Fearing the new & improved Hillary Clinton

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON has been many things throughout her life, but one thing she always has been is a dedicated, unapologetic liberal. In fact, with the possible exception of Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, she is the most identifiable member of the Democrats' left wing, a position she has earned through years of hard work. Since her college days, Clinton has been a passionate advocate for every liberal cause known to man--and this ardent feminist, antiwar activist, and student radical did not leave her passion for all things liberal behind on the campuses of Wellesley College and Yale University. No, this passion, along with her insatiable desire for power, has been the driving force of her long and successful political career.

Now, after a lifetime as a liberal activist, Clinton, we are told, no longer is a liberal. Her philosophy has evolved. This change began in earnest after she assumed the title of U.S. senator from New York. It was then that Clinton carefully began to put away the trappings of a liberal and wrap herself in a cloak of moderation. The national press has taken up her cause and spread the good news. Although they describe Clinton's base as liberal, media members are adamant that she herself is not, and remain committed to defending her image, chastening anyone (i.e., conservatives) who might suggest that Clinton is of the Kennedy school of left-wing thought. To make such a claim, they charge, is a mean-spirited caricature of the lady, part of the politics of the personal destruction that the Right, they will tell you, so enjoys.

According to them, the former First Lady's political evolvement lies somewhere between having no discernible political persuasion to being a moderate, centrist, or "third way" politician like her husband. Her media friends do not really care where in the valley of political persuasions she might be taking up residency--only that she is not perceived as a liberal.

Once she was sworn in as the junior senator from the state of New York, Hillary, for the first time since law school, was moving through life without Bill in the lead. As she dealt with the problems of the nation as a legislator and worked with others in the Senate, including Republicans, she evolved politically and matured personally, leaving behind her tough, arrogant, liberal image to emerge as someone different. It was then, in late 2004, that Hillary Rodham Clinton was reintroduced to America as a moderate-leaning, conservative member of the Senate--or at least this is what Hillary & Friends would have us believe.

As reported by The New York Times in November 2004, Hillary's aides noted that, "since arriving in the Senate, Mrs. Clinton has staked out moderate-to-conservative positions on a host of issues, from welfare to the war in Iraq, much to the chagrin of her liberal supporters and the satisfaction of some Republicans."

Six months later, in a piece titled "The Evolution of Hillary Clinton," The Times again made the point: "Mrs. Clinton has defied simple ideological labeling since joining the Senate, ending up in the political center on issues like health care, welfare, abortion, morality and values, and national defense, to name just a few. ... In many ways, her approach is reminiscent of what her husband once called 'the third way,' the path that exploited the political center."

The concept seems to have stuck--two years later in a Time magazine cover story titled "The Presidential Ambitions of Hillary Clinton," Karen Tumulty wrote, "Speculation swirls around a possible bid for the White House in 2008. [Hillary] may not have Bill's gift for campaigning, but her toughness and centrist vision could make her the Dem to beat."

Hillary: the lady with a centrist vision; who would believe it? If true, it is a remarkable conversion story. After 40 years of backing every imaginable liberal cause on Earth, Hillary Rodham Clinton goes to the Senate and becomes a right-of-center politician. Could this be? The darling of the Left, the Feminist in Chief, the architect of universal health care, the author of It Takes a Village, has abandoned the causes of a lifetime and turned to the Right? After years in the political trenches with the best the Left has to offer, Hillary Rodham Clinton has rejected the ideals for which she fought so hard--or could there be something else going on here?

The argument goes that Clinton's political philosophy began to evolve as she tackled the problems of the nation from her new perspective as a member of Congress. Equally important, we are reminded, the sincerity of her transformation is unquestionable. New York Times reporter Raymond Hernandez explained in February 2005: "Conservatives have long caricatured Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York's junior senator, as a sort of Democrat whose positions on social issues are out of step with Americans deeply concerned about religion and moral values. But while Mrs. Clinton has been strongly identified with polarizing issues like abortion rights, the picture that conservative Republicans paint of her is at odds with a side of herself she has lately displayed as she enters a new phase of her public life."