The Clintonesque Counter-attack

Everybody from every political quadrant and the media has made a big fuss over Hillary's lackluster performance in the debate the other night. This, they claim, is her fatal flaw - the fact that she never really answers the questions that have political consequence. She's on both sides of every issue. Regardless of how events play out, she's covered. It's the same familiar Clintonesque playbook - but without that twinkle-in-the-eye that her husband would use to make the B.S. more palatable.

And I have to agree with those who claim that she's only doing this because she's in election mode. You better believe she has strong opinions on each of the topics she dodged on Monday - but she's sure smart enough to keep them under wraps while pandering to John and Sally America.

But it's the response to the criticism that I see as the greatest mistake. If Hillary and her proxies had sheepishly admitted that that debate was a rough one, and that yes, some of her answers weren't phrased correctly - then everyone would have blabbed for a few days and forgotten the whole episode. But instead they went to DefCon 5, and hammered the talking point that everyone was ruthlessly attacking Hillary like a bunch of wild men.

By that convenient standard, of course, she does not appeared to have fared too badly. Nevermind that it wasn't true, that the worst of it consisted of the candidates very mildly pointing out that Hillary didn't answer some questions, or that she appeared to give two conflicting answers. No, this was a brutal attack! Some people may buy that defense - but they won't be the ones who actually watched the debate, and actually saw what happened.

But by using that tactic, the Hillary war room has skipped ahead to the political play that everyone knew would be attempted later in the campaign. Rudy, or whoever the GOP nominates, will be some horrible, mean-spirited savage whenever he merely questions the validity of Hillary's position on any issue. If he points out a contradiction - goodness me, it's "gotcha" politics. Their obvious, ultimate gameplan is to characterize their opponent as a jerk for drawing attentions to these plain-as-day contradictions.

In playing that card early, Hillary risks making that counterattack sound tedious and implausible by the time we move into the general election. The girl who cried wolf will have claimed, by then, that everyone is attacking her - including the media, of course - who may want a horse race badly enough that they will ignore the inevitable phone calls from Clinton operatives asking them to delay or re-spin the latest story of Hillary's evasions. The victim ploy, hinging on a mis-characterization of her rivals as unfair and cruel - this will get incredibly tiresome to the general population by the time we are asked decide who is more presidential at the voting booth.

Meanwhile, in contrast, the Republicans will continue to take a hammering from the media over any apparent wisp of hypocrisy. (Did you hear about Rudy's views on abortion?!) And to their credit, from everything I can see, they handle these issues in a somewhat good-natured way, with quite a bit of cleverness and decency. They don't resort to complaining, and by the time we go into the general they will have weathered those criticisms for months and months, and it won't be easy to knock them off stride (without ginning up some kind of scandal at the last minute, which should be duly expected).

By playing the "attack" counterattack this early, Hillary may have made herself a wildly desirable candidate.

... to the GOP.

Tags: Hillary Clinton, Debate, 2008 Election