Must Read: Hillary Clinton's Unaccomplished Mission

[flpoljunkie]

http://theunknowncandidate.blogspot.com/2007/01/caution-bumpy-road-ahead.html#links


Closing excerpt from "Hillary Clinton's Mission Unaccomplished"

By Frank Rich
The New York Times

Compounding this problem for Mrs. Clinton is that the theatrics of her fledgling campaign are already echoing the content: they are so overscripted and focus-group bland that they underline rather than combat the perennial criticism that she is a cautious triangulator too willing to trim convictions for political gain. Last week she conducted three online Web chats that she billed as opportunities for voters to see her “in an unfiltered way.” Surely she was kidding. Everything was filtered, from the phony living-room set to the appearance of a “campaign blogger” who wasn’t blogging to the softball questions and canned responses. Even the rare query touching on a nominally controversial topic, gay civil rights, avoided any mention of the word marriage, let alone Bill Clinton’s enactment of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

<>The image that Mrs. Clinton wants to sell is summed up by her frequent invocation of the word middle, as in “I grew up in a middle-class family in the middle of America.” She’s not left or right, you see, but exactly in the center where everyone feels safe. But as the fierce war critic Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator from Nebraska, argues in a must-read interview at gq.com, the war is “starting to redefine the political landscape” and scramble the old party labels. Like Mrs. Clinton, the middle-American Mr. Hagel voted to authorize the Iraq war, but that has not impeded his leadership in questioning it ever since.

The issue raised by the tragedy of Iraq is not who’s on the left or the right, but who is in front and who is behind. Mrs. Clinton has always been a follower of public opinion on the war, not a leader. Now events are outrunning her. Support for the war both in the polls and among Republicans in Congress is plummeting faster than she can recalibrate her rhetoric; unreliable Iraqi troops are already proving no-shows in the new Iraqi-American “joint patrols” of Baghdad; the Congressional showdown over fresh appropriations for Iraq is just weeks away.

This, in other words, is a moment of crisis in our history and there will be no do-overs. Should Mrs. Clinton actually seek unfiltered exposure to voters, she will learn that they are anxiously waiting to see just who in Washington is brave enough to act.

[dogday]

1. Her meeting yesterday

reminded me of a Bush staged event. I waited for the Iraq war question that just never came...

[rodeodance]

4. I think she did well-responding to many varied questions from the

people to came to hear what she had to say.

[dogday]

5. But not one question about the biggest

issue for most of the American people? Hillary would have my vote if she would just renounce this war.. If from this moment forward she would campaign on the platform to end the war...

I would love to see her in the office if she just take this rather large step....

[ccpup]

6. Really?

I turned in to "catch" her in the act of being robotic and stage-managed and was shocked at how well she responded to the crowd. She's not her husband -- who is???? -- but she did way better than I anticipated. To compare her meeting yesterday in Iowa with the stage-managed-within-an-inch-of-their-life "meetings" bush used to hold is just unfair and mean. It was nothing of the sort.

[dogday]

7. Then why wasn't the big question asked?

Are you telling me the questions were not approved before hand? I have trouble believing that.. Hillary is a smart lady and would not be caught off guard...


I like Hillary, I would love to see a qualified woman in the WH... But only if she is willing to stand up and try to end this war... It is that simple for me, and even more so for my Son who is a soldier and just came home in Nov from Iraq....

[ccpup]

8. see, I would've thought

the questions were approved of beforehand, but one man asked her about the extra 20,000 troops being sent over and she gave an answer about how important it is to fund VA hospitals. Now, I agree that it would have been great if she had answered the question, but I doubt that one was pre-approved. Congratulations on your son coming home, by the way. I have a brother-in-law on the way over, but, despite that, I personally don't want to be a One-Issue voter or ignore a candidates good qualities just because they don't say what I want to hear on one issue, albeit a very important one.

[dogday]

9. The war is not about one issue

It is about the war in Iraq, but then it is about deficit spending, corruption that lead us into the war in the first place, the reason that we continue, profiteering by war-mongers, torture, wire-tapping and all the things the shrub has done using this war as his platform.....

[sufrommich]

10. I doubt that anyone disagrees

that the war is a big issue.I think she chose the health care crisis in America as her opening salvo in the campaign.It hits people in the pocketbook daily and is causing financial woes on an unprecedented level.It's a bread and butter issue,and her calling for a national health care program was well timed and important.

[ccpup]

11. thank you

you said it much better than I could have today.

[dogday]

12. And it is not the topic that American People are

concerned most about according to the polls... Like you said it is a bread an butter issue and she played it safe.. I would not expect less from her, but she is going to have to address this issue of the war at some point and time....

[mod mom]

2. "so overscripted and focus-group bland" well said, Mr Rich!

[rodeodance]

3. She is a strong articulate women. I will give her a chance-hear what

she says----not diss her the first day out on the trail. I will leave that to Fox. et al.