Maybe it is because I am a quarter Irish that I have a soft spot for Niall O'Dowd and Irish Central, but more likely it because he, they, and the Irish in general show a soft spot for our girl. Thus I am leading off with the latest opus by Niall, no stranger to these pages.
Hillary Clinton nostalgia grips leading Democrats as Obama fails and fades
by Niall O'Dowd
Posted on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 11:59 PM
Hillary Clinton is looking more and more like a lost leader for the Democrats as Obama continues to flail.
There was more bad news for the president yesterday with an opinion poll showing that only 26 per cent of Americans approved of his job on the US economy.
A reader asked me to address this New York Times treatise by Rebecca Traister. I really did not have the intention of posting it here because, as I stated in the thread where the suggestion arose, I dislike arguing in the subjunctive. I prefer demonstrable fact, evidence. There is no evidence that, had HRC been allowed to contest the nomination fairly on the convention floor, won it, and subsequently won the election, she would have governed as Obama has or even faced the fantasized obstacles Traister imagines for her. First of all, it is arguable whether we can call what Obama has been doing "governing." I will leave that at that. Secondly, given the performance we have seen from HRC as Secretary of State, why would we imagine that she would have approached the presidency any differently? She has consistently held a high approval rating as SOS, well above 60%, currently 66%. Why would that be?
The simple answer is that she is a hard worker. She happens to be a hard worker with a brilliant mind that not only retains and organizes huge amounts of information in logical and innovative ways but also generates imaginative ideas She has revolutionized the State Department and USAID, and other departments and agencies with her QDDR, traveled tirelessly and effectively to reestablish waning friendships and strike up new ones. Experience has taught us that she listens. She listened to the American people on the campaign trail and made plans to resolve our concerns. She listens to people the world over and provides responses and programs to address their needs. She listened to her employees at State and did study the feasibility of granting benefits to domestic partners. Finding it doable, she did it. Right away. She listened to her younger employees who admirably like to bike to work but wanted showers to freshen up before work. Then she had the showers built.
That last may seem a small thing, but to me it stands as a strong example of who Hillary Clinton is and how she operates. To suggest that she would have entered the Oval Office and fumbled and flailed (I like Niall's word) as we have seen Obama do, is patently ridiculous. Nothing in her performance as First Lady, Senator, or Secretary of State indicates that she would have followed Obama's priority list or handled various crises the way he has (or has not). She was more than prepared in 2008 to walk into that Oval Office and take charge. She is even better prepared now.
So, Rebecca Traister, I beg to disagree. (I hope my reader is pleased.)
What Would Hillary Clinton Have Done?
Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBy REBECCA TRAISTER
Published: August 17, 2011
In the worst of the Democratic primary campaign in 2008, the angry end of the thing, when I had become a devoted Hillary Clinton supporter and was engaged in bitter arguments with people with whom I often agreed, I used to harbor a secret fear, the twin of my political hope: I worried that Hillary Clinton would win her party’s nomination.
UPDATE! Matthew Dickinson rings in on Traister and the developing subject.
The One Reason Why Hillary Might Be More Effective Than Obama After 2012
Yesterday the New York Times finally jumped into the Hillary for President debate with this piece by Rebecca Traister. So now I guess it’s a legitimate news story! Citing the Daily Beast article by Leslie Bennetts , which in turns draws heavily on my initial “Run, Hillary, Run” post, Traister – a Clinton supporter in 2008 – tries down to tamp the growing buyer’s remorse she detects among Obama supporters. She writes: “Rather than reveling in these flights of reverse political fancy, I find myself wanting the revisionist Hillary fantasists — Clintonites and reformed Obamamaniacs alike — to just shut up already.” Traister argues, persuasively in my view, that had Clinton won the presidency in 2008 instead of Obama, there’s no compelling evidence suggesting she would have been any more effective. In this she echoes points made by Jonathan Bernstein in this Salon post. To be sure, Traister admits to her own bouts of buyer’s remorse, but she thinks publicly airing these thoughts is not helpful: “I understand the impulse to indulge in a quick ‘I told you so.’ I would be lying if I said I didn’t think it sometimes. Maybe often. But to say it — much less to bray it — is small, mean, divisive and frankly dishonest. None of us know what would have happened with Hillary Clinton as president, no matter how many rounds of W.W.H.H.D. (What Would Hillary Have Done) we play.”
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I am afraid I do not hold Traister's view in as much esteem as Dickinson does. His POV is interesting, though. Had not considered the lame duck angle since Obama is already so lame.
