or special interest money allowed. Free and equal media access to let the people know who they are and what policies they will fight for as President.

A system that will give us a President free from indebtedness to corporate interests.

Maybe then such a president can honestly in good conscience represent the best interests of “We the People”.

[Susie]

Ozy...why not just do away with corporations? Like Chavez is doing.

No one says that 'equal access' to the media is a right to candidates. Last time the Democrats gave equal access to a stupid candidate was Al Sharpton. If you recall, Sharpton asked Howard Dean in the 2004 Primaries why Dean didn't have any black cabinet members in his governor's cabinet. After that, Poor Dean was branded a racist by Al Sharpton.

Many things can certainly qualify a candidate to "better access" to the media. Success in fund-raising or business should be some qualities. And, they are.

Better think twice about "truly equal access" to the media by a crazy fool.

[craig]

Harriet has come up with the original thought that we are being controlled by the corporations,and that Clinton has been bought by those corporations. First, don't give me political pablum, don't give me tortured logic based on political bias, don't give me elite "I'm smarter and more evolved so I can see the world when you can't" patronizing, and don't give me worn out intellectually lazy bumper slogans. Give me facts.

I'm waiting.

[Ralph]

Matthews is a fool, don't pay attention to him. After the fall of Baghdad he opined "We're all neo-cons now!". Beside's Obberman out-ratings him anyway, I think. And I don't know, the Frank Rich bashing is a bit overdone here. Rich has many solid reasons for disliking Bill and Hillary at this point: both of them failed the most important foreign policy crisis of our time: the build up to the invasion of Iraq. Both tacitly supported it, and were very slow to condemn it. You cannot dance around that. It is essential to understanding why many progressives are behind Obama. That's what he means by 'experience'. The Bush Admin was supposed to be the most experience all-star team: Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, Rice... and they turned out to be a disaster. Hillary could have been courageous and stood up to Bush over Iraq, but she didn't. She wanted to play along like Tony Blair and hope for the best.

Now I know that Edwards also dropped the ball, but at least he admitted his mistake and condemned the war as a mistake much sooner than Hillary did. Obama has an appeal because he was not tainted by that debacle of a war resolution. And he did take a risk in opposing the invasion had it gone well. He looked at the facts and made the call -- something that many politicians can't bring themselves to do.

But if you really want to chose the Democratic candidate most likely to win the general election, than you must consider the following:

GW Bush: Texas Governor
Bill Clinton: Arkansas Governor
GHW Bush: Texas Oil Man
Ronald Reagan: California Governor
Jimmy Carter: Georgia Governor
Richard Nixon: California Senator
Lyndon B. Johnson: Texas Senator

You must go back over 40 years to find a President from the northeast. So, what have we learned? Well, that a sitting Junior Senator from New York with disturbingly high negatives will have a very difficult time winning the presidency. Barak Obama will also have a difficult time since many voters are very superficial about names (they must sound American) and his race will hut him as much as Hillary's gender will.

Based on this, an Edwards - Richardson ticket would have the best shot at taking back the White House, in my opinion.

[Slappy]

"Hillary is crazy bad for Democrats! She's insane."

LOL

Have a crazy good merry Christmas Tom W.
All the best to you and yours.

[Deschanel]

Thanks you for this article, spot on. I usually enjoy Rich but this op-ed was just dismal. Sullivan's crackling hatred of Hillary is unpleasant to see, he seems unable to help himself. But my biggest disappointment is Dowd- I used to enjoy her, but that was so long ago I can't remember why.

She poses as some sort of nu-feminist ("Are Men Necessary?") but is pretty benign towards the worst excesses of Bush, and scathingly catty towards other women, namely Hillary.

She even repeated the false assertion that Bill Clinton's handlers were "frantic" to cut short his interview with the endlessly blathering Charlie Rose.

"Put the robe back on, Maureen!"- classic. And true.

[Tom K]

Funny how Frank Rich can go from being so admirable to so annoying, merely by disagreeing with you. Now you see him, I suppose, as I always have.

As for Dowd, don't give up -- she went from anti-WJC to fanatically anti-WJC opponents, and may yet do with same with Hillary. The thing to remember with Dowd is that she is fundamentally unserious.

But I do enjoy seeing you depart from normal forms of rational discourse whenever you see a presumed "liberal" commit the intolerable act of lese-majeste that you see in a refusal to accept your sanitized version of HRC.

[ChrisW]

That was a fun read, Tom W. Even Tom K's gotta admit that.