imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
SAINT HILLARY?
Here we go again with silly season bloviating. Yes yes yes, Her Royal C is powerful and intelligent and maybe even religious. But before anyone dubs her as “The Great and Wonderful Wizard,” don’t forget how her fabulous health care initiative in 1993 sufficiently angered voters enough to vote out the Dems and to vote in Republican control in 1994, still maintained today. And if you think socialized medicine is really the way to go, check out BRITAIN’S HEALTH CARE IS TO DIE FOR.
Hillary: A shot in the arm or the foot?
She is, in fact, religious. She is, in fact, one of America's best politicians. (The best one is her husband.) She understands the regional nature of America in all of its maddening diversity.
She's a diligent advocate for New York in the Senate. She's adept at making compromises. Even a few GOP zealots who tortured President Bill Clinton have taken a shine to her.
She sounds as mainstream as ham and eggs. Her recent suggestion that maybe Americans ought to find constructive ways to avoid abortions has won her some new friends. Her pragmatism on Iraq and her steadfastness on Israel have given her image an aura of levelheadedness. In some ways, she might even be superior to her husband.
"Bill Clinton has an almost pathological desire to please," one political operative told me. "She's a lot more steely."
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But for all her hard work and mainstream values, she will face the challenge of a lifetime trying to live down her activist background. Every excess of the 1960s will be her burden to carry once the GOP strategists finish with her.
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I'm not sure there's a politician alive who could do that.
Maybe Hillary can - but the odds are she can't. No, that's not fair. But the Democrats need to find another savior.