Why Hillary is wrong

Paul Krugman nails it.  He's not the only one who wondered why so many Democrats have been coming down hard on Hillary for her pro-war vote.  I'm on that list.  Given the fact that she voted on the basis of intelligence she didn't know was false -- even a con -- you'd think those Democrats and people like me would give her a break.  But there's a reason for not giving Hillary a break.

The answer can be summed up in two words: heckuva job. Or, if you want a longer version: Medals of Freedom to George Tenet, who said Saddam had W.M.D., Tommy Franks, who failed to secure Iraq, and Paul Bremer, who botched the occupation.

For the last six years we have been ruled by men who are pathologically incapable of owning up to mistakes. And this pathology has had real, disastrous consequences. The situation in Iraq might not be quite so dire — and we might even have succeeded in stabilizing Afghanistan — if Mr. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney had been willing to admit early on that things weren’t going well or that their handpicked appointees weren’t the right people for the job.

The experience of Bush-style governance, together with revulsion at the way Karl Rove turned refusal to admit error into a political principle, is the main reason those now-famous three words from Mr. Edwards — “I was wrong” — matter so much to the Democratic base.

The base is remarkably forgiving toward Democrats who supported the war. But the base and, I believe, the country want someone in the White House who doesn’t sound like another George Bush. That is, they want someone who doesn’t suffer from an infallibility complex, who can admit mistakes and learn from them.

Bingo!  Even more important, says Krugman, is that we need someone who actively questions "conventional wisdom."

By admitting his own error, Mr. Edwards makes it more credible that he would listen to a wider range of views. ... Although she’s smart and sensible, [Hillary Clinton is] very much the candidate of the Beltway establishment — an establishment that has yet to come to terms with its own failure of nerve and judgment over Iraq.

Clinton isn't some nutcase or megalomaniac or autocrat or chickenhawk, "she’s at worst a triangulator, not a megalomaniac; she’s not another Dick Cheney."  Right.  Yes, that's true.  But she's too unbending -- she's giving too little respect and credibility to whose who might support her.  Men who aren't strong but try to appear macho (Bush is a great example of this) tend to make really bad leaders.  The last thing we need from Hillary Clinton is an effort to look sufficiently "macho" to be president.

For some reason she and her advisers failed to grasp just how fed up the country is with arrogant politicians who can do no wrong. I don’t think she falls in that category; but her campaign somehow thought it was still a good idea to follow Karl Rove’s playbook, which says that you should never, ever admit to a mistake. And that playbook has led them into a political trap.

Barack?  I was really depressed when I heard Obama give a speech in South Carolina over the weekend.  Did you hear the fake southern accent?  His credibility rating took a severe hit.