Safire is impressed. So am I. Her hawkishness on Iraq is a master-stroke, a reminder of when Democrats wanted to be taken seriously on national security. My money quote:
The longer the time there is between her presidential election campaign and her husband’s administration, the better able she will be to run on her own terms and without all that cumbersome and odorous baggage. Her book was a smashing success – however bland and fake the contents. She has been diligently working as a Senator, slowly building a bond with voters and a working relationship with other Senators, two critical elements in a successful presidency. I’ve been a Hillary-skeptic in the past. But everyone deserves a second chance. And as the time ticks by, the likelier it seems that Hillary Clinton is going to get one.
I mean: 2008, not 2004.
PRESIDENT BOTH: Put together Niall Ferguson’s typically brilliant op-ed in the NYT yesterday with Tom Friedman’s open mind toward Bush’s new Wilsonianism and I think you see one interesting interpretation of the sheer radicalism of this administration. By committing the U.S. simultaneously to a bigger welfare state (now coopted by the G.O.P.) and a policy of aggressive democratization abroad, president Bush is re-casting Cold War liberalism for the next century and calling it Republicanism. We have no idea at his point in history how this will or will not work out. I’m less sanguine than Ferguson about America’s long-term, fiscal health. But the deepest insight of Niall’s piece is the thought that circumstances in part forced Bush’s hand. After the bursting of the Rubin Bubble, and worldwide deflation, a tougher fiscal stance might have led to a catastrophic global depression. And after 9/11, a passive approach to Islamist terrorism might well have sent a signal that we were a soft target and emboldened the new fascists even more. And continuing the failed policies of the past in the Middle East would have meant another, worse 9/11 sooner rather than later. But even if you see the Bush Project as driven primarily by events, that doesn’t make it any the less impressive. The sheer scale of the undertaking is undeniable. Perhaps it takes a relatively modest man who never planned on being president to take such huge gambles on the future. But there is also something deeply American about it – in its perhaps excessive optimism and sheer determination. It also seems clearer, to me at least, that this president is likely to have eight years to accomplish his task. Friends in the White House have sometimes spoken to me about a “transformational” presidency. I used to inwardly wince. Now I wonder.
The Dish 