Peggy Noonan’s column this morning is spot on. The media has been talking about Hillary’s possible presidential run a lot lately. Much of that analysis focuses on her stance on the war. Unlike many prominent Democrats, Hillary isn’t saying that her vote for war was a mistake and she does not support a date-certain for withdrawal of American forces in Iraq. The response a lot of analysts are giving is that Hillary is trying to prove she’s tough enough for the job, i.e. prove that a woman president has what it takes to be commander in chief. Peggy doesn’t buy it:
“This is the exact opposite of the truth. Hillary doesn’t have to prove her guy chops. She doesn’t have to prove she’s a man, she has to prove she’s a woman. No one in America thinks she’s a woman. They think she’s a tough little termagant in a pantsuit. They think she’s something between an android and a female impersonator. She is not perceived as a big warm mommy trying to resist her constant impulse to sneak you candy. They think she has to resist her constant impulse to hit you with a bat. She lacks a deep (as opposed to quick) warmth, a genuine and almost phenomenological sense of rightness in her own skin. She seems like someone who might calculatedly go to war, or not, based on how she wanted to be perceived and look and do. She does not seem like someone who would anguish and weep over sending men into harm’s way.”
Here’s the full article. While you’re there, make sure to scroll all the way down for Peggy’s in-between-the-lines commentary on the Barbara Walters/Star Jones feud. Very entertaining.