Monk

There's quite a bit of talk about Obama nominating Hillary for the Supreme Court to buy off some grief. God, I hope not. She has staked out her position against the violence in video games, and she seems to be of that feminist stripe that is concerned about women's image in porn. So, she may well end up being a conservative vote on these heartfelt First Amendment issues.

This was actually a concern of mine when I was favoring Hillary's presidential bid, but I just hoped that she would be too busy with war and a cratering economy to be aggressive on sex and violence in our entertainment industry.

Maureen Dowd gives us a fun imaginary conversation between Obama and Hillary. It suggests the potential ugliness that may be lying below the surface: the idea that Hillary wants Obama to lose in order to run again in 2012. However, there is still no reason not to believe that the surface reality is true, that she will run her string out, and that she is prepared to do everything possible to see Obama beat McCain. Seriously, poor Justice Paul Stevens cannot wait another four years.

God save the Court!

( Dowd )

I have begun Nigel Hamilton's "Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency" for my fun weekend-reading. One reason I bought the book some months ago is that it looked like the Clinton story would be going on for some time, though that now seems less likely as Hillary has fallen well behind Obama. Nevertheless, the main reason why I got it is that Hamilton offers a detailed, quasi-diary account of Clinton's first term, and the nineties has a special place in my heart. Here's a promising excerpt from the first day, Clinton's inauguration, when Bill and Hillary arrived late in meeting the outgoing First Family:

As a White House FBI agent recalled, one of the reasons for the tardiness "was because Vice President Gore had just found out that the West Wing office usually reserved for the vice president was instead going to be occupied by the first lady." The resultant uproar caused by this discovery had been witnessed by network television cameras "trained on Blair House." These had "recorded a glimpse of the president and the first lady screaming at each other."

The FBI agent was not the only one to be amazed by the tempest. "A shocked park police guard later reported that Clinton had referred to his wife as a "fucking bitch," Hillary's biographer Joyce Milton recorded, "while she came charging out the front door calling him a 'stupid motherfucker.'" "Sources I consider very reliable affirm that Clinton told Hillary that if she didn't back off from her plans to unseat Gore, Gore would go public with his anger and perhaps resign," the White House FBI agent recalled. Hillary merely shouted at her husband "that as far as she was concerned, they had a deal - a deal that dated back to the campaign, when Lloyd Cutler had convinced her to stand by Clinton despite the allegations that he'd had an affair with Gennifer Glowers. The matter had already been decided, she said, and she had no intention of backing off; Gore was bluffing."

Amozonian reviews say that this book merely glorifies Clinton and should come with presidential kneepads, but going just by this excerpt from the opening pages, that doesn't seem fair. It looks like a fun read to me. :)

It is a tribute to Hillary Clinton that even though, rationally, political soothsayers think she can no longer win, irrationally, they wonder how she will pull it off.

It’s impossible to imagine The Terminator, as a former aide calls her, giving up. Unless every circuit is out, she’ll regenerate enough to claw her way out of the grave, crawl through the Rezko Memorial Lawn and up Obama’s wall, hurl her torso into the house and brutally haunt his dreams.

“It’s like one of those movies where you think you know the end, but then you watch with your fingers over your eyes,” said one leading Democrat.

-- Maureen Dowd for The New York Times

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In a webcast, prestidigitator Penn Jillette talks about a joke he has begun telling in his show. He thinks the thunderous reaction it gets from audiences shows that Hillary no longer has a shot.

The joke goes: “Obama is just creaming Hillary. You know, all these primaries, you know. And Hillary says it’s not fair, because they’re being held in February, and February is Black History Month. And unfortunately for Hillary, there’s no White Bitch Month.”

-- Maureen Dowd for The New York Times

Hillary has lost the last ten or so primaries and caucuses straight, and she looks down for the count. Her last chance seems to be Ohio and Texas on March fourth. I realized how bad things are going for her when I saw her today giving a speech promising to raise the minimum wage to nine dollars and change. When you are reduced to buying votes that brazenly, you cannot be too confident.

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A friend was discussing the Democratic contest between Hillary and Obama, focusing on which qualities are preferable in a president: being cold and astute (like Hillary), or else being nice and decent (like Obama)?

Monk said, "Skill and killer instinct. I think you need that in a president. 'Nice' may be good for a city mayor or even a congressional representative, but not for commander and chief of the American armed forces."

"H'mm. But how often does one really need to kill?" she asked.

Monk said, "Few people have more blood on their hands than an American president."

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Gail Collins captures a poignant angle on the Iowa caucuses from Hillary's perspective, in what looks like a fading bid for the nomination, as Obama consolidates his position as the magic man who can bring a new politics to America, at least for Democrats to believe in.

( Collins )

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Maureen Dowd offers some column inches of her own on the double-edge value of Bill to Hillary's candidacy. I have enough on this issue, but the Elvis/Colonel Parker line makes it a keeper. And I could stand some more of the soap opera myself; it definitely would be better than an extension of the Republican show.

( Dowd )

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