I spent quite some time this evening, after attending a medical conference, looking over the debate transcript and commenting. I continued to read after posting and, lo and behold, at the Wall Street Journal they had a look as well, pulling out a couple of quotes I elected not to highlight.
In the 1990s, "Clintonesque" became a by-word for political double-speak. We even became, briefly, a nation of deconstructionists when President Bill Clinton mused on the meaning of "is."
Such existential questions seemed to be in the past. But with another Clinton running as if she's all but a sure thing for the White House, Clintonesque is once again becoming a politically relevant adjective. In Tuesday night's Democratic Presidential debate, the moderators and Hillary Clinton's fellow panelists took pains to pin her down on one question after another, without notable success. The junior Senator from New York seems increasingly to have adopted her husband's political methods, minus the savoir-faire. The result is that it's impossible to know what she believes about anything...
Aside from lacking her husband's political gifts, Hillary's challenge is that we've all seen this movie before. And performances like Tuesday's might be enough to convince voters to opt for a candidate who is his own man.
