A Note to Hillary on Jerusalem Disunited

The American Prospect: By Gershom Gorenberg

An open letter to Hillary Clinton, telling her what life is really like in Jerusalem and informing her that her stand on uniting the city isn't half the plan her husband proposed in 2001.

Dear Hillary,

A colleague alerted me to your recent position paper on Israel, with your promise of support for an 'undivided Jerusalem.' I appreciate the warm feelings, but I admit I was confused by your description of my city. Since you are a careful, wonky candidate, I figured you must have details at your disposal. So this morning I called a Palestinian cabby friend, and together we went looking for the 'undivided Jerusalem.'" ...

Let me suggest a more honest and more honorable position on Israel: The greatest contribution that America can make to Israeli security is to help it reach peace with the Palestinians, and as president you will resume that effort where it was abandoned in 2001. If asked about Jerusalem, say that the sides will have to come to an agreement, and you are committed to help them do so. The Clinton parameters are still a good basis for that. If you don't take this position, I hope that your Democratic rivals do. It would make me more hopeful about the future of my fractured city.

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For those who think they can handle it:
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The real harm Hillary Clinton inflicted on Bosnia

By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine:

"The punishment visited on Sen. Hillary Clinton for her flagrant, hysterical, repetitive, pathological lying about her visit to Bosnia should be much heavier than it has yet been and should be exacted for much more than just the lying itself. ...

"I can tell you for an absolute certainty that it would be quite impossible to imagine that one had undergone that experience at the airport if one actually had not. Yet Sen. Clinton, given repeated chances to modify her absurd claim to have operated under fire while in the company of her then-16-year-old daughter and a USO entertainment troupe, kept up a stone-faced and self-loving insistence that, yes, she had exposed herself to sniper fire in the cause of gaining moral credit and, perhaps to be banked for the future, national-security "experience." This must mean either a) that she lies without conscience or reflection; or b) that she is subject to fantasies of an illusory past; or c) both of the above. Any of the foregoing would constitute a disqualification for the presidency of the United States."


Hitchens' column is entitled "Fighting Words," and these are. Hitchens has rarely, if ever, been noted for restraint, and not much more often for good taste. I read him critically, and carefully, and with more than a grain of anti-bile. All that said, this column is worth reading.

Hillary's survival strategy

A Response to Joan Walsh, on Salon:

I too speak as a one-time admirer and supporter of Hillary. That stopped after the multiple fiascos of the early years of the first Clinton Administration.

The current pattern of behavior is, sadly, all too reminiscent of an earlier pattern of dissembling in order to clean up after Bill's numerous sexual escapades. Hillary was all too ready to do in other women, misused and thrown away by Bill, when they threatened the unquenchable Clinton ambition. I've never understood, after this unsisterly behavior, how self-respecting feminists can continue to support her.

I've also profoundly troubled by the way "loyalty" works in Clintonland. If anyone who has previously served the Clintons as a loyal retainer finds appeal in other campaigns, he/she is quickly labelled a "Judas." Yet for the Clintons, loyalty works up, and not down. Recall the Clintons' trashing of Lani Guinier when she became a political liability. Under the bus with her--despite a lifelong friendship.

We've seen too much of such demands for loyalty as the principal virtue in politics (in place of competence and principle, not to speak of obligations to the American people and the Constitution), going back to Nixon and continuing through W. At least W shows a modicum of loyalty back down (see Libby, Scooter).

We deserve better. I think Obama offers our best chance of getting it.--The Wise Bard

Hillary's Opportunity

It is the bad fortune of Hillary Clinton to seek the Presidency in a year in which she is in the presence of a competitor with the potential for true greatness, displayed in his speech earlier today. In other years, she might have merited the nomination, and election.

This is the moment in which she might rise above her personal ambitions for the good of her party, nation and world, and pledge her support to Barack Obama. There will not be a finer opportunity.

Somehow, from what I have seen of her campaign, I am not holding my breath. Perhaps there is a nobility in her character (or political astuteness in her husband's) that I have not yet perceived. I hope so.

On Democratic nomination rules

I am generally an appreciative reader of John Dickinson's reports on the campaign.In this instance, however, I think he badly misstates the relevant question(s). For me, and I think for many others, the question is not whether the superdelegates may, under the rules, favor Sen. Clinton, even if she is trailing in pledged delegates, popular votes, states won, and prospects of building the party and attracting voters who might favor progressive candidates in other races to the polls (and to work for their election). The question is whether they should.

My own view is that if the superdelegates succeed in wresting the nomination from Sen. Obama under conditions like those suggested above, they will demoralize the coming generation of potential progressive activists and deal a body blow to the Democratic Party for the coming generation .

Sadly, Senator Clinton, with her increasingly desperate and divisive campaign tactics, is well on the way to achieving this result. I have tried to believe that the Democrats were blessed with a multiplicity of excellent candidates; as the race has narrowed to two, and Senator Clinton has revealed some of her less admirable qualities, I am increasingly uncertain that I could support her in the general election.

---The Wise Bard

I can't help myself...

Sinbad Refutes Clinton Foreign Policy Cred

One of the few episodes Hillary Clinton's campaign has cited as evidence of her superior ability to serve as commander-in-chief was a trip she took to Bosnia in 1996. The trip included Sheryl Crow, a Clinton supporter, and comedian Sinbad. In an interview today with the Washington Post's Mary Ann Akers, Sinbad says that the trip was hardly the harrowing experience Clinton has made it out to be:

"I think the only 'red-phone' moment was: 'Do we eat here or at the next place.'"

Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. "They said there might be sniper fire," Clinton said.

Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn't remember that, either.

"I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or 'Oh, God, I hope I'm going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.'"

Sinbad (who is supporting Barack Obama) twists the knife further:

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."

Say what? As Sinbad put it: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'"

When your main campaign theme is foreign policy experience, and that experience is persuasively refuted by a comedian, it's time to find a new theme.

--Jonathan Chait

On the Ohio Debate

Politics: Who's winning, who's losing, and why.
Most Improved Debater : In what may be the final debate, Obama shows how he's grown.
By John Dickerson
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008, at 8:10 AM ET (Slate)

In the first Democratic primary debate 10 months ago, Hillary Clinton didn't have to charge that Barack Obama wasn't ready to be president on Day One. He did the work for her. He was halting, mumbling, and tentative. The only confidence he instilled was in Clinton. Nineteen debates later, he's improved so much that if he's not ready to be president on Day One, you could imagine he might get there after a little study. At what may be the last debate of the Democratic primary, Obama was commanding, at ease, and magnanimous. Clinton needed him to stumble, and he didn't. He won the night.

I think Dickerson nailed this.

What most astounds me about Obama's performances in the debates is his astonishing capacity for growth. I think last night was his best ever. Not only that--he now looks and feels "Presidential"--fully ready to step into the role "on Day One," as Hillary would have it. His mixture of gravitas, increasing command of the issues (less well displayed in his response on the incoming Russian President--although Hillary muffed that one as well), and gently self-effacing humor (which has, in the last two debates, utterly undermined Clintonian attacks, and made their purveyors look silly)--show his utter sense of command and, for me at least, recall several of JFK's most memorable political talents.

I respect Senator Clinton's policy knowledge and general sense of competence (not always well displayed in her Campaign). I do not want, especially as a male, to employ language suggestive of a sexist critique (and I was thrilled by her coming to the White House in 1992, and by her designation to head the (ill-fated) health care reform effort.) But the more I see of her in this campaign, the less I like her. Part of it is her world-leading sense of entitlement. Part is her increasingly obvious psychological projection, blaming others (including but not limited to Obama) for campaign tactics and motivations in a way that is more revealing of herself (and not in a positive sense) than illuminating about Obama, who is now able to shrug them off as campaign silliness. Senator Clinton is in real danger of making herself look ridiculous. I'll leave it there for now.

Hillary Pushes the Button

The Nation Blog: By Robert Scheer .

What in the world was Sen. Hillary Clinton thinking when she attacked Sen. Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in going after Osama bin Laden? And why aren't her supporters more concerned about yet another egregious example of Clinton's consistent backing for the mindless militarism that is dragging this nation to ruin? So what that she is pro-choice and a woman if the price of proving her capacity to be Commander in chief is that we end up with an American version of Margaret Thatcher?
In response to the 9/11 hijackers, armed with weapons no more sophisticated than $3 box cutters, American military spending, with Senate Armed Services Committee member Clinton's enthusiastic support, has catapulted beyond cold war levels. Senator Clinton has treated the military budget as primarily a pork-barrel target of opportunity for jobs and profit in New York state, supports increased money for missile defense and every other racket the military-industrial complex comes up with, and still feels no obligation to repudiate her vote for the disastrous Iraq war.
Given her sorry record of cheerleading the irrational post-cold war military buildup, do we not have a right, indeed an obligation, to question whether Clinton is committed to creating a more peaceful world? Don't say that we weren't warned if a President Hillary Clinton further imperils our world, as she has clearly positioned herself as the leading hawk in the Democratic field. What other reason was there for first blasting Obama for daring to state that he would meet with foreign leaders whom Bush has branded as sworn enemies, and then for the attack on Obama's very sensible statement that it would be "a profound mistake" to use nuclear weapons in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the attempt to eliminate bin Laden?

You know, I'm really fed up with the "positioning oneself as tough" motif--as Jon Stewart would--or perhaps did--say, "I will eat their testicles." (Probably not the wisest choice of metaphor for a Clinton.) And Obama has done some of it himself. But is it really disqualifyingly naive to say that I would be open to meeting with our adversaries to see if we can improve our relationship after years--or decades--of fruitless and unproductive (or counterproductive) impasse, or that I would not employ nuclear weapons to resolve a political difference of limited magnitude (or megatonnage)? Who is really impressed by the silly, bellicose rhetoric? (Yeah--I'll cover your torture and raise you three Gitmo's! Fix that petfood and unpaint those silly dolls or I'll blast you back to the Stone Age!)

Maybe folks are ready for someone showing quiet confidence, problem solving inclination and ability, and an interest in building constructive relationships. Too bad the someone won't be a female, at least this time around.

The Reality-Based Community: Rove's disciple

: By Mark Kleiman

The Clinton campaign, both the candidate and the surrogates, have been going after Barack Obama hard and personally. He's 'naive' and 'irresponsible,' too inexperienced to trust as Commander in Chief. Now Obama says that, largely through no fault of her own, Clinton is not the best person to bring the country back together. The Clinton campaign's reaction: accusing Obama of 'attack politics.' The lie, and the projection, are transparent. But that's not to say that those tactics won't work. After all, they elected George W. Bush, didn't they? It's not easy to figure out which candidate this year could be the legitimate heir of FDR. But it's not hard to figure out which campaign carries the DNA of Karl Rove.

I didn't say it myself, but I will post it. I think it's largely true, and I don't want 4, or 8, more years of it. Unless the alternative is worse.

Democrats Court Liberal Bloggers

New York Times:

CHICAGO (AP) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton refused Saturday to forsake campaign donations from lobbyists, turning aside challenges from her two main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination with a rare defense of the special interest industry.

''A lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans, they actually do,'' Clinton said, drawing boos and hisses from liberal bloggers at the second Yearly Kos convention....

Plunging headlong into the Internet era, all seven candidates fought for the support of the powerful and polarizing liberal blogosphere by promising universal health care, aggressive government spending and dramatic change from the Bush era.

Edwards received the loudest applause when he suggested his rivals were tinkering around the edges -- ''I just heard some discussion about negotiation, compromise'' -- rather than overhauling government. He said the nation needs ''big change, not small change.'' ...

The Kos convention is a sign of the times.

Gone are the days when candidates and political parties could talk to passive voters through mass media, largely controlling what messages were distributed, how the messages went out and who heard them. The Internet has help create millions of media outlets and given anyone the power to express an opinion or disseminate information in a global forum, and connect with others who have similar interests.

One thing most bloggers have in common -- regardless of their political leanings -- is an intense frustration with the political establishment, particularly in Washington. And so it was a convention dripping in irony when liberal bloggers welcomed the living symbols of the Democratic status quo -- seven presidential candidates.

An audience member asked the candidates whether they would hire an official White House blogger. Edwards said yes, ''and her name will be Elizabeth Edwards,'' his wife.

Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel said the next president shouldn't hire somebody to blog. ''Do it yourself.''

Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency

New York Times Book Review: By Michael Crowley

But while [author Nigel] Hamilton is generally sympathetic to Bill Clinton as a well-meaning big thinker battered by manufactured scandals in “America’s infotainment coliseum,” he has far less sympathy for Hillary Clinton, whose hidden hand he identifies in most of the administration’s early failures. It was Hillary who fired the travel office staff, pushed Bill to choose Baird and Guinier, and, he writes, “unwittingly destroyed her husband’s chances of an easy launch as 42nd president” by meddling with his White House transition team. He casts her as domineering and volatile; the White House staff was “intimidated into servility by an activist first lady” determined to be a co-president. Her political tone-deafness would lead to a health care fiasco that nearly sank her husband’s administration.

Although it’s true that Hillary did the president few favors in his first term, Hamilton’s portrait deteriorates into the sort of cheap caricature one might find on Fox News, while offering virtually no testimony in her defense. Instead, he provides dubious anecdotes from sources of suspect credibility, like gossip-laden books by Gail Sheehy and the former F.B.I. agent Gary Aldrich. Only by consulting the endnotes will a reader know that a story about Hillary furiously berating Bill on the morning of his inauguration is drawn from an anonymously sourced account in Sheehy’s “Hillary’s Choice.” ...(Hillary Clinton, it’s worth noting, virtually disappears from the book once her husband’s fortunes turn, leaving readers to wonder whether she played any role in his recovery — or, if she did, whether Hamilton simply had no interest in complicating his dragon-lady portrait.)

A Column Prompts a Dressing-Down

washingtonpost.com: By Deborah Howell (Ombudsman)

How did it come to this? Hillary Clinton's cleavage leading off the ombudsman's column?...

[Washington Post fashion editor Robin] Givhan won a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for criticism "for her witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism." She writes for Style, where staffers pride themselves on being edgy (some say snarky) and provocative. Her editors give her wide latitude to comment, and she regularly ticks off readers. ...

Givhan has frequently written about male candidates -- when former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani stopped the comb-over to hide his baldness. A 2004 piece about John Kerry and John Edwards started off: "Hair has become a central issue in the race for the presidency."

And she has caused ruckuses before, writing critically in 2005 about Vice President Cheney's appearance at a ceremony on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz: "The vice president . . . was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower." The same year she wrote that John Roberts's wife and children were dressed too preciously on the day his nomination to the Supreme Court was announced....

There's a bigger issue about her Clinton piece: Does this have anything to do with whether Clinton should be president? Not a thing. But do we want to read the column about her cleavage? Yes indeed. It was the most viewed story on the Web site all day. So was a recent story on John Edwards's hairdresser.

There has to be a balance in campaign coverage. Readers deserve substance, but they also want to know who these people are, about their families and their lives.

No way to avoid "cleavage" in excerpting this report. Oh well.
But are these the standards to be applied by the Washington Post's Ombuds? Inquiring minds want to know? Rubber-necking (sorry--is that a body part?) as the criterion for elite journalism?

I am a bit curious whether such a column would have run in the Times, and what the Public Editor might have said about it.

Even more interesting: The Murdoch Street Journal. But then again, Ruppert has made a separate peace with Hillary--something about government policy relating to his media interests in China? And Murdoch "journalism" can probably do better (by the WaPo Ombuds standard?) than a dot portrait of Hillary's cleavage ...

Yuk. I have to take a shower.
Your fastidious blogger.

The Hillary Letters II: Avoid Introspection, Refuse to Self-Define, Run for President

New York Times:

Ms. Rodham skates earnestly on the surface of life, raising more questions than answers. “Last week I decided that even if life is absurd why couldn’t I spend it absurdly happy?” she wrote in November of her junior year. She then challenges herself to “define ‘happiness’ Hillary Rodham, acknowledged agnostic intellectual liberal, emotional conservative.”

From there, she deems the process of self-definition to be “too depressing” and asserts that “the easiest way out is to stop any thought approaching introspection and to advise others whenever possible.”

The Hillary Letters I: Neoliberalism or "Compassionate Misanthropy"?

New York Times:

But in many ways her letters are more revealing about her search for her own sense of self.

“Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals?” Ms. Rodham wrote in an April 1967 letter. “How about a compassionate misanthrope?”

The Education of Eliot

New York Times: By Gail Collins

When a new chief executive arrives, legislators are usually unsure of themselves for a while, and this is the precious soft spot when they can be pushed into doing big, bold things. If you screw it up, they’ll instantly revert to their preference for doing small, expensive things instead. (One of Hillary Clinton’s great pluses as a presidential candidate is that having been part of the great screwing up of the beginning of her husband’s administration in 1993, she may have figured out how not to do it again.)

The Pentagon insults Hillary Clinton. Big mistake.

Slate Magazine:By Fred Kaplan

On July 16—eight weeks later—[Senator Clinton] received a reply from the undersecretary of defense for policy, Eric Edelman, saying that he was writing on behalf of Secretary Gates. After a page of boilerplate, Edelman got to the point:

Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia. … Such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risk in order to achieve compromises of national reconciliation. …

He concluded:

I assure you, however, that as with other plans, we are always evaluating and planning for possible contingencies. As you know, it is long-standing departmental policy that operational plans, including contingency plans, are not related outside of the department.

I appreciate your interest in our mission in Iraq, and would be happy to answer any further questions.

In effect, Edelman was telling her three things. First, you're practically a traitor for even asking these questions. Second, maybe we do have contingency plans for withdrawal, but we're not going to tell you about them. Third, run along now, little lady, I've got work to do.

Today, Clinton wrote a second letter to Gates, informing him that this underling Edelman—"writing on your behalf"—seems to believe "that congressional oversight emboldens our enemies." Calling his letter "outrageous and dangerous," Clinton wondered whether it "accurately characterizes your views as secretary of defense." She then renewed her request for the briefing, "classified if necessary," and added, as a kicker, "I would appreciate the courtesy of a prompt response directly from you." ...

As a discrete episode, this spat may soon fade away. Gates, who may well have no more than a dim awareness of Edelman's letter (or of Clinton's initial request), will probably eat the proverbial humble pie by sending over someone with a classified briefing—or maybe even delivering it himself.

But as a political symbol, the incident may have greater endurance. Senators put up with a lot of evasion and deceit from the executive branch, but one thing they will not tolerate is being explicitly left out of the loop. In his letter to Clinton, Edelman not only said she had no business in the loop, he all but accused of her treason for asking to be let in. If senators feel the slightest tug of solidarity (and they tend to, on matters of senatorial privilege), they may rally around their trampled colleague. The sense of insult may spill over into their feelings about the war in general and perhaps strengthen, if just slightly, the ranks of the opposed.

As for the broader electorate, women have famously mixed feelings about Hillary Clinton, but many of them tend to drop their caveats when they sense that her womanhood is under attack....Edelman wasn't yelling at Clinton, but he was patronizing her ("I appreciate your interest in our mission in Iraq. …"), shooing her away from serious men's business—and that may, in its own way, decisively rankle...

Hillary, Dems on Iraq Pullout

New York Times:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Democrat, urged support for the plan, which would call for troops to begin departing within 120 days. While the administration’s mistakes in Iraq “shock the conscience,” she said, the path forward remains uncertain.

“There are no good answers,” Mrs. Clinton said in a speech delivered before dawn. “Anyone who stands here and believes that he or she has the truth, the facts, and understands both what is going on and what is likely to flow from whatever decision we take, is most probably to be proven wrong by reality as it unfolds.” ...

Democrats acknowledged that they had used the all-night session to ratchet up the pressure on wavering Republicans and to try to persuade voters that though lawmakers might be breaking with the president, they were not moving forcefully enough to wind down the war.

“Many of these senators have been back home telling their constituents they’ve given up on the president’s policy in Iraq,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat. “Well, the question is, will they have the courage now to vote with those who want real change?”
"

One of the true challenges of a life in politics (as opposed to intellectual life and/or punditry)--recognizing that which HRC properly articulates, and yet needing to act with efficacy in the world, taking responsibility for one's actions (and failures to act), and for their consequences.

It's a tricky business.

A compelling review of Hillary Rodham Clinton Bios...

New York Times Book Review: By JENNIFER SENIOR

...But it’s Bernstein who ultimately makes the sharper, more lasting impression, despite the soft-focus portrait of the junior senator from New York on his cover. While he plows some of the same emotional terrain as previous Hillary biographers — notably Gail Sheehy in “Hillary’s Choice” — his book holds together as a piece of writing, and he keeps the psychobabble to a merciful minimum. He also attempts to write a genuine biography, describing and interpreting the life Hillary has led and the varieties of forces that shaped her. ...

“By the time Hillary had reached her teens,” Bernstein writes, “her father seemed defined by his mean edges — he had almost no recognizable enthusiasms or pretense to lightness as he descended into continuous bullying, ill humor, complaint and dejection.” Much has been made of Hillary’s marital stoicism over the years. It’s one of the reasons people distrust her. But it’s possible she comes by it honestly...

[Bernstein's] book suggests that it isn’t his executive-scandal bona fides that make him a qualified Hillary biographer; it’s his bona fides as a lousy husband. Like Bill Clinton, Bernstein carried on a very public affair while married to a formidable, high-profile woman (see Nora Ephron’s “Heartburn” for further details), and one of the perverse strengths of his book is his intuitive understanding — a sinner’s lament, really — of what happens to a proud woman when she’s intimately betrayed and publicly humiliated. The blockbuster news item to come out of Bernstein’s book was that Hillary contemplated running for governor of Arkansas in 1989, when she discovered her husband was thinking about abandoning his post and his family for another woman. (Here, the priceless quotation from the long-suffering Clinton aide Betsey Wright: “Bill, you’re crazy if you think everybody in this office is oblivious to the fact that you’re having an affair. You’re acting like an idiot.”) But the impulse to run for governor didn’t occur to Hillary in a vacuum. It was the clear product of years of pent-up frustrations, thwarted ambitions, sacrifice and injured pride....

Yet Hillary Rodham always knew that tying her fate to Bill Clinton was a risky proposition. It’s what gives her story the whiff of Greek tragedy (and bathos). Certainly she was smitten with him for all the reasons we know — his like-minded political vision, his charisma, his enthusiasm in the face of her own force — but she also knew he had an ungovernable tomcatting problem and a mystical attachment to Arkansas, a backwater for career women. For years, he asked her to marry him, and for years, with tons of job options before her, she wavered....

Considering these charged circumstances of risk, humiliation and sacrifice, one can see how Hillary Clinton would become only more invested in her marriage — and the choices she’d made — rather than less, especially when coupled with the stronger and more difficult aspects of her character, which Bernstein documents in unvarnished detail: perfectionism, toughness, secrecy, oversensitivity, a sanctimony born of intelligence and boomerdom and Methodist do-gooder conviction. Another woman with less at stake both emotionally and intellectually might have left, but she, teeth gnashed and head high, stuck it out. “She doesn’t look at her life as a series of crises but rather a series of battles,” an unnamed former aide tells Bernstein. Bob Boorstin, another former aide, puts it less flatteringly: “I find her to be among the most self-righteous people I’ve ever known in my life.” [So much for Boorstin!]...

The trouble is that Hillary didn’t always know how to wield power gracefully. Her tin-eared staffing decisions led to early mini-scandals like the firings at the White House travel office, and her secretive, uncompromising attitude toward health care contributed heavily to the first upending of the Democratic majority in the House in 40 years. On a retreat with Senate Democrats, she rebuffed Bill Bradley’s request for a more realistic bill, declaring the White House would “demonize” anyone who stood in its way. “That was it for me,” Bradley tells Bernstein, “in terms of Hillary Clinton.” ...

By the book’s end, this seems incontrovertibly true, as does his more damning observation that “with the notable exception of her husband’s libidinous carelessness, the most egregious errors, strategic and tactical, of the Bill Clinton presidency, particularly in its infancy, were traceable to Hillary.”...And in public office, she embodies the very quality she could never show when someone else held the reins: the ability to compromise. In her story lies a parable: Sanctimony and rigidity are the desperate weapons of the minority party. Had she embraced her inner executive from the start, she might never have become her own worst enemy....

Gerth and Van Natta do point out in their introduction that Hillary’s stubborn refusals to admit she might have made a mistake repeatedly get her into trouble. Her world seems a lot like Bushworld in this way, they shrewdly note, right down to the secretive loyal coterie of advisers. But their initial explanation for Hillary’s secrecy and defensiveness — “She feared that admitting a mistake would arm her enemies and undermine her carefully cultivated image as an extremely bright person who yearns only to do good for her fellow citizens” — never evolves into something more nuanced....From these observations, we can’t get a more enlightened sense of what kind of president Hillary might be.

Bernstein’s book gives us a better clue. She may live among loyalists, just like Bush. But you get the sense that she’d be almost the reverse of W. in 2000: polarizing at election time, but consensus-seeking once she got into office. ...

As I started to read this review, I was surprised that the NYT Book Review had not assigned it to a "bigger name." But the review, I think, is terrific: vivid and pointed, much more so than others I have seen, and than tv appearances by the various authors. The portrait of Hillary that emerges (perhaps exaggerated by my selection of excerpts) is more coherent and compelling than I have seen elsewhere. I speak as a metaphoric "spurned lover": my degree of admiration for (and perhaps identification with) Hillary during the 1992 campaign could not have been greater, nor could my initial excitement as she took on the health reform portfolio early in the Clinton Administration. It would be difficult to overstate my disappointment in the results, or in Hillary's performance since.

I also share a not inconsiderable identification with some of her failings.

Was Bill Clinton smart to pick a fight with the White House?

Slate Magazine:By John Dickerson

For Democrats, this little episode highlights the promise and peril of a Hillary Clinton presidency. On the one hand, President Clinton spoke for many in the party who are furious about the Libby decision. As Hillary Clinton's team is quick to point out, she and her husband know how to fight. This is proof of it. On the other hand, Clinton has given the White House and Republicans an opportunity to muddy the issue by dredging up his past. Whatever you may think about the merits of the Rich pardon versus the Libby commutation, the debate is one the Bush team wants. The White House would rather have everyone debating the relative merits of the two than debating the inconsistencies in the Libby decision alone.

If Hillary Clinton is elected president, how often will this phenomenon be repeated? With each piece of legislation Hillary Clinton proposes or each assertion she makes, Republicans will offer an analog from the Clinton years. They'd do the same with any Democratic president, of course, but another Democratic president would have an easier time walking away from such attacks. The Clintons will be compelled to answer them. ... The question for Democrats is how much of this friction they will want in the machine in the next Democratic administration.

Where Democrats come down on this question is very important to Barack Obama, who is trying to use Bill Clinton to paint Hillary as a woman of the past. Talking about Clinton, Obama said the country needed to move past the "harsh partisanship and old arguments."