Clinton's Extremism
Senator Clinton had been trying to maintain a modicum of centrist respectability in the midst of her pursuit of the Democratic nomination for the presidency, but a comment she made in last night's CNN/YouTube debate is going to dog her if she ever makes it to the general election campaign. Mrs. Clinton claimed that "any one of us" would be a better president than George W. Bush or the Republican nominee. Our own bet is that not even she honestly believes that. The particular obstacles are the hard-left pacifist-protectionist candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich and the angry former senator from Alaska, Michael Gravel, who not only is a pacifist but asserts, as he said last night, that "The Clintons and the DLC sold out the Democratic Party to Wall Street ... They're lock stock and barrel in their pockets."
It's hard to believe that in the midst of a terrorist threat, America would be better served by a President Kucinich or Gravel, reluctant even to threaten the use of force, than by a President Giuliani or McCain or Bush. Mrs. Clinton manages most of the time to keep her own positions muddled or vague or vanilla enough to deflect attacks, but Messrs. Kucinich and Gravel exercise no such caution. With her embrace of them last night, Mrs. Clinton opens herself up to attack on every one of their policy positions. It will be illuminating to watch her explain why Messrs. Gravel or Kucinich would make a better president than the Republican nominee.
They wouldn't, but Mrs. Clinton is such a committed partisan that she won't admit that. Either that, or she's pandering to the extremists within her party who support Messrs. Kucinich and Gravel. The Republicans have their own Gravel-Kucinich type of candidate in Rep. Ron Paul, and it would be a question to put to Mayor Giuliani, Governor Romney, and Senator McCain whether they think Mr. Paul would be a better president than Mrs. Clinton or Senator Dodd or Governor Richardson or Senator Obama. Unless and until they make that claim, it's Mrs. Clinton who is the mainstream candidate who has embraced extremism in this campaign.
