Sunday, January 21, 2007

I’m not unsympathetic to the premise of Ron Rosenbaum’s argument — that, compared to the happy-face banality of John Edwards’ and Barack Obama’s public personas, there’s something rather appealing about Hillary Clinton’s naked viciousness. And, indeed, after Elizabeth Edwards remarked that Hillary’s life was less “joyful” than hers, it was hard not to warm to a woman so determined to confirm her joylessness that she’s prepared to have genial Mrs Edwards kneecapped in a dark alley and forced into an abject apology.

My problem begins when Rosenbaum expands the proposition to argue that, in a field of Democrat wimps, Hill’s the one to back to stick it to the jihadists. I yield to no-one in my respect for the Clintons’ ruthless brutal demolition of Newt, and that guy who succeeded Newt for 20 minutes, and Gennifer and Kathleen and all the rest. But there’s no evidence to suggest either Clinton has any interest in applying these techniques to tougher adversaries beyond these shores. There’s a world of difference between the politics of personal destruction and the geostrategic kind. Beating up breast-cancer survivors is no indication you’ll do the same to Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-Il.