Finally Someone Lays a Glove on Hillary

Even if I were not a staunch conservative, I would still think that Hillary Clinton is a truly disgusting candidate for the U.S. Presidency. The only democratic candidacy worse than hers is that of John Edwards. The other candidates I can at least respectfully listen to.

This is a harsh comment, so I'll clarify: I cannot stand Hillary because I rarely believe that she believes what comes out of her mouth (i.e. it's all-pandering-all-the-time), and when I do believe it, she's usually saying nothing. That is, she is a master at saying nothing (something her husband was also accused of), but using a lot of words to do so. Both of these activities are dishonest. The fact that she not only is a viable candidate for the presidency, but the leading candidate, makes this 10 times worse. The only saving grace is that the Republicans will likely (I pray) put forth a worthy challenger and keep her from winning the election next year.

Republicans have always known this about Hillary, but until now, the Left has never acknowledged it. Now, other leftists want to beat Hillary in the democratic primary, and since she has a commanding lead at the moment, the gloves have come off. This became obvious in the most recent debate.

In this debate, (transcript here) Hillary was asked a question by moderator Tim Russert about a controversial (overwhelmingly unpopular) idea of Eliot Spitzer, the New York governor, to give illegal aliens driver's licenses. Russert asked her if she agreed with it. Hillary answered that she empathized with the governor and tried to leave it at that; but Russert followed up with her to get clarification. After that, Chris Dodd, John Edwards and Barack Obama all challenged her answer, recognizing it as a non-answer that just sounded good. They both wanted to know where she stood, and she tried to waffle, as she always does. In the end, she got hammered by fellow Democrats and looked extremely uncomfortable in the process.

Why does Hillary do this? I believe it's because she wants to play both sides of every issue, waiting as long as possible to commit to one side or the other and look good for it. Pundit Dick Morris, who used to work for the Clinton's, has a slightly different take. In his email bulletin on the matter he said this:

"she has come to believe, probably correctly, that if we knew what she really
wants to do as president, we would never vote for her. So on Social Security
(where she plans to raise taxes), Iran (where she will take military action if
need be), Iraq (where she will keep the troops), the Alternative Minimum Tax
(which she will only repeal if it can be used to hide massive tax increases) and
drivers licenses (which she will give to illegals as soon as she can), Hillary
resists telling the truth. And, under the scrutiny of opponents like Edwards and
Dodd, and the questioning of Tim Russert, it is becoming obvious even to
demented Democrats."

Either way, Democrats challenging her is good for the country. People ought to understand what a presidential candidate's positions on the important issues are. Then, and only then, they can make an informed decision about whether to vote for him/her. I dislike Hillary Clinton as a candidate partly for what she believes in. But I dislike her mostly because she is slippery and won't tell us what she really thinks about the issues.

Aftermath
In the days since that debate, Hillary has been trying to do damage control. Her latest ploy has been to try and garner sympathy by whining that she was "attacked" because she's a woman. This is an amazingly stupid idea. She was challenged because 1) She is the frontrunner by a long way; and 2) she gave a lengthy non-answer about a very unpopular issue in her own state, showing that she couldn't commit to a position even when 70+% of her constituents oppose it. Her opponents were completely correct to go after her on that. Right now they are trying to pull her back down in the rankings before she runs away with the nomination.

Barack Obama, in particular, has been very vocal about Hillary's non-positions, adding another non-answer about Social Security reform to the list. He put it succinctly: "You’re not ready to lead if you can’t tell us where you’re going."

If Hillary can't give a real answer to a simple question like illegal immigration and can't stand the heat of a real fight among other Democrat elites, how can she expect to win the general election, when the gloves will really come off, much less to lead the world if she wins?