http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh030107.shtml"Bob Herbert doesn’t seem to think well of Bill and/or Hillary Clinton. Here’s how he started a truly remarkable column in Monday’s New York Times:
HERBERT (2/26/07; opening paragraph): If Bill and Hillary Clinton were the stars of a reality TV show, it would be a weekly series called ''The Connivers.'' The Clintons, the most powerful of power couples, are always scheming at something, and they're good at it.
Yikes! That’s a deeply punishing assessment. Herbert takes the idea that Hillary Clinton is “calculating” and he raises it several levels. She’s “always scheming at something,” he says. And he says that she’s a “conniver.”
You’d almost think that a bigfamouspundit would want to support such remarkable statements. In the case of the useless Herbert (more below), your thinking would be quite mistaken. Indeed, Herbert goes on to insult and name-call Clinton all through the course of this startling column. By the end, here’s what he’s saying about the current Democratic front-runner:
HERBERT (final paragraphs): It's ironic that the first woman with a real shot at the presidency comes off not as a compelling underdog but as the powerful front-runner at the controls of a ruthless political machine."
Interesting to go back to March of last year and remember the Geffen incident.
Herbert blames the Clintons for the comments of Andrew Young and Bob Kerrey. Perhaps its naive to think that these things are not deliberate or co-ordinated, but is it really plausible to believe that the Clintons are giving a script to Young and Kerrey, that they are telling them what to say? I still remember Young as the loose cannon who got the Carter administration in trouble by shooting his mouth off (although I also remember reading Young's actual comments some twenty years later and wondering what the big deal was.)
I like Herbert, but Somerby shows that Herbert is quite ready to believe the worst about Clinton, without providing the evidence for his beliefs.