Demagogue

I have stumbled on a good blog: CognitiveApostate. (Its preamble won me over right away.) Through this post on the blog, I learned that yet another liberal commentator has decided to choose sides in the likely Hillary-vs-Obama '08 presidential primary battle.

Arianna Huffington sums up much of my sentiment when she writes:

While the country is urgently engaged in finding a way out of the quagmire in Iraq, Hillary Rodham Clinton is busy holding private dinners for key Democrats from primary states and remaining curiously silent on the subject of Iraq.

... There are politicians with great instincts as leaders — those who recognize not just the crises directly in front of them but those around the corner as well. (And these leadership instincts come from the gut, not from a multitude of consultants, strategists and pollsters.)

And then there are politicians with great instincts as followers — those who are the first to stick their fingers in the air and notice even the slightest shift in the wind of popular opinion.

Clinton is in the latter category: She is the quintessential political weather vane.

On Iraq, she remains a captive of her and her consultants' belief that the country isn't ready for a female commander in chief who isn't a hawk. Unfortunately, she's misreading the zeitgeist.

Democrats are fed up with fence-straddling and triangulation. But that has become Clinton's brand. Smiling photo ops with Bill Frist, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Backing a bill criminalizing flag burning. Coming out against violent video games. Signing on to President Bush's missile defense plan. Shifting her language on abortion. Refusing to level with Americans on Iraq.