JOLLY DAYS

Hillary, Barack, Debate

In an earlier debate, when Obama said he would “talk to everyone” — Iran included, he was criticized for giving away the store and being inexperienced. Later, rather than say he misunderstood the question or some other cover, and then offering a more moderate statement, he slammed Hillary for her vote on the war. A cheapshot deflection in this context — demagogic rather than presidential. To some extent Barack discredited himself more in his followup than in the foolishly self-congratulatory statement about his putative “openness”.

Hillary had a tough time in the last debate and predictably, for the Democrats, intoned the wilting flower persona, a poor woman assailed by those mean men. The strong feminist turns to politically correct jelly. The fact that front runners are always criticized by their opponents seems to have escaped her notice, or perhaps (cynically) not. Obama had a legitimate point when he said that he never pulled the race card when he was attacked by so many of the candidates in previous debates.

The self-discrediting statement, made the day after, is more telling than these candidates know, although the original instance (Obama's fake “let's have a meeting” and Hillary's “I'll do two different things”) gives serious pause as well. Frankly, Hillary comes out far worse in all this — the victim Hillary will never sell as a strong leader with this slippery, identity politics display.

As an aside, the press has been promoting Hillary's all woman advisor group as a positive. Leave aside the way the press would play an all African American advisor group for Obama, or all Christian group advising a Republican candidate; you have to ask yourself: which recent president had a bad case of talking only to those who supported him?

Isn't that what the Democrats most criticized? — Bush's unilateral mentality. Isn't that why we don't have a national health care plan? — Hillary's inability to negotiate or take into account opposing views? How does an all woman advisory group indicate that she has learned anything?