"She's taking blame for a failure that wasn't necessarily hers and, for that matter, wasn't necessarily a failure."

By what metric could the health care push in 94 not be considered a failure?  Is it the fact that, 13 years later, the national is finally, almost, really close to being ready to discuss the notion of some benign type of UHC?

"She's taking blame for a failure that wasn't necessarily hers and, for that matter, wasn't necessarily a failure." I wasn't a failure? It was a spectacular failure, much of which can be attributed to her trying to run roughshod over the opposition. She, more than anyone else, had the Presidents ear. No use trying to dump it off on anyone else but the Clinton's. Damn right she should own up to it, and because she does I don't hold it against her.

Why does she receive, and fend off, so many attacks? Can it be that she has a lot more to be attacked on? Just because she can carry all that political baggage well doesn't mean I have to choose her because of it.

I agree that she's run the most tightly organized, carefully orchestrated campaign of the bunch, and I despise her because of it. What this country doesn't need is another President who governs by constantly campaigning, that holds a bunker mentality treating everyone who is not with them as an enemy. I think Hillary is what Karl Rove would be if he were a woman and a Democrat.

"and gotten pretty good at defending herself."

I like to look at results. The result of the Clinton machine's 12 year campaign to "defend" Hillary is that she has extraordinarily high negatives, a sizeable percentage (20%) of her own party LOATHES her, and there are easy avenues on which to attack her during a general election campaign.

Meanwhile, we have other politicians who have brilliantly managed their public persona and manipulated the mass media to create a likable and inspiring image (Obama) in just a few short years - but don't get any credit for doing that! They have to live in the shadow of the awe inspiring Hillary Clinton campaign! We've all been commanded to marvel at the Clinton PR machine that succeeded in winning the presidency, but left a gulf-coast style disaster zone in their wake (loss of the House, Senate, and Presidency and temporary damage to the Democratic brand).

The Clinton PR machine has produced very little of substance for anyone other than Bill (don't get me wrong, I love the guy!!!) and Hillary Clinton.

The MI primary might not count?  Boo hoo.  Get in line behind DC and the decidedly non-battleground states and non-early primary/caucus states in the complaining because we're irrelevant department.

"Hmmm....ok, 'failure' was a particularly poor choice of words there.  Clearly it was a failure in that it didn't pass."

It was a failure because it set the entire idea of National Health Care back fifteen years.  It has taken us that long to dig out of the rubble of "HillaryCare" and even begin to be able to venture out into a discussion of health care for everybody.  And that discussion still seems to be limited to our side of the aisle.  Over on the Republican side it's still all "Socialized Medicine" to them.  (Which wasn't the case in '93, when there was a consensus of opinion that national health was an idea whose time had come.  HIllaryCare killed that consensus deader than a doornail)

And I know one of the family retainers has written a long article that claims it was all Bill's fault.  And know that Bill himself has fallen on his sword and claimed it was all his fault, but does anybody really believe that a top heavy, bureaucratic takeover of the entire health care system, concocted in secret by a bunch of academics and experts, full of fines and mandates and prison sentences for folks that failed to comply, that the Administration refused to amend or negotiate ......was the brainchild of the best and most skilled politician of our generation?  As a profile of an idea, who does that really sound like?  Bill or Hillary?  

And if you look at her campaign and the way she still does business, has anything really changed about HIllary?  HIllaryCare was the most revealing metaphor for her then, and it remains so today.  But, as Barack points out, the one policy of the Clinton administration that had her fingerprints all over it is the only one that she seems to have had (in retrospect...) very little to do with.  Cherry picking, anyone?

A lot of this is nonsense.

"In other words, on health care—the issue to which she is most closely linked—she's actually doing the opposite of what Obama says."

I have yet to see this. Hillary constantly takes credit for beating the right wing (in every debate she has uttered some version of the claim that she alone has the battle scars to prove her experience at WINNING against the GOP slime-machine, not merely fighting against it). And she never admits that SHE f'ed up healthcare in 1992. In fact, if Obama would just turn to her in the next debate and say, "Yes, Hillary, you have experience failing to pass UHC," he could wipe her out. That sort of line would play for week

"Hillary clearly does have more experience than her rivals when it comes to receiving—and fending off—attacks.  It's been one, long slog through the mud ever since her husband ran for president.  It's pretty obvious she has learned from that experience—and gotten pretty good at defending herself. It's not coincindental she's run the most tightly organized, carefully orchestrated campaign of the bunch. Insofar as a successful presidency involves doing the same thing, I think that's an argument in her favor."

Mr. Cohn, where have you been for the month of November? Hillary's machine has completely fallen apart over one small gaffe on October 30th: they followed with the awful pile-on ad, the gender card, the victim card, Bill's "swiftboat" overreaction, mediocre moves in the Novak scandal, and planted questions.

According to what criteria is that a "carefully orchestrated campaign"?

Most observers and people close to the situation remember that Hillary failed not because her plan was flawed, but because she refused to compromise at all to get it through. Consequently the situation is now far worse. There is no question she must take considerable blame for the mess we therefore find ourselves in. Perhaps she has learned, but her personality seems to be unchanged in that she wants things done her way, and her way only, and she refuses to admit mistakes, or even that others have valid concerns.

One of the things that will make it a "harder" to sell (UHC) is an absolute, unyeilding insistence on "mandates".  Harold and Louise (or their kids....) are just salivating over that one.  This is another idea that sounds great to academics and experts ( and may fly in Massachusettes) but will be seized on with gusto by the same folks who cry "Socialized Medicine" everytime the subject comes up.   The problem is that liberals give them this kind of ammunition.   You've got to get the house built and make sure all the plumbing works and people feel comfortable with it and accept before you require them "by law" to live in it.  It sounds to me like Hillary learned exactly nothing, if she still thinks the spectre of big government heavyhandedness is the way to get this passed.

The funny thing about "mandates" is that they can easily be replicated by "aggressive recruitment of young uninsured people." There isnt' really a large different. The point of a mandate is to bring down costs by bringing in tons of young healthy uninsured people, right? Couldn't obama's plan just do the same thing without absorbing the political damage incurred by mandating coverage?

"I'm doubtful anything could have passed back then."

You're the expert, so I'll defer to you...but we had an (unpopular) Democratic Congress teetering on the edge of annihilation, a Democratic president, and a majority of the public supported some sort of coverage (according to Ruy Texera's paper on universal healthcare polling). Surely SOMETHING could have passed? Universal coverage for children, for example? A program with no mandate?

1: a majority of people may have supported some kind of coverage in 1993, but the healthcare crisis was barely even on the public radar as far as major national issues are concerned.  The Clinton administration should get bold leadership points just for making the effort.   I agree with Jonathon - I don't think anybody could have passed a major healthcare overhual then.  Maybe they shouldn't have been so ambitious - that's one of the things Hillary has said herself - but I don't think you can say they set the movement back.  

2: As far as the current candidate's plans are concerned, none of them will get exactly what they want.  Compromises will have to be made.  Maybe starting with mandates on the table is a smart way to begin the negotiations.  

This thread is probably played out (they play out so quick anymore, you can hardly get a good argument going...), but I've got to take one more shot at the "nothing could have passed anyway" revisionism that seems to becoming popular (and gee....lets Hillary off  the hook.)

I'm with virgniacentrist....something could have been passed.  The country was ready for it, there was a consensus across the political spectrum that "something" needed to done about 40 million uninsured (or whatever the number was...), the previous Presidential election had been fought to a large degree on this issue, we had a solid majority in both houses of congress and certain degree of goodwill on the opposition side as a result of the sucessful Nafta effort of the previous year.

What was required was the POLITICAL skill to do it.  A good POLITICIAN would have gone to congress with 5 or 6 main principles and engaged in the grubby give and take of negotiating and legislating and compromising and come out with SOMETHING that, while it may not have been perfect and not absolutely "Universal", would have been good enough and moved us close enough to tinker with the system over a couple more years and get us the rest of the way there.  (Much the way Obama seems to envision the process...)  And if Bill Clinton, who is the penulitmate good politician and operated just that way down in Little Rock, had not delegated the job (as a patent political favor...) to his wife, that's probably how it would have played out,  And  the moment would not have been lost, and Universal Health Care would not have been ( and I must reiterate it, because I believe that it's true....) set  back 15 years.

All the trips she takes to meet with foreign leaders, and all the town hall meetings she conducts with rooms full of supporters, and all the insignifigant bills she co-sponsors with Republicans who want her for the press attention she can bring, and all the meetings she sat in on in the Wnite House back in the 90's....in short all the "experience" that HIllary likes to tout to back up her claim to the Presidency, doesn't amount to a hill of beans if she doesn't have the POLITICAL SKILL to govern and the JUDGEMENT to make the right calls when shit happens.  Riding atop a well oiled political machine doesn't qualify.  That's the easy part.

Jonathon and newdex.....

What country were you guys living in in 1993 and 1994?  "Health Care was barely on the public radar"???  Remember Harris Wofford?  Elected to the Senate in Pennsylvania in a special election in '91 to fill John Heinz's seat?  Beat Dick Thornburg (former Attorney General under Reagan and Bush) on the a variety of economic issues, foremost among them.....HEALTH CARE!.  His campaign was run by two new guys, you may have heard of them, named Carville and Begala, who took those same issues over to Bill Clinton's campaign the next year with a program called "Putting People First" the centerpiece of which was......Universal Health Care.  It dominated the radar screen in '93 and '94 and the moment as absoutely ripe.  And Hillary blew it.   She lacked she skill to pull it off.  And you're either born with that kind of skill or you're not.  And Hllary wasn't.  And just hanging around somebody who has it doesn't give it to you.

vanwurs:  I was a teenager at the time so I probably shouldn't be too assertive about what was happening back then.  But it definitely wasn't as prominent an issue as it is now.  

The country wanted health care reform in 1993-94, but Hillary put her own personal aggrandizement ahead of the American people and killed it.

Hillary was essentially an intern in the Clinton administration.  But interns in the Clinton Administration were exposed to a lot of things, more than most interns.  She has the experience to lead.