Hillary Meets the Press

Hillary being drilled by Russert -- Picture courtesy of NBC

by blogSpotter
Believe me, I’m not working for the Hillary Clinton campaign. There just happen to be two blog-worthy items in close succession. Hillary was on “Meet the Press” with Tim Russert this morning and survived admirably. She was a scrappy lady who didn’t allow herself to be backed or painted into any corner. Some people might call it dodging the question, (e.g. “Do you think Obama is qualified to be President?”) but I would call it common sense. In this example she said it was up for the voter to decide. Some questions would be political suicide if answered directly or with brutal honesty.

Hillary did not follow my advice from last week’s blog, to emphasize her femininity. In her gray tweed blazer and black sweater she looked almost unisex. My advice last week was really tongue-in-cheek; I actually prefer her serious, senatorial sartorial expression. Imagine if she showed up in a low-cut sweater and lots of rouge -- she and we would never hear the end of it.

Russert tried to take Hillary to task for two issues for most of the hour: her recent comments regarding Martin Luther King and her 2002 vote for the Iraq invasion. The only thing is, Hillary wouldn’t allow herself or those topics to be corralled in any particular way. She actually out-shouted Russert at one point; he was trying to make her clam up so he could finish showing a graphic and she didn’t like the lack of context in which his question was being asked. She overrode him and finished her own caveat undaunted by Russert.

I read the original remarks about Dr. King, and never for a moment thought that the Clintons were dissing the civil rights leader or playing any kind of race card. With regards to Hillary’s 2002 vote, much of the nation including me thought that Sadam was hiding nukes in one of his palaces. We didn’t yet know that “W” was misrepresenting intelligence data and neither could we have imagined that Rumsfeld would allow Iraq to devolve into a fragmented ethnic civil war with his failed concept of “war lite”.

Hillary handled all of it with aplomb and sometimes-crafty answers that reminded me of that other Clinton. These two must coach each other a lot between debates and interviews. She was not shaken or stirred, she was feisty and ready – two qualities I thing would be really good in a President.

As I sign off on this, I’m watching NBC’s presentation of the Golden Globe winners (sans gala presentation). The Writers’ Guild of America has now been on strike for two months. At the end of x-many months, this strike will come to an end. How nice it would be if they could pull that forward and reach the same conclusion today without sacrificing billions of dollars and setting back next season’s programs. Here’s to WGA and Hillary – hoping that both find their appropriate destinies.

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