Hillary goes back and forth between saying that she’s vetted and complaining that the press is too hard on her. The problem is that she has a tendency to avoid the truth, to say anything, and to associate with anyone. This means that she is always open for a fresh vetting.
The most recent absurdity is or was her Senior Campaign Strategist. It just doesn’t quite pass the smell test that he suddenly resigns right when Bush is about to present the Colombian free trade bill to Congress. Clinton should have done her research and know (i) that the vote was coming up and (ii) that the Senior Campaign Strategist as a mercenary representing a foreign nation against what Hillary argues is in the best interest of the American people. You can’t dump on Obama for his choice in former preacher when you’re right hand man is lobbying in the present against what you’re saying in public. She’s not even firing, but only demoting the guy. It just doesn’t fly and only enhances Hillary’s reputation for truth aversion. George Will had this to say about Hillary,
She favored the North American Free Trade Agreement until she opposed it: She favored it back when she was a Cub fan, before she imagined being senator from New York and discovered, or remembered, that she had always been a Yankee fan. She opposes NAFTA and the Colombia agreement now that she is a presidential candidate, but her views might change again in a few weeks, when her status does.
With all due respect to Hillary, the conservative Will also trashed Obama in the same article for Obama’s position on trade. Personally, I don’t agree with either Hillary or Obama’s trade protectionism. I also don’t agree with the Washington Post’s assertion that somehow Mark Penn was right on trade. Penn is a lobbyist. His job isn’t to believe in what he is selling but to sell. Don’t confuse the two.
It also appears that Obama is now closing in on Hillary in Pennsylvania. Who knows? That’s good spin for both candidates actually. Hillary needs to give the impression that the race is going to be very close so that when she doesn’t win by as a huge of a margin as she had in the state just days ago, she can still call it a big comeback victory. The Washington Post also ran two op-ed pieces today on Obama: one by Peter Beinart, the other by Richard Cohen. Cohen argues that Obama still needs to give one more convincing “race” speech in Pennsylvania.
Back to Hillary, maybe the whole demoting of another senior team member was a good thing for Hillary to do. It took some attention away from the fact that Bill and Hillary thrived under the Bush economy.
Grave Error 