The Anchoress

UPDATE:::Andrew Sullivan posts a devastating video from the Edwards campaign:::END UPDATE

I wasn’t going to “pile on” Poor Hillary Clinton about her crash-and-burn in the last Democrat debate. Everyone else was writing about it - which is what happens, when a candidate gives himself or herself away - so I didn’t feel the need. I simply amused myself watching the video of her head bobbing, bobbing, bobbing in agreement with Tim Russert…until it stopped.

But it seems Poor Hillary is feeling “piled on” by those mean boys. The boy reporters who dared to ask her actual, substantive questions, and the mean boy candidates who did what candidates do, when they’re running against each other - made like Tessio in The Godfather: “it’s just business, nothing personal - we always liked you, Hillary.”

The mean boys are just playing the game as it’s played - for better or worse - and if a gal to be part of it (and there is no reason why a woman should not) then she must get in there and answer the darn questions - clearly, without triangulating, without doublespeaking, and without playing “Poor Victim” or whining like a pre-liberation g-irl when the rules are not made easier for her. If you screw up, just admit it and move on - don’t blame the game or everyone else. That’s what presidents do - they face the music and keep doing what they think is right.

And for heaven’s sake, don’t have your campaign put out a video called The Politics of Pile-on, because of rather minor skirmish. It defines down what “pile-on” really means. A pile-on is incessant, coming from all sides - it’s mob-mentality, and it renders one impossible to be heard, because a “pile-on” cannot be talked around. A “pile-on” is not a couple of guys who oppose you politically and are looking for some room to maneuver when the front runner has most of the press in her pocket and the inevitable subtext of “sexism” to throw out whenever she wants.

Is Hillary being “piled on?” Puh-leeese. Her husband was piled on by the Republicans. Dubya has been piled on by pretty much everyone, the world over. THIS was not a pile-on, but the Team Hillary reaction to it tells us that they are not used to small bumps in the road, and suggests there may be a glass jaw beneath that really admirable make-up job.

Can you imagine what it would be like if President Bush had fallen apart like this every time the press or the pundits took him to task? What do you think would be Poor Hillary’s public response had President Bush ever said, “well, I stammered through that presser because the reporters were unfair?” I’m pretty sure she’d have - quite rightly - mocked him loud and mocked him long, and she would have praised the press, too, for asking tough questions.

If one bad debate, this early in the going, plus a couple of semi-tough questions from the press and some eye-rolling get Hillary and her crew this whiny and defensive (Russert was unfair by asking the question!) it begs one to ask: if she can’t handle this little bit of steam, how in the world will she ever be able to withstand the daily blast-furnace of the Oval Office? Or, forget that - would she even stand up to the heat of a little scrutiny should the press ever decide to seriously “pile on” about her fund raising issues?

Ed Morrissey writes:

The debate broke Hillary’s double-talking dishonesty out into the open. Despite what Penn thinks, an army of Norman Hsus couldn’t get enough money to put the genie back in the bottle.

It is interesting that Poor Hillary’s response to all of this, besides whining, is to ask for more money and ever more money, as though more money will make her more sincere, or something.

Between the Big, Bad Debate and this looming investigation into her fundraising, I expect Poor Hillary is going to want to change the subject soon, and in the spirit of sisterhood, I have a few suggestions for her. She could talk about how the economy grew almost 4% over the summer, or she could meet with Ed Morrissey and dialogue on why the nation is so down, or she could praise our soldiers and the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq, or discuss the positive news and turnaround
in Iraq (she’ll have to start doing that soon, anyway, since it validates her vote), why cupcakes in moderation are more reasonable than an outright ban, or her thoughts on Stephen Colbert’s candidacy, or the problems that ensue when the press gets a story or two wrong. She could discuss the always “surprising” good consumer confidence and employment figures. There’s a lot of interesting stuff to talk about, out there. Sister Toldjah notes that Hillary has cleared up her Spitzer answer, but with wiggle room.

O/T, but dead on, a commenter over at Ann Althouse’s place asks a great question:

Let me see if I have this straight, we can get the memos of a defense secretary in a time of war before the administration he worked for is even out of office, but we cannot get the memos of the first lady 7 years after her administration is over?

Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Betsy Newmark is a little insulted by it all.