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It's hard to hate entirely reasonable Hillary
The Sunday Times ^ | January 21, 2007 | Andrew Sullivan

Posted on 01/21/2007 6:19:55 AM PST by NCjim

Among my many guilty pleasures — bad reality television, solitary nose excavation, the Fox News Channel — hating Hillary Clinton was once near the top of the list. The senator from New York somehow managed to arouse every one of my love-to-hate zones.

She was a self-righteous feminist (boo) who married her way to power (double-plus-boo). She wanted to turn American medicine into the National Health Service (grrr) and all her friends were wealthy lawyers (triple eye-roll). She was Lady Macbeth when she wasn’t some goo-goo liberal ideologue.

There were as many ways to despise her as she had hairstyles. Then we even got to hate her hairstyles as well. One of my most treasured moments editing The New Republic in the 1990s was publishing a cover story by Camille Paglia on Hillary called “Ice Queen, Drag Queen”. Ah, those were the days.

She can still provoke something of the same response. A while back I was musing with Pat Buchanan, the old Republican warhorse, about the parlous state of his party. “Only one thing can save us now,” he grumbled. “And it’s Hillary.”

Even her allies loathe her. Two years ago David Geffen, the billionaire Democrat, told a New York crowd: “She can’t win and she’s an incredibly polarising figure. Ambition is just not a good enough reason.” She is currently fourth in those too-early-by-a-year polls in Iowa. And if you miss seeing an unflattering photograph of her, just check the Drudge Report. Before too long, one will probably pop up. And I’ll find myself in a wave of nostalgia.

Why am I having a hard time keeping the wave afloat? The answer is relatively simple. Clinton has been an almost painfully reasonable, centrist, sensible senator. I’d like to hate her but she’s foiling me every time.

Take the Iraq war. She voted for it but with shrewd reservations. “If we were to attack Iraq now, alone or with few allies, it would set a precedent that could come back to haunt us,” she told the Senate before voting to give Bush authorisation. “For all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option.” In retrospect those were wise words — but they are not helping her now with an increasingly anti-war Democratic base, especially since she continues to refuse to disown her vote.

Or take her recent manoeuvring over what the Pentagon had called a “surge” and last week was calling “plus-up” in Iraq. She opposed the new plan but did so in a written statement before jetting off to see the troops. She is close to David Petraeus, the gifted general who has been tasked with calming the non-Sadrite parts of Baghdad with a handful of troops.

Her critics call this calculation. Arianna Huffington says Clinton reeks of the scent of fear. John Edwards’s campaign, which has staked out the strongest anti-war stance, has already tried to reinforce this perception. Edwards recently charged, in a veiled reference to Clinton: “If you’re in Congress and you know that this war is going in the wrong direction, it is no longer enough to study your options and keep your own counsel.”

Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s aide, responded a little touchily: “In 2004 John Edwards used to constantly brag about running a positive campaign. Today he has unfortunately chosen to open his campaign with political attacks on Democrats who are fighting the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.”

Is Clinton “fighting” the Bush administration’s Iraq policy or trying to ameliorate it? Both, I’d say. It’s a perfectly rational position for a grown-up politician to take. When you consider her statements as a whole throughout a confusing, dynamic, dangerous war, what comes across is reasonableness and responsibility. “I am cursed with the responsibility gene. I am. I admit to that,” she told The New York Times last week. “

You’ve got to be very careful in how you proceed with any combat situation in which American lives are at stake.”

Quite so. But the line between prudence and calculation can be a thin one. And at times the centrism seems almost pathological. Here she is explaining her foreign policy philosophy to The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Goldberg: “We can critique the idealists, who have an almost faith-based idealism without adequate understanding or evidence-based decision making, and we can critique the realists for rejecting the importance of aspiration and values in foreign policy. You know, I find myself, as I often do, in the somewhat lonely middle.”

There are two things to say about that. The first is that she shouldn’t use “critique” as a verb. The second is that it’s very hard to disagree with her. The question in American foreign policy should never be whether one is a realist or an idealist. It should always be which blend of each is appropriate in the face of any specific challenge. I have no doubt, for example, that the first Bush administration in 1988-92 was too realist; and that the second one, which we are currently enduring, is too idealist. But who do we trust to get the balance right in the future? Hillary is essentially saying that we should trust her. She is giving us a clear signal of what a second Clinton administration would be like: all the centrism and responsibility of her husband’s eight years but without any of the charm.

Is that what Americans want? It seems that what they want is a form of escapism (in the form of Edwards), charisma (in the shape of Barack Obama), or integrity (in the guise of John McCain). But when the decision nears and the stakes, especially abroad, begin to seep in, might Hillary be right? Might they actually be yearning for dullness, competence and responsibility? Americans historically elect presidents who are an antidote to the flaws of the previous one. Nixon begat Carter who begat Reagan. When you think of George W Bush, the word “reckless” springs to mind. And what is the antidote to reckless? “I am cursed with the responsibility gene,” said a candidate last week. She may be revealing extremely good political instincts. Or she may, of course, be calculating again.

Dammit. Hating her was much easier.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: barfalert; bushhater; gayissues; liberal; sullivan
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1 posted on 01/21/2007 6:19:56 AM PST by NCjim
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To: NCjim

Andi is such a hankie.


2 posted on 01/21/2007 6:21:07 AM PST by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: NCjim
An entirely reasonable Hillary? What kind of fictional character is that?
3 posted on 01/21/2007 6:21:58 AM PST by NonValueAdded (Pelosi, the call was for Comity, not Comedy. But thanks for the laughs. StarKisses, NVA.)
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To: NCjim
"It's hard to hate entirely reasonable Hillary"

No it isn't!

4 posted on 01/21/2007 6:22:16 AM PST by Anti-Bubba182
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To: NCjim

Detest is a better word?


5 posted on 01/21/2007 6:22:22 AM PST by TYVets (God so loved the world he didn't send a committee)
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To: NCjim
It's hard to hate entirely reasonable Hillary

Try me.

6 posted on 01/21/2007 6:22:53 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: NCjim
Why am I having a hard time keeping the wave afloat? The answer is relatively simple. Clinton has been an almost painfully reasonable, centrist, sensible senator. I’d like to hate her but she’s foiling me every time.

Communists can act too.

7 posted on 01/21/2007 6:23:09 AM PST by beyond the sea ( All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest)
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To: NCjim

'Triangulation' is the act of a candidate presenting his or her ideology as being "above" and "between" the left and right sides of the political spectrum. A related term is third way politics.

The GOP have taken 'triangulation' to a new level, which I call 'strangulation'.

'Strangulation' is the act of a GOP candidate presenting his or her idealogy as being "abhorrent" and "baffling" to the right side of the political spectrum. A related term is RINO politics.


8 posted on 01/21/2007 6:23:33 AM PST by Stallone (War and Politics: When the Enemy begins to feel pain, they change their behavior to avoid it.)
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To: NCjim

I don't find it hard to hate her at all.


9 posted on 01/21/2007 6:23:36 AM PST by proudofthesouth (Mao said that power comes at the point of a rifle; I say FREEDOM does.)
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To: NCjim

US political insight from overseas...


10 posted on 01/21/2007 6:24:11 AM PST by kinoxi
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To: beyond the sea

The new surge might just force her to show her real colors.


11 posted on 01/21/2007 6:24:32 AM PST by LtdGovt ("Where government moves in, community retreats and civil society disintegrates" -Janice Rogers Brown)
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To: NCjim

"A while back I was musing with Pat Buchanan, the old Republican warhorse, about the parlous state of his party."

Why does the MSM always quote this FORMER member of the GOP?


12 posted on 01/21/2007 6:25:37 AM PST by moose2004 (You Can Run But You Can't Hide!)
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To: NCjim

"Clinton has been an almost painfully reasonable, centrist, sensible senator."

That's the act. And apparently people are falling for it.


13 posted on 01/21/2007 6:25:50 AM PST by nuconvert ([there's a lot of bad people in the pistachio business] (...but his head is so tiny...))
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To: beyond the sea
Communists can act too.

deception and propoganda are a basic necessity in their arsenal

14 posted on 01/21/2007 6:27:48 AM PST by digger48
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To: beyond the sea

People can say what they want about her but stupidity is not one of her attributes. Bill Clinton didn't get elected on his own merits. She knows that liberals do not get elected in national elections so she isn't going to run as one.


15 posted on 01/21/2007 6:28:00 AM PST by misterrob (Jack Bauer/Chuck Norris 2008)
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To: NCjim

16 posted on 01/21/2007 6:28:52 AM PST by unixfox (The 13th Amendment Abolished Slavery, The 16th Amendment Reinstated It !)
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To: NCjim
Let face it Andy, your sole criteria these days is a politicians position on homosexual marriage. You are the perfect junk media "Conservative". Willing to shill what ever position your Leftist masters demand as long as it validates your emotional based feelings about gay marriage.

Frankly Andy, you token "Conservative" facade is getting rather ludicrous these days. Why don't you just come out of the closet and admit you have NEVER really been on our side but merely played the roll that would fulfill your media masters fantasies of "objectivity"?
17 posted on 01/21/2007 6:30:32 AM PST by MNJohnnie (I do not forgive Senator John McCain for helping destroy everything we built since 1980.)
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To: NCjim

There is no word in the english language strong enough to describe my feelings about this "woman"


18 posted on 01/21/2007 6:31:07 AM PST by stm (Believe 1% of what you hear in the drive-by media and take half of that with a grain of salt)
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To: NCjim

Any time Hilary acts reasonable. Its an act.

Its her way or the Highway, there is no in between.


19 posted on 01/21/2007 6:31:28 AM PST by sgtbono2002 (Peace through strength.)
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To: NCjim

Andrew Sullivan is as conservative as a valley girl is with daddy's plastic.


20 posted on 01/21/2007 6:31:35 AM PST by NinoFan
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