....scary.

Also: both are a major part of John McCain's campaign strategy.

Another difference: America is much more likely to achieve some kind of strategic victory in Iraq by staying the course than is Hillary to win the nomination by staying the course. So if Hillary really is justified to stay in the race, how can her supporters possibly justify pulling out of Iraq?

But the comparison is apt, and it's one that several commenters here have made repeatedly for more than a year, and it's one of many ways in which Hillary really is the Democratic equivalent of George W. Bush.

Paul Bremer is a trained chef. Mark Penn likes to eat. Both implemented strategies that led to disaster.  

Michael, you are an addict.  You can't stop piling on Hillary Clinton.  

"Oh no, I can stop!  Any time I want to!"

Obama has won -- can you guys go a day without writing about HRC?

Excellent analogy!  Maybe Rumsfeldt and Darth helped her out.

What lymon said.

Hmmm, you know, I think lymon is onto something.

From now on, I think TNR blogs should substitute "Britney Spears" for "Hillary Clinton" in all posts. That will allow those of us who have developed internal mental-defense mechanism against "news" reports about Ms. Spears to avoid reading any further piling-on against Hillary.

It will also correctly illustrate the news value of any further reporting about Sen. Clinton within the context of the Democratic presidential nomination.

I'll start: Even if everything that Britney Spears says she wants to happen, happen, she still will not win the nomination. Even including Florida and Michigan delegations as-is would only get Britney Spears 14 delegates closer to the nomination, according to calculations in today's Washington Post. Including FL and MI would push Obama about 60 delegates further from the nomination, but ironically that doesn't help Britney Spears get any closer to the nomination herself.

See? I'll bet most TNR readers were physically incapable of reading that paragraph, so finely tuned are our ignore-Britney instincts.

What about the obvious corollary, rhub?

"Hillary Clinton arrived for dinner date in Beverly Hills last night looking calm and surprisingly well-groomed in a sign she's slowly piecing back together her life.

The usually dishevelled mother-of-two polished up for a quiet night out with Las Vegas billionaire George Maloof, prompting speculation she is again working on a career revival."

Rhubarbs, thanks for your Spears substitution strategy.  It worked pretty well.  Unfortunately, I began to think of other celebrities that would be equally effective, and the sentence "Even including Florida and Michigan delegations as-is would only get Paris Hilton 14 delegates closer to the nomination, according to calculations in today's Washington Post" induced a 15-minute grand mal seizure.

*thud*

*twitch*

I will only accept the analogy if we compare neoconservatism to a wish for Hillary as a candidate -- horrible ideas that should never have been born on this earth.

You can also make an instant Weird Al Yankovick-styled parody of any song with the word "love" in the title by substituting the word "lunch."

I can picture September already.  Obama and McCain will debate.  Hillary won't be in the audience, having spoken at some Latino pride function during the day.  Endless posts on whether this was designed to show-up Obama and position for 2012.  

no, Hillary is Ahmed Chalabi, she just thought she can be appointed President and the American people would go along with it.

To the list of parallels, I would add: constantly moving the goalpost, constantly redefining the endgame.

And about piling on the loser: we'll stop doing it the moment she accepts her defeat with dignity, stops throwing stink balls around and starts working on unifying voters for November

I don't put much stock in your friends comparison, and I don't know how smart he is Michael, because defeat certainly is not inevitable in Iraq. With literally any other president in modern history, any president who had the brains to listen to his more intelligent military commanders, Iraq would've years ago been stabilized and the process of rebuilding would've been much further along than it is today. The warring tribal factions in Iraq, which at this point are too numerous to count, would long ago seen the wisdom of coalescing behind political groups vying for control of the country through peaceful means.  If we only had a real leader in the White House, but if we had a real leader in the White House we would've never gone into Iraq.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is obviously no leader, in fact I see no potential for leadership in the woman, she is quite obviously a follower, she followed behind Bill Clinton throughout his political career as his wife, and then sought to capitalize on that affiliation, the Clinton name and the ridiculously low benchmark for leadership which George W. Bush has set.  So I think you're supposedly smart friend is grasping at straws with his analogy.

President Obama isn't going to get us out of Iraq any time soon because he is a responsible leader, and he realizes that it will be his responsibility and the responsibility of the United States to clean up the enormous mess that the Bush administration has created in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It's a monumental task that will certainly take both his terms and most probably the terms of several other future presidents as well to put right. But at the very least we will have someone in the White House who demonstrates real leadership qualities and a record of good decision-making running the show.

George W. Bush is a hack president who allowed the storms this country has faced to rage out of control while he looked around in bewilderment, a trifling small minded Roman emperor wholly controlled by the people standing behind him, at a time when we needed a genuine American president to lead this country.  By every subjective measure America has slipped backwards and faltered during Bush's feeble reign.

If Hillary Clinton had become president she certainly would have been well out of her depth in facing the pervasive problems we have ahead of us, we would've wound up with a president who would probably been better than the cruel joke of a president we have now, but that's certainly not good enough in today's world. One more rehashing of the past just won't cut it anymore.  What we need now is a forward thinking genuine American hero to pull this country out of the tailspin we are in, and Barack Obama is a leader who at the very least has the potential to stand this country up on its feet once again and begin moving us towards real progress and a better brighter future for Americans and the world.

AaronBBrown is his usual jaunty self here. Armchair strategists can afford to be. Saddam Hussein was widely thought to be in possession of WMD capacity in 2003. Valerie Plame writes in her book that she thought so. So a competent leader might actually invaded Iraq in '03. He or she wouldn't have proceeded the way Walker did though, that's certain.

AaronBBrown: It must be nice to know everything. What does that actually feel like?

Rhubarbs and ratnerstar-

Great posts, you two. But now I'm stuck with this one particular image in my head: Britney Spears in a pantsuit!

But I agree: from now on, all posters at TNR Talkback Nation should follow the example the two of you have set. To wit:

It is evident that Ms. Spears is married to a rather unfortunate jerk, who not only thinks the world of himself, but has a tin ear when it comes to how his own words will be heard by others. For instance, former President Kevin Federline has now predicted that Britney may get as much as 80% of the vote in West Virginia, underming BJS (Britney Jean Spears) yet again by raising the bar in that upcoming primary.

And, yes, Britney's unrelentiing pursuit of the White House is indeed analogous to President Bush's unrelenting pursuit of the Iraq war. For BJS, like W, went into this contest the overwhelming favorite, only to squander that advantage in the earliest stage of the conflict. And, like Bush, Britney also alienated many of her allies, challenged the patriotism of those who opposed her, turned a deaf ear to experts in the field, pandered to the American public, and wasted millions upon millions of dollars. All the time insisting that she would prevail, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the reality on the ground.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated story, pop diva Hillary Clinton has hit yet another new low, once again shaving her head, abusing her child in public, and exposing her pink taco to the paparazzi.

LR, ooohhh, let me answer, I know what it feels like to know everything and always absolutely be write about everthing. It fells wonderfu.

Josephcuomo knows Britney's middle name.  (snicker)

newdex-

Guess you never heard of Google (snicker).

Somebody has... Frank Rich made this same analogy back in February:

www.nytimes.com/.../24rich.html

This analogy is spot on, and has answered my vague "why does this all seem so familiar?" question regarding her campaign. That was it. That was exactly where I'd heard this song before.