HILLARY IRRITATES LEFTIES, TOO!
NYT has a longish piece about how Hillary Clinton is drawing flak from her base:
After years of being vilified by conservatives, Hillary Rodham Clinton is suddenly facing mounting criticism from an unlikely quarter: liberals.
Core Democratic constituencies that helped Mrs. Clinton win her Senate seat in New York two and a half years ago are expressing deep disappointment in her, saying she has been unwilling to challenge President Bush and Republican leaders in Congress on issues of importance to them.
Those who have expressed disappointment in Mrs. Clinton include gay rights advocates, antiwar organizers and even advocates for children and the poor, a group with which she has been closely associated for decades.
This should hardly surprise anyone. While I’m certainly no fan, her political acumen is hard to dispute. She has made some missteps–which partly cost her husband reelection his first go-round as Arkansas governonr and which helped Newt Gingrich and Company take over the Congress in 1994–but she is disciplined and learns from her mistakes. Also, it is rather obvious that her goal is to be president in her own right in 2009. To do that, she’ll have to appeal to moderates.
