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In her excellent Hillary-eulogy, Katha Pollitt writes that Iraq was Clinton's biggest mistake.
Hillary's run upset the carefully balanced apple cart of trade-off and resignation and semi-suppressed frustration that is how women of the professional class accommodate to patriarchy lite.Please note: I don't claim Clinton lost because she's a woman. (I think it was her Iraq vote, which she could never justify or renounce; assorted strategic mistakes; the bumptious interventions of her husband; and, most of all, that Barack Obama, a prodigiously gifted, charismatic politician, took the banner of change away from her.)I've often thought that had Clinton apologized for her Iraq vote and taken a strong antiwar stance in 2005 or early 2006, Obama wouldn't have run at all. His antiwar-from-the-start position was his calling card in the race; his justification for taking on not only the presumptive front-runner -- who also happened to be married to the Democratic Party's beloved (at the time) leader -- but also a credible, charismatic challenger, John Edwards, who'd spent several years courting the base through work on poverty, labor rights, and health care. Both campaigns seethed that Obama didn't wait his turn. His opposition to Iraq was what gave Obama the gumption to do it, and the approval of millions of grassroots progressives nationwide.--Dana Goldstein
