Dick Morris: Hillary can’t have it both ways

The Hill ^ | 12/7/05 | Dick Morris

[Jean S]

Worried that the left-wing Democratic Peace Train may be leaving the station without her, Hillary Clinton is scrambling for a seat by moving away from her carefully crafted hawkish support of the Iraq war. But she can’t join the left body and soul because she still needs to show how tough she is on national security issues, so she is trying to craft her own “third way” on Iraq.

All she has succeeded in doing, however, is fudging her position, muddying it up, but convincing nobody on the right or on the left.

Hillary became a hawk in the first place because she realizes that the chief obstacle to a female presidency is the concern by both sexes that a man might be better at handling issues such as national defense and security. To have a realistic chance at winning the White House, the Hillary Clinton of It Takes a Village and healthcare reform must take a back seat to Hillary the Hawk, an American incarnation of the likes of Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir and Indira Ghandi.

As if to underscore the point, her friends and aides have worked with the Hillary supporters at ABC to craft the weekly show “Commander in Chief,” portraying a Hillary-like female president coping successfully with national-security issues.

But her long-term strategy of positioning herself as a hawk is increasingly running afoul of the gathering momentum on the left opposing the war in Iraq. She now faces a Senate primary fight next year from a hard-left liberal in New York state, and it is not difficult to envision a revitalized Al Gore or John Kerry challenging her from the left in 2008.

As happened in the 1960s, a new left is emerging around opposition to a war, leaving behind old-style liberals who support the invasion and grinding them underfoot. Hillary could be marginalized in 2008 just as Hubert Humphrey was in 1968 and she is determined to prevent it.

So Hillary has to figure out how to have her cake and eat it too — how to appease the gathering fury on the left while reinforcing her image as tough on national security.

What makes this task more difficult still is Hillary’s tendency to become a true believer once a guru has shown her the way. Just as she bought the Fabian Socialist vision of Ira Magaziner — hook, line and sinker — on healthcare reform, she may be falling under the influence of men in uniforms as they address her on the dais of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Hillary, after all, is not quite the opportunist Bill is. He shifts with the wind. Hillary often hunkers down hard on a position and requires a hurricane to dislodge her.

But her political antennae — and Bill’s — have led her to begin to move to the left, embracing a muddled middle ground. She says she “takes responsibility” for her vote for the war but insists that she was misled by bad intelligence and indicates that Congress, and presumably she herself, would not have authorized the war if it had known then what it knows now.

But even so, she says we must neither withdraw nor set a timetable for doing so, since such a policy would invite the terrorists to wait us out and return to power as we leave. However, she qualifies her position by saying that we should say we will eventually leave and articulate the milestones that would have to be achieved to permit us to do so.

This position is a political pretzel worthy of her husband’s squirming over tough issues.

But it won’t fool anyone. The right knows that she is, at best, an unreliable ally and, at worst, an insincere one. The left will not accept anything less than full-out opposition to the war. And our troops in the field — and their families back home — likely will not find much comfort in learning that Sen. Clinton wants them to risk their lives for a mistake.

And George Bush is not going to solve Hillary’s problem for her by winding up the war anytime soon. No matter what public opinion says, he is determined to stay in Iraq until the democratically elected government can handle the terrorists on its own. As commander in chief (the real one, not Geena Davis), he can do as he pleases. Congress is not about to cut off funding now or in the future, and Bush can stay in Iraq until the end of his term if need be.

So what is Hillary to do?

Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race.

[Randy Larsen]

She didn't learn anything from sKerry obviously. She thinks she is smarter than everyone and can angle herself to th WH. I just hope she has a listening tour. Only she is dumb/arrogant enough to try that again.

Never assume that the candidate is dumb...they are surrounded by extremely cunning supporter who are devoted to a positive result for they're candidate!

Remember Bush/Rove?

The dems painted Bush as being dumb...turnes out he is very smart...smart enough to listen to his advisors(MOST OF THE TIME.

[El Gato]

Dick Morris: Hillary can’t have it both ways

With the MSM on her side, she can have it anyway she wants. She can change it for each audience and demographic group.

[goresalooza]

I don't know why Morris keeps talking about hitlery. IMO, she's lost any shred of power she had. The public has already put the clintoons on the back burner where they will remain for life. I see NO EVIDENCE that she (or her lame hubby) can persuade a MAJORITY of voters across America to vote for her. The ONLY group touting her is the msm and we know how little they matter in the long haul.

She's finding it impossible to unite the divided rat party, and she can't run vs Bush in 08, no matter what she says. She isn't going to win the primary either, IMO. Coward Scream is not helping her at all with his "grassroots" across the nation claim.

America will see, in 08, a strong conservative handsome wellspoken George Allen and compare him to all the dimwit dwarves of the rat party. The rats will lose again and it will be their own fault.

[goresalooza]

Funny, that show has been on for...2 months now. It's already tanking....LMAO! It was nothing but smoke and mirrors for hitlery but it's already failing, according to Neilsen.

LMAO! Another feel-good story of the week..even El Rushbo mentioned it.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Yup...she's already got the perverts, haters and arrogant elitists!***

I must assume you mean the National Media and the DNC.

LOL. Worth a repeat.

[Mia T]

hillary dumps Geena for Maggie,¹ and when that doesn't fly,² she dumps Maggie for bill. Without missing a beat.

It's the old Dick Morris Hail Mary pass, (when in trouble, triangulate³), the once trusty play that for eight years kept two clumsy kleptocrats⁴ in the Oval Office and out of the slammer (even as it placed America and Americans in ever-increasing peril.)⁵

That missus clinton has managed, thereby, to stake out Iraqi territory occupied apparently by no one⁶ seems to have escaped her notice. Nonetheless, this constituency of zero is the least of her troubles.

COMPLETE ARTICLE

IMPERIOUS HILLARY
(THE REPORTS OF HER DEATH ARE GREATLY UNDERSTATED)
by Mia T, 12.05.05

 

 

 

AN OPEN LETTER TO TIM ROBBINS, DAVID GEFFEN, CHRIS MATTHEWS, MAUREEN DOWD + JEANINE PIRRO
RE: a not-so-modest proposal concerning hillary clinton
December 7, 1941+64


IMPERIOUS HILLARY
(THE REPORTS OF HER DEATH ARE GREATLY UNDERSTATED)


REINVENTING HILLARY... AGAIN
(clinton machine dumps Geena Davis for Margaret Thatcher)
how the clintons are handling the hillary dud factor₂


SCHEMA PINOCCHIO
how the clintons are handling the hillary dud factor

[Private_Sector_Does_It_Better]

I think that picture dipicts the one way she IS getting it. Bill sure as heck isn't slipping it to her anymore.

[1066AD]

Morris is obsessed with her because she canned him or something like that (and it helps him get paid to write columns and books).

[Hildy]

Speaking about hyped shows that came...and went...anyone notice that OVER THERE...the overly hyped Steven Bochco anti-war piece of crap that was on FX was quietly cancelled?

[OnRightOnLeftCoast]

..Janet Reno and Helen Thomas...

Which one would be the intern?

[Cobra64]

Janet Reno and Helen Thomas... Which one would be the intern?

Touche! You got me there.

May I get back to you after I meet with Dr. Kervorchian?

[goresalooza]

1066, good point. Morris has both burned his bridges to the clintonistas and made himself wealthier by living off "what he knows" about them since they turned on him, too. I still do not trust him in full, no matter who he says he votes for. I think he's a rat no matter what.

[goresalooza]

Barely heard of it...LOL! People are not going to watch anti-American drivel. Why won't hollyweird realize this?

[Recovering_Democrat]

What the hell is that all about? Is that you? Regardless, ... disgusting.

Dick Morris and toe sucking go hand in hand...er, foot-in-mouth. Don't you know about that??