File this under “never a dull moment,” never, where Hillary Clinton is concerned. The Secretary of State has been on a little vacation since her awesome Syria statement on August 18, dubbed “presidential” by Sarah Palin and Greta Van Susteren.
As we might have predicted, however, that little Carney-Kinsolving exchange I posted from yesterday’s White House press briefing has garnered a small bouquet of opinions on the matter in the media – along with a weed or two.
From the LA Times
She’s baack! Hillary Clinton questions return to Obama White House
Political commentary from Andrew Malcolm
August 30, 2011 | 9:02 am
They’ve started again — the Hillary questions.Will the once-vanquished first lady, who’s been the solid voice of administration foreign policy since Day One, challenge White House incumbent Barack Obama for the Democrats’ presidential nomination a year from now in Charlotte, N.C.?
Of course, she and everyone will say no, no, no — until the day they might say, well, actually, yes.
From Newsmax
Pressure Grows on Hillary to Challenge Sinking Obama
Tuesday, 30 Aug 2011 03:56 PM
By Martin Gould
Will Hillary Clinton challenge Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination?
She says no, that she never wants to run for office again. But the pressure is growing on her to change her mind as Obama continues to slide in the polls — and as the left bloc of the party and Latino and black voters become more vocal in their disapproval of the president.
Read more on Newsmax.com: Pressure Grows on Hillary to Challenge Sinking Obama
From Fox News
Hillary On the Horizon as Obama Challenger?
Published August 30, 2011
| FoxNews.com
Lyndon Johnson won one of history’s biggest landslides in 1964, but four years later he dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.The hand-writing was on the wall for LBJ, facing an unpopular war in Vietnam, domestic unrest at home, and discontent among fellow Democrats, who saw him as an albatross around their necks.
Will 2012 be President Obama’s déjà vu? Will it be 1968 all over again? After all, our current president is entangled in not one, but two unpopular wars, domestic unrest about the continuing high jobless rates, uncontrollable budget deficit and soaring debt ceiling, and plummeting approval ratings.
Then party-pooper, David Weigel , strides in and dumps a whole bucket of water over the floral arrangement.
The Wrong Way to Do Mindless Hillary Clinton Speculation
By David Weigel
| Posted Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011, at 2:56 PM EDT
Les Kinsolving asks Jay Carney if Hillary Clinton will primary Barack Obama. “You’d have to ask her,” says Carney. That’s our cue for pages of baseless speculation about whether or not Hillary Clinton could primary Barack Obama. (My favorite offering in the genre — Andrew Malcolm’s long take that consults the sources in his mind, who are easier to get on the phone than real sources.)
If we’re going to be this lazy, we need some insta-data. We need someone to do a poll testing Clinton against the Republican candidates. One poll showing her doing better than him against Romney, or beating Palin by such a large margin that we need to invent another number to describe it, and we can engage in some seriously baseless speculation. But who can do it?
You, of course, can and may discuss this amongst yourselves. The telling thing, though, is that we are not alone!
Busy busy day for the speculators!! I hope Hillary is hearing all of this…..
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The right wing is having a field day with this, but the millipede wouldn’t have grown all these legs so quickly if Obama were doing even a halfway decent job of running the country. No one was saying such things about Bush at this point in 2003. And if these pundits are so sure that Hillary won’t run, why do they keep bringing it up? Note how it’s ALWAYS Hillary who may (or may not) challenge Obama. Why not someone else like, say, Al Gore? People like Al Gore, especially those on the left. Yet his name doesn’t come up during these discussions. Neither does anyone else’s. It’s all about Hillary.
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She’s the go-to politician becausonly the Clintons have a campaing machine in storage. They’re the only ones who can get moving and get funded as fast as she’d need to.
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Me thinks they too are trying to save their ass and their party.. She is the ONLY Democrat I will ever again vote for…
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I feel just like you, Hillary is the only Democrat I will ever vote for, or Chelsea!
I’m a proud independent right now, no more Dem or \REP!
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Yes, I hope Hillary will challenge Obama. Obama is the most disappointing president n my lifetime. He’s not the worst, but he’s the most disappointing, because we believed in him.
But I understand that Hillary’s State Dept. has okayed the Tarsands pipeline, and that’s troubling too.
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See, Still, you know this already — HRC can and does explain herself well. We’d know exactly where she stood if she were President, and I can’t imagine her sitting there and letting Eric Cantor say all the stupid things he does about disasters having to be funded by cutting other programs the way the Obama folks have let Cantor have the floor . . . she’d have some sort of way to cut Cantor off, probably by studying what sort of federal aid Cantor gets in his district and sweetly suggesting that perhaps Cantor’s district should be the first to be cut if Cantor believes cuts should occur due to unplanned natural disasters, whereas the current POTUS has absolutely no game plan after Cantor has done this over and over and over again.
That 68% of the Dems haven’t had town hall meetings – that’s bad. That’s really bad. People are on the Dems side, and people like the current POTUS. But they do not believe the current POTUS is a good President no matter how much they like him, and most of those who will not vote for BHO will vote for HRC and turn out all their friends, neighbors, family members and anyone else they know to vote for her, too.
Right now, BHO is probably closest to Grover Cleveland and he _might_ be someone who could get voted out in ’12 and get voted back in later in ’16 in a similar fashion to how Cleveland became a two-term POTUS (interrupted, but still a two-termer). But I’d not bet the farm on that; instead, I’d go with a proven winner, the person who amassed more primary wins than anyone in history — HRC. And I’d fix the wrong that the DNC made, all by their little selves, on 5/31/2008, by nominating HRC at the ’12 Democratic National Convention — she’s the only one who can win, and she’s the only one who should win, too, but the DNC has been stupid before and may well be again for all I know. (All we can do is pray that they’ll stop being stupid, that’s all. And that the current POTUS will accept that this is not the right time for him to be President, step aside, and try later on as he’s still a young man.)
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Yes, I do know. I know she would have gone to the hurricane ravaged areas ASAP on her own to see the destruction and reassure people that help was coming ASAP. I also know she would have reminded Cantor about how he needed and got help for his constituents when Gaston hit in 2004.
I really don’t see anything salvageable in the Obama presidency except for the friends and partners Hillary has developed for us and he will have time to alienate. I say build on that with her at the helm and let her get to work on what America needs: leadership, jobs, recovery.
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I can’t believe that Cantor wants to argue over domestic emergency aid, some of which will go to his own state. I don’t know what he’s smoking, but he needs to stop because it makes him really angry.
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