Time to Move On ... From Hillary
KRISTOL, WILLIAM
EDITORIAL Time to Move On . . . From Hillary The defining moment of the Democratic presidential campaign so far came during the Des Moines Register debate, December 13, at 2:10 p.m. Central...
...Shaheen wondered aloud to a reporter how vulnerable Obama would be to Republican attacks over Obama’s long-acknowledged youthful drug use: “It’ll be, ‘When was the last time...
...His demolition of her at the Des Moines Register debate suggests he is...
...But the last few weeks have reminded us—and, we suspect, many other Americans—how little we should want the Clintons back on the center stage of American politics...
...William Kristol...
...One also, incidentally, asks: Do kids actually write “essays” in kindergarten...
...With relatively little foreign policy experience of your own, how will you rely on so many Clinton advisers and still deliver the kind of break from the past that you’re promising voters...
...About becoming president of the United States...
...She recalled that little Barack had written an essay in kindergarten, “I Want to Become President...
...Obama: Well, the—you know, I am . . . Clinton (interrupting): [cackle] I wanna hear this [more cackling] Obama: Well, Hillary, I’m looking forward to you advising me, as well...
...Gotcha...
...We’ll see if throwing personal decency overboard for the sake of the cause saves his job...
...Can’t we move on from ridiculous Clintonian attacks...
...This is not a joke...
...Hillary forecast this series of assaults on December 2: “Well, now the fun part starts,” she said...
...The following week, the national co-chairman of the Clinton campaign, Bill Shaheen, raised the issue of Obama’s youthful drug use...
...She might be easier to beat than Barack Obama or John Edwards...
...One notes, with open-mouthed wonder, the brazenness of Hillary Clinton’s criticizing someone else for ambition...
...Q: Senator Obama, you have Bill Clinton’s former national security adviser, State Department policy director, and Navy secretary, among others, advising you...
...The Clinton campaign put out a press release on December 2 trumpeting this discovery...
...She might take positions that are a little less distant from this magazine’s views than Obama or Edwards...
...Penn has been under pressure from critics within Hillary-land who’ve been trying to mount a coup against him...
...We’re going to start drawing a contrast, because I want every Iowan to have accurate information when they make their decisions...
...This was no young volunteer shooting his mouth off...
...It will be good for the country to be able to move on, sooner rather than later, from the Clintons and their brand of politics...
...Central time...
...Then there was the Hillary campaign press release attacking Obama for saying he hadn’t spent his whole life planning to run for president (unlike some other candidates...
...Das Hillary Apparat unearthed one Iis Darmawan, 63, “Senator Obama’s kindergarten teacher [in Indonesia...
...One marvels at the mind-boggling triviality of this particular nugget mined by the legendary Clinton research operation...
...Bill Shaheen is an experienced operative...
...The “fun part” for the rest of us will be watching the bitter infighting among the Clintonistas as the wheels come off Hillary’s campaign...
...As are we all...
...In Jakarta...
...If the Democratic primary electorate brings this about, The Weekly Standard will be first to say something we are not accustomed to saying to the Democratic party—thank you...
...Can’t we move on from rewriting history for the self-aggrandizement of the perennially needy former president...
...With this low blow, he presumably was trying to prove to Hillary and her long-time apparatchik Sidney Blumenthal his willingness to go the extra mile...
...But that evening, on Hardball, Clinton strategist Mark Penn pulled a classic Clinton gambit, raising the issue again while denying he was doing so: “The issue related to cocaine use is not something that the campaign was in any way raising,” he assured one and all...
...The question became whether Obama was tough enough to stand up to it...
...Did you sell them to anyone?’” An outcry forced Shaheen to apologize, and to step down as campaign co-chairman the next day...
...What we are not looking forward to is the prospect of Hillary Clinton in the spotlight, as the Democratic nominee...
...Shaheen’s wife, Jeanne, is the former governor of New Hampshire and is running for the Senate next year...
...Did you ever give drugs to anyone...
...First there was Bill Clinton, campaigning for his wife in Iowa, claiming falsely—manifestly and provably—that he had “opposed Iraq from the beginning...
Vol. 13 • December 2007 • No. 15
