The Quagmire, part the first

Everybody knows what the right-wingers in this country think of Hillary Clinton. What the press thinks is also readily apparent, although it has to be caveated by the fact that they seem almost anxious and eager to be led around by the nose and will change positions on a dime if it makes things more interesting (I mean, if my wife were to perish in a tragic blimp accident I would not dissuade Tina Fey from comforting me in my hour of need, but one good zinger – even if it was the sublime “Bitch is the new black” – just ain’t enough to make the scales fall from the eyes of the MSNBC types and cause them to suddenly get behind the idea that They Done Hillary Wrong.)

What a lot of people don’t realize is that much, if not most, of the activist left in the U.S. also hates Hillary. Despises her. Reviles might even be the best word. For a couple of reasons, after the jump:

1) There seems to be a good bit of revisionist history going on re: the Clinton legacy. Apparently, despite being not-really-all-that-liberal and facing a hostile Congress controlled by the other party for six years, not to mention a press being led by its nuts by a foaming-at-the-mouth conservative movement, Bill Clinton’s failure to build the New Liberal Jerusalem in Washington’s green and pleasant land means that he was secretly some sort of reactionary and thus a failure, and that this failure means that his wife is unfit to carry the torch for the progressive movement.

This argument comes largely from the kind of people who really don’t want you to find out that they actually voted for Nader in 2000. Let’s face it, people: political discourse in the 1990s was shaped by Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge. If Jesus Christ had been president in 1999, the intarwebs would have been alive with emails like “ALCOHOLIC PRESIDENT IN WINE-SWILLING WEDDING SCANDAL” over that business in Cana some nineteen-hundred-something years ago. Bill Clinton may not have been the long-awaited messiah, but he was literally the best that the left could get in that climate. Put another way: if Santa Claus doesn’t exist, it’s not his fault he didn’t bring you the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip.

Which brings us to…

2) HRC voted for the Authorization to Use Military Force in 2002, which gave the President blanket clearance to invade Iraq and get us into the current mess.

Okay, this one I can sort of see the problem with. The only problem was that the Democrats were caught in another iteration of the Ethiopian Shim-Sham: a vote, a month before Congressional elections, on whether to strike out at a name-brand Arab dictator who might be harboring (say it with me, kids!) WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. A year after the September 11 attacks, a year after the anthrax (remember the anthrax? Anybody outside DC remember we had anthrax going around? Anyone?), a month away from elections, there was absolutely NO constituency for drawing a line in the sand and saying “No we won’t approve this.” It was going to pass the House no matter what. In the Senate, the Dems had 50 seats plus a nominal Independent in Jim Jeffords, so their control of the House hung by a thread – and we’ve seen how a large Senate minority can tie the thing in knots. To put down a bright line and say “We are not going to authorize force in Iraq,” and make it stand up, would require two things: balls the size of church bells, and a narrative that successfully sold the notion that Iraq should be on hold until Afghanistan was under control and an international consensus to move on Iraq was present to the same degree as 1991. And if there’s one thing Senate Democrats can’t find, it’s an effective narrative…or their balls.

So yes, there were a lot of blogospheric activists banging the drum, and there were a few commentators willing to express doubt, and there were a handful of politicians willing to take a stand, but not nearly the number required. And at that point, you can do one of two things: go along and try to take the issue off the table as a result, or make a stand and lose valiantly, endearing yourself to the base.

Here we see the difference between the Clinton offense and the Rove offense. The Clinton offense consists of shoring up the base and then creeping a little bit toward the middle, and a little more, and a little more, giving away just what is necessary to get to 50%+1. By contrast, the Rove offense consists of shoring up the base, firing it up as much as possible, and then turning off enough participants in the middle until the base constitutes 50%+1 of what’s left in play. That kind of Horatio-at-the-bridge stand would have been a perfect play in the Rove offense…but until four weeks ago, HRC wasn’t running a Rove. And in the Clinton system, building the base at the expense of alienating the middle is the equivalent of throwing the ball up in the stands. And lest we forget, more than 50% of the country was in favor action against Iraq…which, again, is a no-go in the Clinton offense.

So, long story short, while HRC probably COULD have gone against the AUMF, it would be reasonable to assume that she would not.

There you have it: retrospective disappointment with the Clinton era + a bad call on the war = Hillary creates revulsion among left-wingers almost commensurate with what she attracts from the right, but for very different reasons. If this were all presented as a blind resume for a prospective candidate, you’d chuck it in the round file and start Googling for Kennedy offspring. This combination of circumstances is what led to my earlier prediction that the only way the GOP is going to win in 2008 is if they get Clinton to run against.

Now, more than ever, it looks like my prediction from early February is on track. I’d be happy to be wrong. I’d be THRILLED to be wrong. But once upon a time, I was really good at this, and I think it’s starting to look like I may have called it.