Compound Fracture
Mickey Kaus notes that Hillary Clinton is still flailing over her support for Eliot Spitzer's Licenses for Lawbreakers® scheme a full week after her misstep in the debate. This presents two equally unflattering possible reasons why:
It's the possibility that a) she panics in adversity–a point Levin emphasizes or b) she's too vain to let herself be perceived as having given a wrong answer, so she goes back to correct it even when that only compounds the damage.
The Levin Kaus refers to is Yuval Levin, writing at National Review Online:
It is astonishing to watch the continuing inability of the Clinton campaign to sustain a modest blow. Her debate performance last week wasn’t that bad, and the attacks against her weren’t so harsh, and the questions she got weren’t unfair at all. She didn’t handle them very well, which happens. But since then she, her husband, and her campaign team have been in a kind of panicked stupor about it which has not abated much in a week and has continued (needlessly) to draw the worst kind of attention to the candidate and provide fodder for her opposition…….
Frankly, I'm astonished that Hillary and her campaign are mishandling this whole thing so badly. I figured this would become a major issue in the general election, but she is actually damaging herself in the primaries at this point. If she and her advisers can't handle this, what does that say about how they would react in a national crisis?
Other Links to this Post
-
Blue Crab Boulevard » The Vegetables Will Have The Beef — Friday, 9 November , 2007 @ 9:01 am
By martian, Wednesday, 7 November , 2007 @ 9:46 am
How would Hillary and her advisers act in a National Crisis? As she has always acted - damage control when she makes the inevitable mistakes due to lack of knowledge of how the real world works, refusal to acknowledge any mistakes (sound like an accusation she’s hurled herself a few times at the Pres.?), and attack anyone who has the temerity to point out her mistakes (or her hubby’s) to her - blame it on the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
With Hillary it is all about her, her self image, and how she feels she is perceived by others - nothing else, including the security and welfare of the American People matters.
By Ted Goldman, Wednesday, 7 November , 2007 @ 10:42 am
I hope to see GOP candidates pound Hillary like a pinata.
She can’t take it.
And with her militant support for illegal immigration, pounding her like a pinata is an apt description.
By mockinbird, Wednesday, 7 November , 2007 @ 3:56 pm
She’s just a mouthpiece with confident sounding dulcet tones.
Hillary will lose - primary or general election. She is severly compromised, in ethics, knowledge of Economics, and even the Law.
She should be made to wear the sandwich board that says “I screwed up our Marxist Revolution. I’m sorry, sob, I’m very sorry”.