Monday, February 13, 2006

Hillary Clinton is Politically Savvy?!?

Ed Morrisey at CQ has a post today about a London Times article describing Hillary’s problems. The discussion centers on Hillary’s battleaxe personality. In spite of this, the London Times continues with the unchallenged line about Hillary being politically savvy. What on Earth does that mean?

An effective, savvy politician can convince people to support what he or she wants. Hillary can’t get out of her own way long enough for anyone to know what she is proposing. She’s like Jacob Marley in “A Christmas Carol.” One can just imagine her some years hence giving sage advice to some future Democratic pol. Barack Obama, perhaps?

"It is required of every person," Hillary returned, "that the spirit within him or her should walk abroad among his fellow persons, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"
Again Hillary raised a cry, and shook her chain and wrung her shadowy hands.
"You are fettered," said Barack, trembling. "Tell me why?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied Hillary. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"


Each link is a triangulated position, each weight one more sell out and compromise. Hillary is becoming a caricature of a “savvy” politician. She opposes everything her opponents do, but only in style and not in substance. In addition to all the rest of her baggage, she has the worst aspects of John Kerry’s intellectual arguments in the last campaign. “I have a plan!” Or that dreadfully hollow reply to the last State of the Union speech. “There’s a better way.”

The old canard about the voting public being stupid is just that. A canard. The voting public is cynical. All this triangulation and transparent scheming by Hillary plays right into that cynicism. It’s the equivalent of leaning into a left hook. WHAMO! There go her poll numbers again.

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