Posted on 11/13/2002 8:39:38 AM PST by Dallas
Condoleezza Rice will defeat Hillary Clinton for the presidency in 2008, New York Times political columnist William Safire predicted during a stop in Ypsilanti Monday.
Safire was the featured speaker at an annual fund-raiser of the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County at the Ypsilanti Marriott Hotel.
Asked if he, a political columnist, misses Bill Clinton in the White House, Safire answered: "Desperately."
"He enlivened my life," said Safire, who awaits the day Hillary Clinton stops being a quiet, respectful freshman senator. He then predicted she will run for president in 2008, but will be defeated by Rice, who is now Bush's national security adviser and will by then be governor of California, he said.
Safire, 72, spoke to an audience of 600 people Monday night without benefit of notes, which surprised no one. After all, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist was a speech writer in the Nixon White House, and is the most widely read writer on the English language.
"So it just comes out," Safire said of his writing during a press conference earlier in the day.
During his speech and question-answer period that followed, Safire talked about the upcoming election in Israel, the approaching political scene here, and U.S.-Israeli relations.
Calling himself a good Republican, he said he nonetheless likes a divided government.
"Gridlock is great," he said. "My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.' "
The fact that so many Jews vote Democratic is "against all common sense," quipped Safire, who is Jewish, as the audience laughed.
The soft-spoken Safire reminded the crowd that there was a time people doubted Japan and Germany could ever become democracies. "It can happen anywhere if people give it a chance," he said, referring to the Middle East.
During the press conference, Safire, whose column appears in the Ann Arbor News, noted that last week's election results can partly be blamed on Democrats who opposed the war, but not too stridently; and opposed Bush's tax cuts, but were fearful of saying so. In addition, too much money was spent trying to beat Gov. Jeb Bush in Florida that could have been spent on other Democrats across the country.
Safire, a conservative Republican at a newspaper written largely by liberals, is a hawk who hopes the result of a war with Iraq will be the spreading of democracy in the Middle East.
He said the election proved people support Bush's foreign policy.
"Conservatism is better for the country than liberalism," he said, "because it's more tuned to individual freedom."
Bill Zirinsky of Ann Arbor is a regular reader of Safire's column and was interested in what he'd have to say Monday night. "Though he's a Nixon Republican, he manages to write an original column with interesting idea two times a week, and he's been doing it for 30 years," said Zirinsky.
"Ann Arbor has the highest per-capita readership of The New York Times outside of New York," said Jeff Levin, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County. "So we knew that Safire would be a recognized and intriguing personality to present to the community."
Safire, who lives in Chevy Chase, Md., and works at his paper's Washington bureau, looks back on an exciting and varied career as a reporter, columnist, correspondent, novelist, TV producer and historian.
But nothing beats what he does right now.
"Writing about politics for The New York Times is the greatest job in the world," he said.
I can think of lots of much more qualified people to run in 2008.
This is all PC politics at its worst - Republican meetooism PC politics. Barf alert!
Women were never intended by God to be the head of anything.
That's when I go in crazy-mode.
YEAH SHE WILL!
With those strikes against her, how will she ever become governor of California?
Why not?
There's lots of bible reasons not to want that.
That's funny, that's just the sort of thing a liberal disruptor would say, if he wanted to make Freepers look like a bunch of mouth-breathing, bigoted, fundamentalist imbeciles.
So how did you feel about Margaret Thatcher?
In that case, it's a damned good thing that "bible reasons" don't run our country.
Daddy Bush also ran a lousy campaign.
His son is 10 times the man, and politician, that Bush 41 was.
You said it! I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that!
I'd have voted for Thatcher while holding my nose. The English system is a bit different though, Thatcher wasn't head of state.
You're from here in Philly, aren't you?
In my district, the 13th, we had pro-abort Melissa Brown running against Joe the Commie Hoeffel is Awful. I voted for Brown while holding my nose. I'd have gone to the wall for Al Taubenburger, who barely lost to her in the primary, and who will beat Hoeffel in 2004.
Rice would be a very poor candidate.
I agree...this will be the ticket in 2008...then Rice/??? in 2016.
No argument with you there. Bush Jr. will mop the floor with Hillary before it's over. My point was simply that Hillary will be powerless to resist the urge to crush the Bush family one more time. Practical concerns about waiting until '08 will be overcome by the deep personal revulsion she feels for W. Remember her grimaces and eye-rolling at the last State of the Union address?
I'm sure that's some of the rhetoric well hear, but let's face it...
If John Kennedy hadn't been assasinated, he have most likely been a two term president.
From there, it's no big stretch to believe that Bobby would have run and won in 1968.
In addition, if as you say, the American people aren't too keen on a "familial dynasty"...then why is Hillary tracking so high in the 2004/2008 forecasts.
Once Dubya is successful in executing this war, providing TRUE security to this country and turns the economy around, a back-to-back Bush presidency isn't that hard to swallow...if the American people are convinced of a contination of the "Good Time" under younger brother Jeb.
What? I suppose in your little world men and women are equal and exactly the same in all ways.
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