The Wrong Worry

Stephen Pizzo doesn't want Hillary Clinton to get the nomination in 2008. While I'm not sanguine about her chances--or any other Democrat's chances--in 2008, this is the wrong reason to say no:

"All's fair in love, war and politics. So expect all that Kenneth Starr variety crap about the Clintons to make a big comeback. I know that Starr and his Dark Side minions failed to prove most of the allegations against the Clintons. But the Clintons' own sloppy ethics provided the very fuel on which the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy ran. If Hillary runs for president the Swift Boat Veterans will be back in a new form, but in full form. They will pound her relentlessly. Unfair? You bet. Go tell it to John Kerry."

This is exactly the thing we shouldn't worry about when picking the nominee, because as the Republicans proved in 2004, they'll pound anybody relentlessly and without justification. Karl Rove once attacked a Democrat whose background was working with poor children by inventing a group to accuse him of child molestation. The Democrat managed to show, to anyone who would listen, that the charges were untrue, but it ruined him politically. So it doesn't really matter who we pick. Our nominee will face the same attack machine that ruined John Kerry, and in the unlikely even that our candidate is elected, the attack machine will continue until the Presidency is destroyed. If anything, this is an argument for Hillary. That she, like her husband, has managed to survive so much and remain a going concern in electoral politics, makes it clear that she will be very hard for Rove and company to kill.

The question is not who can avoid the Swift Boat Veterans, but who can survive their torrent of lies and return fire. I would prefer a nominee whose riposte would be so devastating that Rove runs screaming back to the fleabitten cur who begat him, a nominee who understands that when the Republicans put one of yours in the hospital, you need to put one of theirs in the morgue. We need a nominee who understands the Chicago way.

Two potential candidates come from Chicago: Wesley Clark and Hillary Clinton.