While I'm sure this particular skirmish will be forgotten long before election day, I do think this illustrates a Clinton Problem: the tendency to be smug, arrogant, and hypocritical. Of course those adjectives describe just about everyone connected to the Bush administration, but it's precisely because the Republicans are so boorish that the Democrats can't afford to be. The Democrats are, or should be, the party that's quietly right and straightforward and honest, knows the truth is complicated and doesn't dumb things down or sugarcoat them, and remembers that elected officials are public servants. The McAuliffe/Clinton/Carville brand of politics is divisive and patronizing and out of touch with the present landscape. Remember that all those guys accomplished is to get Clinton elected in two contests in which the GOP basically rolled over and played dead. The congressional Democrats immediately started losing and didn't come back until Howard Dean took over the party. When Obama was elected Senator, a million people who voted for him also voted for Bush. That tells me that he has a much better chance of bridging the red/blue divide than Clinton does.

I'm not sure what's to be gained by lumping Carville and McAuliffe together with Bill Clinton as some kind of three-headed monster with but one mind. I can't recall what carville's said or done that's particularly partonizing and as for partisan, well, he's a campaign manager by trade, and partisanship is part of that job. You might say Dick Morris isn't partisan, but in the same breath you'd have to say that he's a fraud who can only win by outspending his opposition five to one. Kicking Terry McAuliffe's ass was like some kind of sports festival for local insiders, but none of them has managed to persuade me that he did a bad job running the party. The DLC hated him but They. Are. Idiots. Remember that. And most of the same people who hated McAuliffe also hated Dean and were amazed when he turned out to be good at his job. This brings us to Clinton, whom I don't see as particularly partisan or patronizing, either. Yes, Obama did well with independent voters in Illinois. SO DID CLINTON. so your point is what?

My point is that we can't afford the phrase "moral relativism" any longer. Yes, Bush deserves to be impeached and Clinton didn't, but what Clinton did was still bad and damaging to the party. I'm talking not only about Monica and questionable pardons, but the way he ran roughshod over the congressional Democrats in his first two years in office, creating a chaotic atmosphere that contributed to their defeat in 1994. He thought only about his own career at the expense of his party, and I don't see Hillary as any different in that regard. Maybe it's not fair that the Clintons are the opposite of teflon, but they are, and the country is in no mood for more witchhunts and special prosecutors and hand-wringing about values. As for your post: the word "partisan" is nowhere to be found in my original post, so I don't know why you harped on it. Carville recently dissed Dean in public for his handling of the 2006 elections, which really does take chutzpah, since the Dems did it his way for seven elections and lost. And your deathless period-laden phrase can be applied to just about every acronym-titled institution I can think of.

You're kidding about that "ran roughshod over congressional democrats" thing, aren't you? Because it makes you look like a complete idiot. THEY, dear boy, ran roughshod (whatever) over HIM. Hillarycare could have worked if the Democratic caucus had taken it seriously. They could at least have come away with something instead of nothing. Instead, assholes like Joe Lieberman obeyed their True Masters in the insurance business and healthcare reform died. Clinton started out with big plans and high hopes, but his own party treated him like a hayseed from out of town -- the same act they pulled with Jimmy Carter. Then they had themselves a nice little HOUSE BANKING SCANDAL and Newt Gingrich took them down. And he did so without any help from Bill Clinton.*******Now, re. Carville: the last time the Dems "did it his way" was in 1992. The real conflict in 2006 was between Dean and Rahm Emanuel, with various others joining in ad libitum. All in all, I think Dean was right, but there aren't a lot of pros who agree with me.

Well, we agree that Joe Lieberman is an asshole, Dean is doing a good job, and that I'm a complete idiot. Here's to our contribution to elevating the level of discourse on the Fray.

You mentioned three, alleged, flaws of Mrs. Clinton but, even if you are right, most voters are not interested on who has the least number of flaws but, what positive values do they bring to the fray.pun intended. That's my problem, yes she is the most charming and good looking candidate, but why is she running?

Is it a "Power Trip"? What does she want to do and accomplish?

Take health, for example, she probably knows more about the problems than anybody, including all the other candidates but, how does she plan to deal with that problem? And, is she so willing to deal with that, or any other, problem that she would accept some high position with another candidate? I think not, so, what does she want and why?

Sorry; it's my blood pressure. It just makes me feel so good, so relaxed, to be able to say in some public forum what a sanctimonious whore (and, yes, what an asshole) Lieberman is. And I didn't say that you're a complete idiot -- I SAID that your version of the events of Clinton's first term (the presidential ex-governor who's a can-do guy with big plans for those first thousand days) is a big cliche of local wisdom, but then so is the crippling series of setbacks he endures as soon as he tries to deal with the Senate and get something done there. clinton came in, his first term, without a popular mandate. Congress treated him and his ideas with contempt. I am rude at times, but not as rude and stupid as the domineering old men of the democratic caucus were at that moment: an opportunity they wasted out of vanity and arrogance.

In his new book, Carl Bernstein describes a meeting in April 1993 at which Hillary briefed top party leaders on the health-care task force’s progress. When then-senator Bill Bradley suggested that some changes might be required, she told him to forget it; if any lawmakers even tried, she said, the White House would “demonize” them. Bradley later unloaded on Bernstein. “That was it for me in terms of Hillary Clinton,” he said. “You don’t tell members of the Senate you are going to demonize them. It was obviously so basic to who she is. The arrogance. The assumption that people with questions are enemies. The disdain. The hypocrisy.”

Sounds pretty roughshod (whatever) to me.

I'm not sure I believe all that "demonizing" stuff the good senator

says he was threatened with. I had the opportunity to work with

Senator Clinton on a couple of aspects of her health care plan

while I was in DC as the functional representative to her committee of the largest

association of care-givers. Mrs. Clinton was always ready to hear new ideas and

constantly wanted many solutions and ideas presented to her and

when, after much discussion two or three were deemed to be

workable, she would then help formalize them into language for her bill.

There were many routes left open purposely to allow for refinement

discussion and change. If anyone had really looked closely, and seriously, at

the plan, we would have a single payer plan in effect right now, And our

health care system would be more efficient and more affordable.

I have been a nurse-practionerf or over 35 years and when I look at all the

propaganda regarding a national health care plan, I really have to

wonder whose interest the American public really has in mind.

oh please...

While I am not libertarian or naive enough to lump together Democrats and Republicans, Senator Clinton has, by necessity in her pursuit for power and money, sold herself to so many private special interests--e.g. insurance companies, large banks, and pro-Zionist groups--that if she actually made a decision to benefit the average citizen, it would be accidental at best and manipulative at worst.

The game of national politics has become so far removed from the concerns of the average American that both parties can waste the public discourse with speculations on political maneuverings, titillating rumors of in-fighting, or inflammatory grandstanding on private matters while ignoring the increasing disparities in income, the lack of real growth in wages, and the economic precariousness of the middle and lower classes.

Until we recognize that private money for campaign financing not only corrodes the inviolability of public office, but corrupts officials and promotes a disdain for the very people they are supposed to serve--evidenced by the current topics of public discourse--the average American will be forever a seconday consideration in the minds of their elected officials.