David Brooks, "Hillary Clinton’s Big Test": Compare With Charles Krauthammer's "Early Onset Clinton Fatigue"

Observing the multitude of "confrontations" faced by Hillary Clinton over the years, David Brooks asks in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary Clinton’s Big Test," how Hillary Clinton will respond to future "political stress." Brooks writes:

"If she goes strong, she will fight fire with fire. If she is hit, she’ll hit back. She’ll treat information as a source of power to be hoarded and controlled. She’ll strap on armor each morning and go into each day strictly disciplined — ready to prove that this woman is tough enough to be president.

If she goes large, she’ll resist the urge to fight scorn with scorn. Temperamentally, she’ll have to rise above the bitterness, as Reagan, F.D.R. and Lincoln did. She and her staff will recall that the primary mission is not to win the news cycle by hitting back at whatever loon is hitting her. It’s to craft a government agenda that can win the steady support of 61 senators. It’s to win a governing majority."

"Craft a government agenda"? Which agenda? Does anyone know what Hillary stands for today - other than herself?

Brooks bunches Hillary's email controversy together with "Whitewater, Travelgate, health care reform, cattle futures, Monica Lewinsky, [and] Benghazi." That's a helluva lot of baggage. But more to the point, is it fair to link the current email scandal with past "peccadilloes"?

Today, in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Early Onset Clinton Fatigue," Charles Krauthammer also weighs in on Hillary, but focuses on the email imbroglio. Krauthammer writes:

"Everyone knows she kept the e-mail private for purposes of concealment and, above all, control. For other State Department employees, their e-mails belong to the government. The records officers decide to return to you what’s personal. For Hillary Clinton, she decides.

The point of regulations is to ensure government transparency. The point of owning the server is to ensure opacity. Because she holds the e-mails, all document requests by Congress, by subpoena, by Freedom of Information Act inquiries have ultimately to go through her lawyers, who will stonewall until the end of time — or Election Day 2016, whichever comes first."

Once again, what is Hillary's agenda? A nation of law and equality or the fostering of personal aggrandizement?

The answer is plain for all to see.