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Last update - 10:37 28/01/2008
What if the Hillary haters were right all along?
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Burston 

It would have taken a great deal for Hillary Clinton to throw away my vote.

I was determined to give her every chance. When she won in New Hampshire, I made a conscious decision to overlook the fact that Senator Obama's concession speech was at once inspired and inspiring, worthy of the majesty of the office of the American presidency, while Senator Clinton's victory address was so pedestrian as to make one wonder where her speechwriters were expecting to earn their next meal.

I had made a promise to myself to keep an open mind, particularly in view of the abject irrationality displayed by her detractors over the years. Never in recent American political memory has anyone been so hands-down reviled as Hillary Clinton.

The more adult among them accuse her of being divisive, haughty, unrelentingly partisan, gratuitously abrasive, of having an overriding compulsion to win for winning's sake. The more infantile among them need no explanations to fuel their peculiarly gleeful loathing.

Despite them, and despite myself, however, I've begun to believe that those who hate Hillary Clinton may have a point.

After years and years of babyish, below-the-belt and, yes, hysterical attacks on Hillary Clinton, the problem is no longer her legion of detractors. Her problem, at this point, is her proponents.

There is Bill, of course, whose subtextural, often stunningly condescending attacks on Obama have done little to aid his wife, and may have crippled Hillary Clinton's ability to win in November, should she win the Democratic nomination ["Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in '84 and '88. And he ran a good campaign. Senator Obama has run a good campaign here, he has run a good campaign everywhere."]

There are her campaign aides, the thrust of whose efforts have proven as mechanical and as forced as the candidate herself is often accused of being. [Don't waste a primary vote on Obama, their message to Democrats goes - he can't be elected. Rather, vote for Hillary, and you'll receive both a woman and a Clinton as president, and Barack Obama as a running mate in the bargain.]

It now appears that this, the bedrock theory, has a fatal flaw. What if it's Hillary who is unelectable?

The clue may be found in the text of the key endorsement of the campaign thus far, The New York Times editorial backing Hillary Clinton in the February 5 primaries.

The piece is uncharacteristically apologetic for The Times. In fact, a close reading makes one wonder which candidate has actually gained the paper's endorsement. It speaks of "the brilliant if at times harsh-sounding senator from New York." It speaks of a Mrs. Clinton who "sometimes overstates the importance of resume," whose first foray into health insurance reform was "famously disastrous," and whose vote in favor of the 2002 Iraq war resolution, the Times argues, was wrong.

At the same time, The Times calls Obama incandescent, calling the idea of the first African-American nominee of a major party is "exhilarating" and noting "the sense of possibility, of a generational shift" that brings Obama's audiences alive.

According to The Times, Obama understands how much voters "hunger for a break with the Bush years, for leadership and vision and true bipartisanship," adding, "We hunger for that, too."

What is lacking, the editorial concludes, is more specifics to fill out the sense of how he would govern.

In the case of Senator Clinton, what is lacking is the more general sense of how she intends to do what a great president must do - foster unity, inflame for the common good, draw a demoralized, rudderless, disoriented country out of a swamp and back on its rails.

What is lacking, in short, is the kind of indefinable, undeniable spark of which Caroline Kennedy wrote in a Times piece published two days later. "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them," Kennedy wrote in an endorsement of Barack Obama. "But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president - not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."

No one doubts that Hillary Clinton is in this to win. The real question, and the one she has yet to answer, is why. Does she want to win because that's what the Clintons do - try and try and try until they win? We know what's in the Clintons' interest. Hillary Clinton has yet to show where her interest and America's intersect.

______________


Previous blogs:

The Qassam rocket as collective punishment
Sharon, savior of the settler, killer of Palestine
Mr. Bush, you were born to make peace
Here's to the '67 borders, the new middle of the road
Hamas - If we can kill them, we can talk to them


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<
  1.   Clinton is going to lose 09:45  |  Candida 28/01/08
  2.   Bradley Burston 09:47  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 28/01/08
  3.   Obama being very closely vetted indeed 10:07  |  Rowan Berkeley 28/01/08
  4.   Negative personal attacks usually employed by the losing party. 10:21  |  PETER SM 28/01/08
  5.   POTUS 2008 10:26  |  Mohammed the Dog 28/01/08
  6.   i hav epreviously written that the democrats present pair are 10:28  |  v hardman 28/01/08
  7.   HILLARY`S FATE DEPEND ON BILL CLINTON 10:38  |  indrajaya 28/01/08
  8.   Obama is no better or worse for the Jews.... 10:42  |  Awake 28/01/08
  9.   Republican spin, swallowed by Bradley 11:05  |  Clickfool 28/01/08
  10.   Who is capable for the job? 11:41  |  Shoshana Thomasson 28/01/08
  11.   Burston,portraying himself as anti-elitist uses Caroline Kennedy 11:50  |  Absolute Sweden 28/01/08
  12.   re 2 meddle us politics 11:53  |  mark 28/01/08
  13.   Clickfool--wrong again 11:55  |  TOm 28/01/08
  14.   For Tom # 13 12:19  |  Clickfool 28/01/08
  15.   Cipora JK # 2 - everyone else meddles, why not Burston? 12:25  |  dana for obama 28/01/08
  16.   The return of the bimbo squad? 12:35  |  Natallie Durson 28/01/08
  17.   BETTER LISTEN TO CAROLINE KENNEDY 12:43  |  indrajaya 28/01/08
  18.   Clinton vs Obama 12:47  |  Hilda 28/01/08
  19.   You hit the nail on the head 12:50  |  thru-other-eyes 28/01/08
  20.   Hate To Agree With Click but... 12:52  |  dyinglikeflies 28/01/08
  21.   Rowan Berkeley I am shocked! 13:04  |  Iz Ray Leigh 28/01/08
  22.   Dana wrong again 13:07  |  Iz Ray Leigh 28/01/08
  23.   Burston....you got it!! 13:31  |  Lynn 28/01/08
  24.   Hillary 13:32  |  The Monk 28/01/08
  25.   hillary clinton is... 13:37  |  eric 28/01/08
  26.   # 3 Rowan Berkeley 13:40  |  Lynn 28/01/08
  27.   Good piece Burston! 13:44  |  lakshmi 28/01/08
  28.   Clickfool 13:52  |  steve 28/01/08
  29.   all of you non americans 14:07  |  Patriot 28/01/08
  30.   Hillary Hater 14:11  |  MB 28/01/08
  31.   Israel relax! Hillary and/or Obama will support you 110% 14:21  |  Toronto`s Finest 28/01/08
  32.   @4 PETER SM 14:22  |  Mark B. 28/01/08
  33.   What if the Hillary haters were wrong to be right? 14:38  |  Paul Wood 28/01/08
  34.   Is Obamo good for Israel? 14:52  |  Sid 28/01/08
  35.   Obama has the edge over Hillary every time 14:57  |  The Equalizer 28/01/08
  36.   Hillary as President? 15:31  |  maurice 28/01/08
  37.   Dana: You Got a Point 15:42  |  CHGODMK 28/01/08
  38.   You must be a guilt-baiter to be American or Israeli 15:43  |  American in Paris 28/01/08
  39.   Toronto`s Finest: Oversimplification (Again) 15:45  |  CHGODMK 28/01/08
  40.   31Toronto`s Finest,you might just be right,but he is not as much 15:52  |  lakshmi 28/01/08
  41.   Student Council Election 16:13  |  Knott Bushman 28/01/08
  42.   @#4 Peter SM 16:20  |  POP 28/01/08
  43.   My Two Cents 16:52  |  STF 28/01/08
  44.   Obama is better for Israel than Hillary 17:00  |  Tosefta 28/01/08
  45.   Hilda (#18) vote for Rudy Giuliani 17:31  |  Gil 28/01/08
  46.   Hilda (#18) vote for Rudy Giuliani 17:31  |  Gil 28/01/08
  47.   The GOP routing for Hillary 17:34  |  Versate 28/01/08
  48.   Go Obama and Edwards 17:37  |  Danite 28/01/08
  49.   The next US PRES. should work for AMERICANS 17:53  |  Chuck Kirk 28/01/08
  50.   The Clintons are still popular 17:55  |  Ethel 28/01/08
  51.   Caroline Kennedy is right, Obama will make a better 17:56  |  Ian Henderson 28/01/08
  52.   Hilary is more Electable than Obama 17:59  |  ARTH 28/01/08
  53.   Neither party has a viable candidate 18:03  |  Boris 28/01/08
  54.   Other than giving a Good Speech 18:03  |  ARTH 28/01/08
  55.   It`s as Simple as ABC - "Anybody But Clinton" 18:05  |  MIKE 28/01/08
  56.   # 40 lakshimi. Obama very beholden to AIPAC. I rest my case. 18:06  |  Toronto`s Finest 28/01/08
  57.   Support Obama 18:12  |  Lee 28/01/08
  58.   Dana - once again "out to lunch" 18:20  |  Lee 28/01/08
  59.   # 37 CHGODMK "Are you the real one....???" 18:30  |  Swiss (Dino) 28/01/08
  60.   Dana - "Jews vote for Republicans" 18:34  |  Lee 28/01/08
  61.   To # 30 Hillary Hater 18:37  |  David 28/01/08
  62.   Dana - "Rosner is a mouthpiece for AIPAC" 18:39  |  Lee 28/01/08
  63.   # 52 Toronto`s Finest 18:41  |  Swiss (Dino) 28/01/08
  64.   #17 18:44  |  Moshe 28/01/08
  65.   Breaking up boring rhetoric 18:45  |  Rozz 28/01/08
  66.   what if the Hillary haters are wrong? 18:51  |  Ethel 28/01/08
  67.   Pertinent observations 18:54  |  Michael N 28/01/08
  68.   #38 Maybe it would be even better if Paris were destroyed 18:55  |  McQueen 28/01/08
  69.   OBAMA ON ISRAEL - PLEASE READ 18:55  |  Ariel 28/01/08
  70.   #17 who gives a damn what Caroline Kennedy has to say? 18:58  |  McQueen 28/01/08