Carl Bernstein's View: A Hillary Clinton presidency
- From: jose <josefsoplar@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:48:05 -0700 (PDT)
Carl Bernstein's View: A Hillary Clinton presidency
Posted: 11:01 PM ET
What will a Hillary Clinton presidency look like?
The answer by now seems obvious: It will look like her presidential
campaign, which in turn looks increasingly like the first Clinton
presidency.
Which is to say, high-minded ideals, lowered execution, half truths,
outright lies (and imaginary flights), take-no prisoners politics,
some very good policy ideas, a presidential spouse given to wallowing
in anger and self-pity, and a succession of aides and surrogates
pushed under the bus when things don't go right. Which is to say,
often.
And endless psychodrama: the essential Clintonian experience that
mesmerizes the press, confuses the citizenry, confounds members of
both parties in Congress (not to mention the Clintons themselves, at
times) and pretty much keeps the rest of the world constantly amused
and fixated.
Such a picture of Clinton Redux is, by definition, speculation. But it
is speculation based on the best evidence at hand: the demonstrable
and familiar record of Hillary and Bill Clinton coupled together in
Permanent Campaign-mode for a generation, waging a continuous fight on
the national political stage since 1992, an unceasing campaign for the
White House, for redemption, for their ideas (sometimes) and for
themselves (almost always), especially in 2008.
The basic dynamics of the campaign, except for the Clintons' vast new-
found personal wealth and its challenges, have been near-constant
since they arrived in Washington: through Whitewater, health care, the
battle of the budget, the culture wars, the tax returns released only
under duress, the travel office, Monica, impeachment, the pardons and
through Hillary Clinton's often repugnant presidential campaign.
In many ways, the characteristic tone, secrecy, and resilience of the
Clinton political march have been determined more by Hillary Clinton
than by her husband, reflecting her deepest attributes and attitudes,
fermented in recognition of the antipathy held against both of them,
and often, the foul tactics of their enemies. As an aide put it
(quoted in my book, A Woman In Charge: the Life of Hillary Rodham
Clinton):
"She doesn't look at her life as a series of crises but rather a
series of
battles. I think of her viewing herself in more heroic terms, an epic
character like in The Iliad, fighting battle after battle. Yes, she
succumbs
to victimization sometimes, in that when the truth becomes
too painful, when she is faced with the repercussions of her own
mistakes or flaws, she falls into victimhood. But that's a last resort
and when she does allow the wallowing it's only in the warm glow
of martyrdom--as a laudable victim--a martyr in the tradition of
Joan of Arc, a martyr in the religious sense. She would much
rather play the woman warrior--whether it's against the bimbos,
the press, the other party, the other candidate, the right-wing.
She's happiest when she's fighting, when she has identified the
enemy and goes into attack mode. . . . That's what she thrives on
more than anything--the battle."
The latest transmutation of leadership in the campaign of Hillary
Clinton for president -- Mark Penn's departure or non-departure, be it
window dressing or window cleaning -- is perhaps the best index we
have of the more absurd aspects of her candidacy and evidence of its
increasing bankruptcy.
The Clinton folks asserted to donors and reporters alike that this
second "shake-up" in eight weeks at the very top of the campaign
apparat represents some kind of great electoral moment, an opportunity
for Hillary to state her case "more positively," as if the negative
approach had been forced on her; the beginning of yet another
"turnaround" as if Penn, rather than Hillary (and Bill), has been the
big problem. As if Penn were not an appendage of his two patrons, as
if he were some kind of independent contractor twisting the
candidate's arm to do what comes unnaturally to her. The willingness
of so much of the press, sensitized to the Clintons' off-center
complaints about one-sided coverage, to buy into this line is
stunning.
In fact, the demotion of Penn -- like the departure of Hillary's
acolyte Patty Solis Doyle as campaign manager -- is a confession that,
for all her claims of "experience" and leadership abilities, Hillary
Clinton has now presided over two disastrous national enterprises, the
most important professional undertakings of her adult life, both of
which she began with ample wind at her back: the healthcare reform of
her husband's presidency, and now her own campaign for the White
House. These two failures -- and the demonizing of her opponents in
both instances -- may be the best indication of the kind of President
she would be, especially when confronted (inevitably) by unanticipated
difficulty and/or entrenched opposition to her ideas and programs.
It is exactly under such circumstances that she usually resorts to the
worst excesses that mark her in full warrior-mode -- and all its
scorched-earth, truth-be-damned manifestations. Bosnia, anyone?
Smearing the women involved (or even thought to be involved) sexually
with her husband. Responding to Barack Obama with the same mindset,
disdain, and arsenal as she did Karl Rove and Lee Atwater, as if
Obama's politics and methodologies were as mendacious and vicious as
theirs-and her own. Tax information kept secret (in 1992 to hide her
profits from trading in cattle futures; in 2008 to shield the
identities of Bill's foreign clients.) A campaign that openly boasts
of throwing "the kitchen sink" at her opponent.
What you see is what you get: Hillary's cynical view of the larger
interests of the Democratic Party, exhibited in her 3 a. m. red
telephone ad. And her simultaneous, incongruous suggestion that Barack
Obama -- notwithstanding his supposed lack of national security
qualifications to be commander-in-chief -- would make a good vice
president on her ticket.
And, yes, a sense of entitlement that veritably shouts, "Look, because
I believe in good things, and because of all I've been through, I
deserve to win this."
And yet, there is no denying that, compared to the Bush years, the
accomplishments of the Clinton presidency, in which she was an
elemental force (and generalissimo in the often successful fight
against the forces of "the vast right-wing conspiracy") are
prodigious, marked by peace and prosperity, whatever the price of the
Clintons' methodologies and personal failings.
In projecting what a Hillary Clinton presidency would look like, there
is the conundrum of her senatorial tenure and what had appeared to be
a surcease in her Pavlovian resort to trench warfare: a period in
which -- until the day drew near for her to announce her presidential
candidacy -- she seemed (to her oldest friends, certainly) happier and
more at ease, and straightforward in her public dealings, and less
guarded, than at any point in her life since she followed Bill Clinton
to Arkansas.
Hillary Clinton's unique star power, her performance as a senator and
fundraiser on behalf of her party are what gave legitimacy to the idea
that she might be a credible presidential candidate: all premised on
her changed demeanor in the Senate years, compared to her embattled
tenure as first lady. As a steward of her state's interest, and a
patient student of senatorial compromise and collegiality, she was
widely commended by former skeptics in Congress and the press.
True, her most revealing moment as a senator of national consequence
was the vote she cast to authorize George W. Bush to go to war, which
she's been trying to explain since with dubious credibility. ("If I
knew now what I knew then," etc.) Twenty-one of her fellow Democratic
senators had no doubts about what Bush intended, and voted against the
authorization.
The second most revealing moment was her endorsement of legislation to
make flag-burning illegal, the kind of pandering she once attacked
right-wing Republicans of practicing. Meanwhile, she and her husband
have regularly misrepresented their own postures and statements in the
run-up to the war, as well as Obama's record, with Bill Clinton
claiming to have been against the war from the start, and Hillary
saying she has consistently been more adamant in her opposition than
Obama -- except for the matter of his single "speech" against the war
before it started.
The assumption of many senatorial colleagues, former Clinton aides,
and reporters (including this one) was that her presidential campaign
would be much different from the one she and Bill Clinton waged
through the White House years.
In A Woman in Charge, I wrote about her ability to evolve, observable
especially in the years before she met Bill Clinton and in the Senate:
to learn from her mistakes. Events have proven me wrong on that count.
The 2008 Clinton campaign, in fact, has been an exercise in
devolution, back to the angry, demonizing, accusatory Hillary Clinton
of the worst days of the Clinton presidency, flailing, and furtive,
and disingenuous; and, as in the White House years, putting forth
programs and ideas worthy of respect and deserving of the kind of
substantive debate she claims she wants her race against Barrack Obama
to be based upon.
Bill, meanwhile, has taken up Hillary's old role as defender and
apologist, with disinformation and misinformation, but (far less
effectively than she defended him). Also with near-apoplectic tirades
that have left their friends worried and wondering.
In the process of their search-and-destroy mission against Barack
Obama, the Clintons have pursued a strategy that at times seems
deliberately aimed at undermining Obama's credibility if he becomes
John McCain's opponent -- heresy in the view of an increasing number of
the Clintons' former suppporters and aides, a suprising number of whom
now back Obama.
The choice ahead -- in Pennsylvania, and the remaining primary states,
and for the super delegates, and perhaps even the arbiters of a
deadlocked convention -- is clear enough at this point, at least in
terms of what the 2008 Clinton campaign is about: the Clintons --
plural. Theirs is a campaign for Restoration to the White House, not
simply the election of Hillary Clinton. Theirs is, has always been, a
joint enterprise, a see-saw routine in which the psyches and actions
of each balances the board according to the personal dynamics of the
moment.
A long-time associate of the Clintons, with whom Hillary has consulted
in their quest to return to the White House, said early in her
campaign: "She has a very plausible case for president. She had an
eight-year super-graduate course in the presidency, a progressive
platform..." He paused, and added: "[But] I'm not sure I want the circus
back in town."
That is what the Hillary for President campaign has become: the whole
Clinton three-ring circus, with little evidence that moving back to
the White House will alter that most basic fact.
- Carl Bernstein, 360 Contributor and Author of "A Woman In Charge:
the Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton"
======================================
Carl Bernstein takes a hard look at a decidedly second rate candidate
running a third rate campaign that, if successful, would give us a
fifth-rate administration.
.
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