Frank Rich: Hillary Clinton’s Mission Unaccomplished

[welshTerrier2]

source: http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/01/frank-rich-hillary-clintons-mission.html

"... I wanted to draw the contrast between what we’ve seen over the last six years, and the kind of leadership and experience that I would bring to the office.” She couldn’t have set the bar any lower. Mrs. Clinton cannot rewrite her own history on Iraq to match Mr. Obama’s early opposition to the war, or Mr. Webb’s. She was not prescient enough to see, as Mr. Webb wrote in The Washington Post back in September 2002, that “unilateral wars designed to bring about regime change and a long-term occupation should be undertaken only when a nation’s existence is clearly at stake.” But she’s hardly alone in this failing, and the point now is not that she mimic John Edwards with a prostrate apology for her vote to authorize the war. (“You don’t get do-overs in life or in politics,” she has said.) What matters to the country is what happens next. What matters is the leadership that will take us out of the fiasco. <skip>

This is how she explains her vote to authorize the war: “I would never have expected any president, if we knew then what we know now, to come to ask for a vote. There would not have been a vote, and I certainly would not have voted for it.” John Kerry could not have said it worse himself. No wonder last weekend’s “Saturday Night Live” gave us a “Hillary” who said, “Knowing what we know now, that you could vote against the war and still be elected president, I would never have pretended to support it.”

Compounding this problem for Mrs. Clinton is that the theatrics of her fledgling campaign are already echoing the content: they are so overscripted and focus-group bland that they underline rather than combat the perennial criticism that she is a cautious triangulator too willing to trim convictions for political gain. Last week she conducted three online Web chats that she billed as opportunities for voters to see her “in an unfiltered way.” Surely she was kidding. Everything was filtered, from the phony living-room set to the appearance of a “campaign blogger” who wasn’t blogging to the softball questions and canned responses. Even the rare query touching on a nominally controversial topic, gay civil rights, avoided any mention of the word marriage, let alone Bill Clinton’s enactment of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. <skip>

After six years of “Ask President Bush,” “Mission Accomplished” and stage sets plastered with “Plan for Victory,” Americans hunger for a presidency with some authenticity. Patently synthetic play-acting and carefully manicured sound bites like Mrs. Clinton’s look out of touch. (Mr. Obama’s bare-bones Webcast and Web site shrewdly play Google to Mrs. Clinton’s AOL.) Besides, the belief that an image can be tightly controlled in the viral media era is pure fantasy. <skip>

The issue raised by the tragedy of Iraq is not who’s on the left or the right, but who is in front and who is behind. Mrs. Clinton has always been a follower of public opinion on the war, not a leader. Now events are outrunning her. Support for the war both in the polls and among Republicans in Congress is plummeting faster than she can recalibrate her rhetoric; unreliable Iraqi troops are already proving no-shows in the new Iraqi-American “joint patrols” of Baghdad; the Congressional showdown over fresh appropriations for Iraq is just weeks away.

This, in other words, is a moment of crisis in our history and there will be no do-overs. Should Mrs. Clinton actually seek unfiltered exposure to voters, she will learn that they are anxiously waiting to see just who in Washington is brave enough to act.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Frank Rich is a God

He is the greatest writer of our times.

[illinoisprogressive]

2. I loved Rich's book The Greatest Story...for he has such keen and on

target insights that most do not have. I agree with his observations that Clinton will have a hard time if she is so controlled and scripted as she is. It may fool at first but, after awhile people will see it is smoke and mirrors unless she throws off the constant polling and consultants surrounding her and goes for a more authentic persona, which i cannot see her doing.
The part of her playing catch up is very good. I have found Clinton playing that alot with Obama having to copy what he does and usually falling short. i.e. the re release of her 10 year old in light of the Obama book tour of his 2nd book. Now she has launched a facebook to copy the million strong facebook thing going for Obama.
she has even copied the title of hers: Over one million.....

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[welshTerrier2]

4. no, let's keep them as far away from real people as possible

welcome to DU, Christopher Sly!!

it seems to me that, in a democracy, we would want the voters to hear directly from those seeking office without a script interposed and we would want candidates to hear directly from voters without scripting their audiences and having their handlers keep "those people" out of view ... it's not clear why you are suggesting that access to voters shouldn't be unfiltered.

[jaysunb]

8. I don't appreciate your web page

or did you mean it to just show us what's out there ? :evilfrown:

[wisteria]

5. Great Post! n/t

[jaysunb]

6. Yup ! just like I been saying

Homegirl aint going nowhere.....sorry.

[rocktivity]

7. NOW do you get it, Hillary?

My response from earlier today. And thanks for the intervention, Frank!

:headbang:
rocknation

[truedelphi]

9. I clicked on C-Span Saturday and without

knowing I was watching footage that had pushed aside The People's
March On Washington, I watched.

Hillary was talking about Health Care for All Children, and although her message
was acceptable, it was delivered without any of the charisma needed by someone
desiring this Nation's top office.

I was tryin to remember where I had seen her speaking like this before, and then I realized - i hadn't. But her posture, her inflection, her sense of self were all so reminiscent of every other middle-aged woman County bureuacrat I had ever witnessed, that I thought I had seen her. (I myself am a middle-aged woman - so please don't assign age-ism or Chauvinism to this remark)

Where was the enthusiasm of a Pelosi? Or the nitty-gritty determination of a Donna or Cindy Sheehan?
I had no sense that she would go the extra mile like Chicago's Jane Byrne had (when she moved from her digs into one of the worst projects in the Nation for a week.)

Certainly not the eloquence of a Barbara Jordan.

And yet, were there a single progressive bone in her body, despite all this, I would vote for her.

But since she won't <Progress>, I must choose someone else.

[jaysunb]

10. You forgot Ann Richards

Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisom.......

Good post, I agree wholeheartedly.

[welshTerrier2]

11. a kick for ...

some Rich ideas ...

[SaveElmer]

12. Same tired old criticisms...

Apparently not shared by the 1500 folks greeting her in Iowa...