Arianna harshes on Hillary

Arianna Huffington, former Republican turned liberal Democrat, has been pretty critical of Hillary Clinton, who is pursuing what's looks to be even more of a Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC)-type "triangulation" strategy than her husband did in pursuit of the Presidency.

In Cracking the Hillary Code Huffington Post 05/14/06, she writes, in a not-too-imaginative takeoff on The Da Vinci Code:

We have reached a moment when the disastrous policies of the Bush administration have left GOP support in a free-fall, with more Americans saying Democrats would do a better job dealing with Iraq, gasoline prices, immigration, taxes, prescription drug prices and civil liberties. They even believe, by a double digit margin, that Democrats come closer to sharing their moral values. Yet at this most propitious political moment, the presumptive favorite to lead the Democrats is doing everything in her power to distance herself from what should be the central holy tenet of the Democratic Party: opposition to the war in Iraq.

It's not just the canoodling with the right. It's the relentless, unabashed pandering in an effort to rebrand herself as a red state-friendly centrist.

The sacred scrolls of her inauthenticity are legend and legion: the co-sponsorship of anti-flag burning legislation, her call for "common ground" on abortion, her willingness to go along with Bush's missile defense fantasies, her "Sistah Souljah Moment" attack on video games (perhaps she should have been more worried about the spy satellite games the NSA was apparently playing), and her endless photo-op-ready partnerships with Newt Gingrich, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum. And, worst of all, her steadfast - often bellicose - support for the war in Iraq.

I'm not too impressed with the media fetish for "authenticity" in political candidates.  I'm more concerned with effectiveness.

But Hillary's position on foreign policy really concerns me.  Not only is it vital for the well-being of the country to make a drastic change from the Bush Doctrine of preventive war.  It would also be a political tragedy of the first order for the Democratic Party for it to wind up with the Iraq War becoming as much of a disaster for it as it has for the Democratic Party.

And Hillary's hawkish stance on Iran is at least as bad at this point as Bush's.  That's really not good.