I never anticipated saying this, but here goes: I actually feel sorry for Hillary Clinton.

No, I didn’t vote for her. (And now probably will never get the chance.) And no, I’m not going to send her any money. And yes, she’s been wrong about almost everything, including health care back in the 1990’s, and Iraq and Iran and Pakistan since then. But watching last night’s debate has me thinking that she’s right about one thing: the media have been unfair to her. Or, at least, harsher to her than they have been to Obama.

I understand why this has happened. Hillary has been so entwined in our national consciousness for so long that it’s hard to look at her afresh. And why would we? She has run as the candidate of experience, so yes, let’s look at that experience: being consistently wrong, and now being saddled with replaying the battles of last decade, before September 11, 2001 and before the predations of the Bush Administration. It’s all so old, but so detailed, that a lazy but avaricious press can’t help itself.

Then there’s Obama. Fresh. Exciting. Multi-culti. Thoughtful. Cool under pressure. Hillary is practically leaking anxiety all over Tim Russert, but Obama calmly assesses each ball and decides whether or not to swing and where to hit it. He has so much poise that he’s even willing to concede a point — the one about Farrakhan — to his opponent. When was the last time I saw a presidential candidate concede a point in a debate? Um… never. So now we have a contrast not only with Hillary Clinton, who will forever argue the validity of her vote for the Iraq War (as though her having been duped is an argument in her favor), but also with George W. Bush, who believes that God tells him what to do and that he’s therefore never made a mistake. This leaves us to consider as president someone who efficiently recognizes error and moves on. That is a radical transformation, and just the latest instance of the Obama rebranding of the position.

The way Hillary looked at Obama in off moments brought to mind the adage, “If looks could kill….” All along she has thought that this job was hers, but first she had to get these pesky primaries out of the way. I take great personal delight in voters having upended her conclusion. As I’ve noted here before, hubris is a failing that fails the perpetrator first and foremost.

I don’t feel good about Clinton’s treatment in the press recently. But at the same time, I don’t care. The press writes only part of your narrative; the rest is up to you.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 11:50 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.