Hey, lay off Chris Dodd! In a perfect world ...

No doubt about it, this was a hugely damaging encounter for Hillary. Sen. Dodd was not a very good candidate but he sure took her on here. This was her biggest Kerry moment, her flip - flop, trying to have it both ways and refusing to answer Tim Russert's staightforward question.

Hey, I liked the "ineffectual candidates"- Dodd, Biden, et al. Well, actually those two mainly.

I'm struck by how much younger she looked then, or at least less exhausted.

Yes, I've been saying since December this was the turning point. It was the first time people doubted her sincerity and authenticity. It was the first time Obama looked like a serious alternative.

I like how "Senator Clinton" called him "Chris".

rozenson, I know what you're saying, but I suspect it was not actually the first time people doubted Hillary Clinton's sincerity and authenticity.

I'm an Obama supporter, but I actually think she showed guts there.  If she had only pressed Chris Dodd on what his "ways of dealing" with the problem were, she would have won.  So maybe she tried to squirm a bit, but really, who cares?  She took an unpopular position because on some level she recognized that it was good policy (if not politics).  Merely asserting that "this is a priviledge" does nothing to solve the problem.  People are going to drive anyway.

Sigh. Biden-Dodd would have won this thing going away.

Nope, she jumped the shark when she decided to treat the democratic primary voters like a bunch of jerks and spent the last few years cultivating her money links on Wall Street and running to the right of John McCain. Even that could have been overcome if she picked a staff based on quality and competence rather than loyality. Like the first two years of her husband's adminstration - which were an unmitigated disaster - she decided to pack the inner circle with incompetent and hopeless loyalists. Same pattern. Same result.

I agree with japsheeh.  I think there are better ways she could have answered the question, but there's nothing really wrong with the content.  She could have boiled her position down to saying something to the effect that since the federal legislature failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform, states like NY are in the reactive position to have to make decisions like this, and it isn't right.  

Sure, drivers licenses are one idea, an idea that makes some sense, but there are good arguments against them as well.  

I don't see why she couldn't be open to the idea of drivers' licenses without necessarily pledging support.

I was still on-board with Hillary during that debate, and though I am an Obama supporter since late Jan. her performance that night seemed strong to me too. She was essentially trying to make the point that Obama does consistantly and well that complicated issues can't be resolved with "gotcha" questions or one word answers.

I liked, supported, defended, and contributed to them both and again to Hillary subsequent to watching that debate. Unfortunately she lost me and, I suspect, many others when she stepped down from that moral high ground with Bill clearly and intentionally playing the race card in SC, part of her decision--and she needs to accept responsibility--to throw the kitchen sink at her opponent.

Ugh - I remember this, it was so awful to watch I ran out of the room.  I honestly felt awful for her, embarassed, not a good feeling to bring out in people whose vote you want.  

I can't imagine Biden not having a major job in Obama's administration - he gets better and better and this is the second or third time now he's been the first attack dog out of the gate to catch Obama's back.

Biden is reminding me of Madeline Albright at her best - its hard to remember now, but she was a good attack dog for Bill when he was running, quick as hell and funny.  

Biden sunk Guiliani, just smoked him like a cigar.

great post sabatia.

"Sigh. Biden-Dodd would have won this thing going away."

Yeah totally. You can tell because of all those votes they got.

That HRC auto da fe was disgraceful.

Crowley's turned into an MSM drone, I hope Sam Donaldsonville is waiting at the end of the rainbow for you pal.

"Sigh. Biden-Dodd would have won this thing going away."

Uttered by a guy whose bread and butter is calling other people naive and foolish.

Why do I so strongly prefer the Hillary Clinton of that debate to the Hillary Clinton of late? I can't speak for the country, but I can speak for myself. If she had continued to take gutsy stands like this one, I would have ended up supporting her.

I'm with sabatia.  It was SC that was the turning point.  I was with HRC until then, but it has been downhill ever since.  Prior to SC, it seemed like we would have a good issue-based policy debate between two articulate and accomplished politicians.  The kitchen sink strategy changed all that and it has been anything but.

Nippers, I don't understand. Hillary took NO stand whatsoever, gutsy or not. She praised Spitzer's plan to the heavens and sure *sounded* like she supported it, but she would never utter the words "I support it" or something similar.

The only thing she didn't do was take a stand, let alone a "gutsy" one.

ejbenjamin, you are quite right. People were calling her inauthentic long before that. But you know what I mean . . .

This might have been the first crack in the dam, but it was helped along by subsequent incidents, which served to reinforce the validity of every previous incident. I'm thinking of the planted question, the denial that the campaign planted questions, and then the discovery that they have a whole notebook of planted questions. And I think the Tuzla incident is why she did not win PA by double digits.

Woody,

I see that, and I see in her equivocation her familiar expediency. But I also see her here daring to defend--if not forthrightly endorse--an unpopular policy. And she was right to praise Spitzer for attempting to address a controversial issue. The easy pander would have been to abandon Spitzer and indict the driver i.d. policies. This spring she has equivocated less and pandered more.

I don't thing she was undone here - and Dodd's criticism was silly.  People will drive; the question is whether you want to make sure that they are properly trained and verified.  

I think there is a great risk that by focussing on these triviliaties, we miss the bigger picture of what happened in this election.  And here, for once, the Obama-cultist "narrative" (oh, how I hate that word) may be on to something.

True, you had a shrewd strategiser and organiser in Obama; a team, working for Hillary, that worked on the basis of certain unverified and largely false assumptions; luck, in heaps, for Obama that stories broke as they did, and that Bill was unhinged just as the Obama stories were breaking.  All of this - and Hillary's lack of authenticity, the changing message, etc. - helped.  But at its core, what was and is different this year is a sense of frustration across the country that something is not working; that what the people need is not another technocrat with heaps of experience - weren't Cheney and Rumsfled the ultimate experienced operators? - but someone who could inspire and give hope.  It is entirely possible that people are looking for a political deliverer - not quite a messiah, but a charismatic figure.  Hillary is not that person; she failed to grasp what was and is happening.

All this might fizzle, to be sure; but ...

You have left out some important context.  In a debate two weeks later, Obama gave exactly the same faltering answer to the same question.  The audience actually broke into laughter.  The big difference - neither his colleagues on stage nor the "journalists" asking the question made a big deal of it.  Neither did the press after the debate.

Why are you so reluctant to give the whole story.  This sequence is a perfect example of how the media and Clinton's male colleages were so ready to attack her viciously - raising questions on honesty - while allowing Obama to walk away from the same difficult question.

The truth is  the answer to the question is a difficult one.  There are conflicting values at work which requires a nuanced answer.

It was Dodd's answer that was didactic and stupid.

Dare I utter the meaningful conclusion - sexism is still approved of in this country.  Racism is now a taboo, but Bill Mahr can make vulgar sex-based jokes about Hillary Clinton and no one seems to mind.  A bogus anti-Clinton Republican group with the acronym an unbelievable assault on women ,c***t, doesn't seem to rise to the level of outrage that would ensue if they formed an anti-Obama group with the acronym n****r.  There are too many other examples to mention here.

At leastt now we know where we stand in the Democratic Parfty.  Free choice, my eye!

There is always luck involved.  Plenty of mismanagement on Hillary's part.  But I still see the core problem with her campaign is that (1) it was about her, not about America and (2) the claims she was making about herself really could not stand the slightest scrutiny.

It is imply a political mistake of colossal proportions, about the worst I can think of, to campaign on the theme the you are worthy or deserving of the office.  People don't care whether you are worthy, they don't care whether you are deserving, even if those are in some sense supportable claims.  What they want to know and damn well should want to know is what you intend to do for them.  What you aspire to on their behalf, not on your own behalf.  Pundits used to make jokes, with reason, about Bill Clinton's "I feel your pain" shtick.  But it was effective, without even meaning a great deal, because it was about the people whose votes were being sought, not about Bill Clinton.

Hillary's campaign's original theme was, "I am tested, vetted, ready day one."  In every way imaginable, she tried to convey that she had earned the office.  The face that Hillary campaigned this way was properly understood as evidence that none of it is true.  She has not been tested in any meaningful way for the office of president.  It's not entirely clear that anyone ever could be, but her claims were risible and betrayed enormous insecurity about just those subjects.  Being First Lady is simply not preparation for the office of president and claiming that it is is a form of self-humiliation.  It is a truism that people who go around boasting about how terrific they are usually aren't, or at least are tremendously uncertain about it.  No one earns the office of president, ever.  It is simply a gift bestowed by the American people not because one is worthy but because they are persuaded that their own best interests will be served thereby.  Look at it this way.  No one gets married because an aspiring suitor has "earned" the right to marry the sought after.    

Hilllary's patently silly of being ready, blah, blah and having earned the office set her up for the fall.  Because of the pomposity and self-importance of her theme, the press and the public were simply waiting for the opportunity to pop her balloon.  Objectively, there is no reason why the occasion should have been the question about Spitzer's plan.  Objectively, you can argue that her answer was a sensible one that tried to recognize the context of Spitzer's proposal without endorsing in.  All completely irrelevant.  If it had been this, it would have been something else because everyone was weary of Hilllary and her claims, laughing at her behind their hands, and waiting for a suitable moment to make the derision public.

Contrast Hillary's campaign with Obama's.  Of course, like any candidate, he refers to his biography to give "truthiness" to his claims.  But his campaign is not about him, or what we are supposed to do because of what we owe blacks (contrast Hillary who is shameless about appealing to what is owed to women if not directly to her).  His campaign is about his aspirations for the country, its political life, and its affairs.  You can criticize him on the grounds that his themes are too general (although I think this is exactly what the American public demands), but he has always been talking about America's future, not about his future.  As a result, mistakes that are pounced on when Hillary makes them are often forgiven when Obama makes similar mistakes.  But that is not sexism.  It is the inevitable human reaction to Hillary's hubris.  

The very fact that Hillary could ever have thought to campaign in this manner tells me that she is a completely inept politician.  No one could have ascended to the senate this way if they had really had to run for the office.  It is only because Hillary never really had to compete for her high office that she could maintain this delusion.  It appears she may have recently learned the lesson, but much too late.  Too bad for her that she never had any real experience as a politician.

Beyond the fact that she was politically inept, however, what does it say about Hillary as a person that this is the manner in which she chose to present herself to the public?  Any normal person would have been embarrassed to have to insist explicitly that they are "tested, vetted, ready day one."  The only reason I can think of for her to do this is that she didn't believe any of it for a minute and everyone smelled it all over her, this lack of self-confidence.  The moment someone was able to declare that the empress had no clothes was the moment of her undoing.  It just so happened that it was at this debate.

Myskylark:

I agree that sexism has been a problem in this election, and it is much more readily tolerated than racism. But I hope those of us who are concerned about sexism can make some important distinctions. Sexism is not the only factor in Clinton's impending loss. And, at least arguably, it is far from the major factor. There are many reasonable grounds for opposing her that have nothing to do with her sex. And for many of those who'd love to see a qualified woman become president, the reasons for opposing her and preferring Obama simply outweigh the reasons to support her.

I'm getting worried about the view that some of Clinton's female supporters have expressed lately (e.g. the two women in Ohio who just started a group to oppose Obama), which is that if Obama wins it will *only* be because of the sexism that has occasionally marked media coverage of Clinton. In other words, it will be seen as a slap in the face to Clinton's female supporters and they will oppose Obama in the fall. This viewpoint is self-indulgent in the sense that it is distorted by a raw sense of grievance; it is not based on a full consideration of the two candidates or of the campaigns they have waged.  

How the mighty are fallen. The Hillary of 2007 was a juggernaut, a hyper-competent CEO who saw the big picture, knew all the details, and oozed common sense.

Hillary is awesome in this exchange. She never loses her cool. She makes a cogent argument about the real costs and benefits of the illegal immigrant license idea. And she chooses her battles, knowing she's going to be in the Swift Boaters' cross hairs once she gets the nomination, and refuses to sacrifice her entire campaign on one minor policy point.

The Hillary of 2008 is ghastly to behold. Changing her message every week; obsessed with finding the golden cheap shot ("change you can xerox," Ayers, Wright); obsessed with finding the perfect pander (Gas tax holiday, shootin' whiskey, Obama-in-a-turban); obsessed with her past; padding her resume with increasingly outrageous claims (responsibility for most of the Clinton administration, sniper fire); insulting every one and every state that doesn't vote for her (Iowa is sexist, the small states don't count). And, above all, that tone in her speeches that manages a trifecta of self-absorption, grumpiness, and contempt for her opponent.

The change is breathtaking. Jaw dropping. And for me at least, deeply sad.

Huntlib,

"above all, that tone in her speeches that manages a trifecta of self-absorption, grumpiness, and contempt for her opponent."

You forgot to add that she manages to beg for donations to pay her debts while accomplishing the "trifecta"

Peace

Many football coaches will that in a contest where momentum plays such a huge role, the eventual outcome can be decided on just three or four plays throughout the game.  I'd agree with Crowley in a sense since I think this debate was part of one of those three or four plays.  This clip of it alone certainly wasn't enough to do Clinton in, but Obama started out that debate by stating that he didn't believe that she was as forthcoming in her answers as other candidates.  Edwards's remarks towards Clinton that night before this Dodd clip were much more direct and pretty harsh with his reference towards her campaign moving from primary election mode to general election mode, stating that candidates should be in "tell the truth mode".  As I remember, Edwards even cut short a response to a completely enrelated question posed to him to revisit the exchange in the clip Crowley provided in an effort to get the focus back on her character as he seemed to do everything but call her a liar.  

Personally, I thought Clinton's response to Dodd in the video here by itself wasn't all that bad.  But in the context of what took place on stage before and after, it helped play into the narrative that Obama had been inferring and that Edwards had been constantly repeating.  If Clinton really bungled anything, it was allowing her campaign to go into full-spin cycle after that debate throwing charges of sexism at candidates and debate moderators.  Not only was the charge so blatantly false, it just gave media pundits and other candidates all the more reason to dwell on the story.  Once Clinton played the sex card rather than admit that she makes mistakes just like any other candidate during a debate, all bets were off seeing as how so many polls were still showing such a high number of undecideds at that point when the first caucus was still months away.  She opened up Pandora's box and lost the lid on that one for sure.