Monday, March 10, 2008
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Reversing Clausewitz
In a Reuters story on Barack Obama declining Hillary Clinton's premature offer of a VP slot, we get to this priceless bit of spin by Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson: Obama took note of Clinton's repeated attacks and said the vice president's primary role would be to take over if the president died or was incapacitated.This begs the question... what, exactly, is required to pass that test? How do the next five months on the campaign trail provide such an opportunity [Wait, Obama won Mississippi? He's definitely commander-in-chief material!--ed.]? In one way, this is a typical bit of grade-Z spin. In another way, however, it does shed an interesting light on the Clinton campaign's mindset about politics. As the Chicago Tribune's Mike Dorning and Christi Parsons reported, Hillary Clinton's fabled experience in international relations is pretty weak beer. The implicit message of her campaign, however, is that Clinton has faced greater trials and tribulations in the political arena for 15 years -- and that experience translates into preparation for foreign affairs. Clausewitz famously said that war was politics by other means. Hillary Clinton's zero-sum tactics in the past week suggest an inversion of Clausewitz's dictum. For Clinton, politics is simply war by other means. This might actually work. Clinton, by throwing out her steering wheel, might actually scare enough superdelegates into following her. But it's really becoming more difficult with each passing day to distinguish Hillary's mindset from George W. Bush. posted by Dan on 03.10.08 at 06:42 PMComments: Post a Comment: |
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