Back into Politics

One of the bests moments of the early "Saturday Night Years" featured a Weekend Update commentary by Bill Murray on the subject of women in the military. Murray said that not only should we allow women in the military, we should have only women in the military.

"I mean, let's say we go to war against Russia," he said. "If we win, great. If we lose, we can so, 'Wow, you beat up a bunch of girls. I bet you feel tough.'"

This, right now, is apparently the strategery of Clintons and their acolytes against Hillary's Democratic foes (and presumably her future GOP opponent): if she wins, great. If she loses (or appears to lose), say, in effect, "Wow, you beat up a girl."

The use of this tactic is the only possibile explanation for Clinton supporter's reaction the the first piece of bad news in maybe months, the first since the long-forgotten "liar" comment that former supporter David Geffen made months ago. At first glance, the news would seemingly be not that bad. She stumbled over a question on whether she would agree with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens, and she so butchered a question regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions that there was laughter--ouright merriment--in the venue, ninety percent of whom will probably vote for her in twelve months.

It is part of the Clintons' political DNA that Dem presidential losses happen when Dems don't fight back: Dukakis and Willie Horton, Gore and the internet, Kerry and the Swift Boat vets. Hence their week-long screed toward Edwards and Obama, so over the top it only focused attention on Clinton's blunders and the questions regarding her invulnerability.

Right now, she's not going to lose--not the nomination, anyway. None of the second-tier candidates have even approached anything resembling Huckabee chic on the GOP side, and Obama's and Edwards' best hope is for one of the two to drop out right after New Hampshire and the remainder to go hard, hard left (as in Kucinich territory) on the war. If both Obama and Edwards stay in long enough to carve up the anti-Hillary vote, they will doom each other.

Hillary's problem is neither Obama nor Edwards, nor her performance. Her problem resides in those two questions, and others like them.

Consider:

The first question concerned driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Would she support the idea? The second concerned a nuclearized Iran. Would she pledge that such would never happen?

Ask Mitt Romney or Rudy Guiliani, "Should the states have the right to issue drivers' licenses to illegal aliens?"; and, "Will you pledge that you will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon?", and both would emphatically say "No" to the first and "Yes" to the second.

Hillary, not so much, and that could be a problem that transcends a November debate performance.

The failure of President Bush's immigration reform, followed by the presumptive failure of DREAM, only demonstrated that the Won't-Get-Fooled-Again consensus regarding immigration has coalesced, to wit: build the fence, and then we'll talk. Talk amnesty, but it had better be for the last time, and it had better be accompanied by enforcement that works.

Hillary, no dummy, knows all of the above, and she also knows that her primary consituency views such talk as flat-out racism. Hence the mangled answer. Hillary has a problem here, and it won't go away.

The dynamics are the same for Iran, but I'm going to bed.