Hillary Clinton: A Warrior for Another Time

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Mary Lyon

Ever since this campaign downshifted into high gear, I've been wishing it was like some sort of Time Traveler's Checkerboard. If we could plug some dynamics of this year into 2000, or 2004, imagine how much less glum we'd all be now, as Americans, and how much less grim our circumstances would be.

I've watched as Hillary Clinton has fought like a tiger throughout the primary season. She and her staffers have at times been ruthless and heavy-handed. Prominent reporters and commentators have been smacked upside the head for perceived transgressions. MSNBC's David Shuster was yanked off the air for a couple of weeks for daring to say something unseemly in reference to Chelsea Clinton. His on-air colleague, Chris Matthews, was deluged with "how DARE you's" from viewers who perceived him as sexist in general and anti-Hillary in particular. Randi Rhodes was pulled from Air America for daring to say unflattering things about Hillary and supporter Geraldine Ferraro during an off-the-air stand-up comedy routine.

I thought that kind of thing only happened to media people who didn't fall in line and stay in line about George W. Bush.

It makes me wonder what might have happened, back in 2000, if the ferociousness of the Hillary movement had been in play against Junior, instead of the gentle adult Al Gore. He took the high road, and a rather thoughtful, professorial one at that, rather than fighting tooth and nail, and throwing a few sucker punches. Hillary wouldn't have been so kind. She's proven she's willing to mud-wrestle. What if we'd had some of that back then?

And in 2004, would she have allowed herself to be swiftboated the way John Kerry did? Would she have let that stand without an instant smack-back - and probably a fairly nasty one? Would she have decided "not to dignify those charges with a response," and let the toxins seep all the way in before she had a change of heart? I seriously doubt it.