"Her inability to break through the scar tissue...may cost her the chance to be president."

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Clinton's Flaw: A Failure to Connect
By David S. Broder
Sunday, March 2, 2008; B07

....It has been a strange and remarkable journey, from her early status as the favorite for the prize to this moment of desperate necessity. But as I look back on it, Hillary Clinton has performed impressively. She has nothing to apologize for in her own campaigning and has much of which she can be proud. A lesser candidate might have cashed in her chips after her humiliating third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. Instead, Clinton redoubled her efforts and pulled out a victory in New Hampshire that astonished even her own staff. She challenged Obama in South Carolina, where he clearly had the lead, and came back again from that defeat to win California, New York and New Jersey, three of the biggest prizes on Super Tuesday.

After that, Obama got on a roll, while Clinton had to scramble to overhaul her organization and replenish her exhausted treasury, starting with a $5 million personal loan. But she never quit, and she showed her toughness, not only on the stump and in debates but in doing something much more difficult -- telling her husband to muzzle his personal resentments of Obama and clean up his act. Substantively, Clinton has more than matched anyone else in the field. As Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, one of her supporters, told me last week, "Obama has good solid plans, but hers are spectacular" in their detail and sophistication.

Given all that, why is she at risk of being counted out? I think it goes back to what I learned from reading Carl Bernstein's biography, "A Woman in Charge," and wrote last September: "This is a complex, talented person who has lived -- and survived -- a really hard life. As she nears her 60th birthday and the largest challenge of her career, the scars of those earlier experiences are plainly visible. What lies underneath the scar tissue is harder to discern."

My sense is that in the following months of campaigning, voters were often frustrated by their inability to discover the real person behind the notably buttoned-up candidate. Her best, and most affecting, moments came when she briefly let her guard down....

***

Those moments allowed people to see the passion and the empathy that have motivated Clinton all these years. But they have been few and far between; unlike Bill Clinton, this is a really private person.

Her inability to break through the scar tissue -- the accumulated wounds of a demanding father, a wayward husband and countless political battles -- may cost her the chance to be president.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022902787_pf.html

[Dogmudgeon]

1. More amateur psychoanalysis

It's really sad to see Broder injecting himself with the meme toxin.

Can't anyone criticize Hillary Clinton without a) comparing her unfavorably to Lucretia Borgia, Elizabeth Bathory, and the Devil, b) practicing amateur psychoanalysis, or c) gloating over some piece of malicious gossip that ends up debunked by the end of the week?

--p!

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Bizarre.

He writes an article that is 99% complimentary, and you take it as a slam.

This IS the silly season.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. 99% -- on a scale of 1 to 1000, right?

I think it's called "per mill" in that case.

It wasn't complimentary. It was condescending.

--p!

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. This is NOT complimentary?

"Hillary Clinton has performed impressively. She has nothing to apologize for in her own campaigning and has much of which she can be proud. ... Clinton redoubled her efforts and pulled out a victory in New Hampshire that astonished even her own staff. She challenged Obama in South Carolina, where he clearly had the lead, and came back again from that defeat to win California, New York and New Jersey, three of the biggest prizes on Super Tuesday.

...she never quit, and she showed her toughness, not only on the stump and in debates ... Substantively, Clinton has more than matched anyone else in the field. As Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, one of her supporters, told me last week, "Obama has good solid plans, but hers are spectacular" in their detail and sophistication."

[Jane Austin]

2. She has lived

a "really hard life"?

Compared to whom?

This is a woman who is among the most privileged of all women in the world.

[cornermouse]

6. She's had some pretty hard mental and emotional blows.

The republicans made her as much, if not more, of a target after Bill got in the White House. They went after her hard and heavy in Travelgate, Whitewater, universal healthcare. The personal attacks on her have been incredible. And how would you like it if everyone in the country knew when and with whom your husband cheated on you? If she's always thrown up a wall around her private life, I can't blame her. I would have too.

[Captain Hilts]

3. He's HATED both Clintons since '92. Nothing new here. nt