Friday, March 6, 2015

David Brooks, "The Temptation of Hillary": What We Don't Know Can't Hurt Her

Where did Hillary Clinton stand regarding Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent speech before Congress? We don't know. We will probably never know. After all, she wants to be president, and what we don't know can't hurt her.

And then there is the new scandal involving her emails while secretary of state. She used a personal email account instead of a government account, thereby creating a filtering mechanism with respect to what could subsequently be seen or, for that matter, subpoenaed. Again, what we don't know can't hurt her.

And then there was her declaration:

"Don’t let anybody, don’t let anybody  tell you that, ah, you know, it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs."

What did she mean by this gem? We never received an explanation, and we'll probably never know, because what we don't know can't hurt her.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Temptation of Hillary," David Brooks begins by observing:

"Hillary Clinton’s record is more moderate than the Democratic primary voter today. So it was always likely that she would move left as the primary season approached. It’s now becoming clearer how she might do it. She might make a shift from what you might call human capital progressivism to redistributionist progressivism."

Brooks's conclusion:

"It’s clear why Clinton might want to talk redistribution. On substantive policy grounds, it would be destructive to do so. And, in the general election, voters respond to the uplifting and the unifying, not the combative and divisive."

It's possible Hillary might want to talk "redistribution" as opposed to emphasizing "human capital" to gain favor with progressives. More likely, however, is that she will avoid the issue altogether, given her strategy to be all things for all people.

I say it again: What we don't know about Hillary can't hurt her - a stark depressing testimony to our times.

[Frankly, of more interest to me is whether Bill will declare sometime prior to November 2016, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, meaning Hillary, anytime in the past decade."]

1 comment:

  1. JG: the prevailing myth since the late 1990's is that Hillary is a lesbian, so no one will care what Bill did or did not do... (I heard it from a CEO who heard it from famous people -names withheld - at dinner - it is a prevailing myth about any graduate of a woman's college)

    My question has been whether Hillary is on HRT for menopause, but, in the end, what difference does that make????

    The more interesting question is what will happen when Hillary says yes to a SCOTUS nomination. Obama's Democratic Party has no bench, or legs upon which a bench can stand, let alone a national party that stands for anything beyond identity politics and more jobs for more lawyers writing new regulations and well, you know. Michelle2016!

    it is so embarrassing to be an American voter these days...

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