Ruth Conniff | Hillary Clinton and the Woman Thing

Truthout, from The Progressive:

'When we imagined a woman President, we imagined a new day,' [Anna Quindlen] writes. Instead, in Hillary we have a professional pol. Ultimately, Quindlen puts a good spin on it: Maybe 'likeability' is overrated, she writes, and suggests we look where electing the candidate we'd rather have a beer with has gotten us.

But for progressives, ... the problem goes beyond matters of style. Hillary is a centrist, who rubs progressives the wrong way - most of all on the war. Back in 1992, when she was running with Bill as a new kind of first lady - an accomplished professional, a humane liberal, a board member of the Children's Defense Fund - enthusiasm was a lot higher on the left. But dropping progressive ties (along with old friends like Marian Wright Edelman and Lani Guinier) has been part of the Clintons' career trajectory.

Actually, I would say, the problem with Hillary is the same as the problem with other recent Democratic frontrunners. She is the establishment candidate, with neither the fire nor the freshness of the 'fringe' candidates who are not afraid to stand for something. Watching the line-up of primary contenders speak to the base in Wisconsin in 2004 was a lesson in the diminishing returns of Democratic Party politics. Russ Feingold, David Obey, Tammy Baldwin - the whole progressive delegation from Bob La Follette's home state - spoke passionately against the war, the Patriot Act, and the excesses of the Bush Administration. So did the least-likely Presidential candidates ... At the very end came John Kerry, whose best stab at an applause line was a pitch to "fully fund No Child Left Behind." ...

Now, four years later, the rest of the country has come around to the "fringe" view that the war in Iraq was a sham and a disaster, the attack on American civil liberties a serious concern. And we have Hillary, where Kerry once stood, splitting the difference on these urgent matters. It's the same thing she did as Senator: co-sponsoring legislation criminalizing flag-burning while opposing the flag-burning amendment, dodging discussion of the Iraq War when it mattered most, while bravely taking a stand against violence in video games.

The triangulation strategy that made her husband famous - and maddening - is evident in Clinton's many conservative legislative efforts - working with Sam Brownback and Joe Lieberman to boost her stock with social conservatives, talking tough about military spending and the need to confront Iran. ...