Here's a challenge for TAPPED readers: Determining which of the Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign claims thus far is the most internally inconsistent. Only in Hillaryland can the following assertions be made with a straight face, but I'm having trouble figuring out which is the most absurdly illogical. So I've decided to put them to you for a vote:
- Hillary is ready to "lead on Day 1" the entire federal bureaucracy for the next four or eight years, yet the presidential campaign she heads lacked the foresight to develop a field plan or strategy for the states on the calendar beyond the February 5 "Super Tuesday" primary.
- Hillary is the person capable of making a quick, crucial decision when the phone rings in the middle of the night even though personal loyalty and stubbornness prevented her from making--while wide awake for weeks if not months--the tough decision to fire and replace her disruptive, ineffective campaign manager.
- Hillary has met the "commander-in-chief threshold" even though, when the time came to cast the single most important vote of her career—in Year 29 of her self-styled 35-year career in public service—she didn't take the time to read the National Intelligence Estimate before voting to give President Bush the authority to go to Iraq.
- Although both she and her husband have stated that the most important qualification for selecting a vice presidential running mate is choosing somebody with the capacity to step in immediately to become president, Hillary believes Barack Obama has not meet that commander-in-chief threshold and yet she would consider him for the vice presidential running-mate slot anyway.
- Ignoring what might be called the "transitive property of political toughness," Hillary claims only she is tough enough and skilled enough—either in the general election or once in the White House—to battle with the nasty and cutthroat Republicans, yet if Obama proves he's tough enough to defeat her, and she is tougher than the Republicans, he is still somehow not tough enough to deal with the Republicans.
- Hillary promises she will be able to control the political impulses and personal meddling of her husband and former president, Bill Clinton, if they return together to the White House, and yet after but a single loss in the Iowa caucuses, President Clinton emerged from the shadows and issued a series of comments that offended his and his wife's longtime and most loyal African American supporters, forcing him to later admit he had crossed the line from appropriately "supporting her" into in appropriately "defending her."
Vote below with your comments, and feel free to either add your own claims of inconsistency to the half-dozen offered above, or provide examples of internally inconsistent arguments or criticisms Obama or his campaign are making.
--Tom Schaller
