Political guru-turned-columnist Dick Morris, as I’ve documented numerous times previously, has the bad habit of flying completely off the handle whenever the subject of Hillary Clinton comes up. His Hillary-based columns nearly always: a) ascribe both all-encompassing power and unimaginable ruthlessness to the former first lady; b) detail some grand conspiracy theory by HRC to double-cross her opponents in order to become president; c) predict some sort of upcoming “war within the Democratic party,” pitting Hillary against whatever Dem is hot at the time; and d) turn out completely wrong.
Today’s is no exception, as Morris accuses Hillary of “selling out” by moving to the center in order to buttress the party’s move to the left; Dick –himself an ex-liberal who has since found great riches in his similar move to the right- has always called Hill a leftist. Never mind that Hillary’s centrist move has been in progress ever since she was elected to the Senate four years ago. The “clash for control of the party,” Morris says, will be between Hillary and soon-to-be-DNC-chairman Howard Dean- but in late 2003, of course, Morris predicted that Hillary would be Dean’s running mate.
The “all encompassing power” argument is missing from this one, but Dick offers an excuse, in explaining why Clinton crony Harold Ickes endorsed Dean for the DNC job:
The Clintons could have gotten Ickes the job, but neither one did any heavy lifting on his behalf. Why not? I'm no longer privy to their secrets, but my guess is that Bill was too sick, sad, physically weakened and unfocused — and that Hillary, an ingénue without his guidance and leadership, didn't dare to try on her own for fear of publicly failing.But Morris hasn’t been “privy to their secrets” for almost five years- shouldn’t that disclaimer be in ALL of his columns, as well as the two books he’s written about the Clintons?
Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton collapsed today while giving a speech. Don't know what exactly happened, but I’m sure Dick is hard at work coming up with a theory about it.
Posted by Stephen Silver at January 31, 2005 06:23 PM