Hillary
Flips Over Her Debate Flop
By Carey Roberts
06 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org
What
are we to make of a presidential candidate who portrays herself as strong
and independent, a courageous exemplar to the members of her gender
-- but at the first hint of criticism collapses as the pitiable victim
of gender politics?
Last Tuesday Hillary Clinton
delivered a horrendous performance at the Democratic debate. She claimed
she wanted to end the war in Iraq -- and in the next breath explained
that as president, she would continue to guard our embassy, provide
training, and continue to wage the fight against Al Qaeda.
As far as allowing illegal
aliens to get a driver’s license, her answer was more convoluted
than a New York City subway map. And when it came to rescuing the Social
Security system, she declared, “I do have a plan, but personally
I am not going to be advocating any specific fix until I am seriously
approaching fiscal responsibility.”
Huh?
Debate moderator Tim Russert
tried without success to pin her down. Finally candidate John Edwards
stated the obvious: “Unless I missed something, Senator Clinton
said two different things in the course of about two minutes.”
Barack Obama of Illinois added, “She had not been truthful and
clear.”
Clinton launched an immediate
counter-offensive. First she accused Russert of playing “gotcha.”
No, Hillary, he was trying to clarify your contradictory statements
– that’s what a moderator is supposed to do.
Then the Clinton campaign
released a memo called “The Politics of Pile-On.” Implying
that her competitors weren’t bowing and scraping to the inevitability
of her nomination, the statement ended with the incongruous claim that
Hillary is “One strong woman.”
Still fixated on playing
the gender card, Clinton’s media spinners held a conference call.
Senior strategist Mark Penn make the shrill claim that he was already
“detecting some backlash” among female voters because they
fretted the debate had turned into an ugly “six-on-one to try
to bring her down.”
Would someone please order
the de-caf next time?
Clinton’s surrogates
in the media rose to the occasion, but their comments were so off base
I wondered if they had actually watched the debate. “Her fighting
spirit was all the more impressive because so many of the positions
she was defending were virtually indefensible,” Gail Collins argued
in Thursday’s New York Times. Problem was, no one could figure
out exactly what positions she was defending.
Then HRC’s handlers
had the gall to send out a fund-raising letter condemning the men’s
actions with the plea, “Hillary’s going to need your help.”
But the counter-offensive
stalled when bloggers ridiculed Clinton’s scripted and evasive
answers. Commentator Jed Babbin noted, “But one thing isn’t
in doubt after Tuesday night: Hillary Clinton can dish it out, but she
can’t take it.” Jennifer Rubin satirized, “Indeed
it is sometimes difficult to follow the Hillary rules of etiquette.”
Washington Post columnist
Kathleen Parker offered this sisterly advice: “Sorry, but when
girls insist on playing hardball with the boys, they don’t get
to cry foul – or change the game to dodge ball – when they
get bruised.”
Clinton’s Democratic
rivals kept the heat on. Asked on NBC’s Today show whether Clinton
was trying to play the gender card, Barack Obama responded it didn’t
make sense that when “people start challenging her point of view,
that suddenly, she backs off and says, ‘Don’t pick on me.’”
John Edwards hit on Hillary’s
double-standard. “I think that Senator Clinton ought to be held
to the same standard that every presidential candidate is held to,”
Edwards told reporters. “That standard is to not engage in double-talk.”
Finally Mrs. Clinton made
a lame effort to defuse the controversy. “I don’t think
they’re picking on me because I’m a woman; I think they’re
picking on me because I’m winning.”
“Picking on me”?
When Barack Obama was excoriated
for offering to meet with Fidel Castro, I don’t remember him saying
he was being singled out because of his skin color. And when persons
ridiculed John Edwards for his $300 haircuts, he didn’t provide
the sad-sack defense of being “picked on.”
In the past, playing the
victim worked wonders for Mrs. Clinton. During her eight years as First
Lady, her highest approval ratings came in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky
scandal. And following a debate with candidate Rick Lazio, Clinton and
her aides claimed that his actions were “menacing” and “threatening.”
But in 2007, the last thing
our country needs is a candidate who uses divisive gender tactics to
satisfy her need for personal satisfaction and political gain.
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