“Why Hillary Clinton Might Have Made a Better President”

Matthew Rothschild

No, I didn’t write that headline. It’s the headline of a post by Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive Magazine. Rothschild begins:

Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe Hillary Clinton might have made a better President than Barack Obama?

It’s sure crossed my mind a lot lately, as we’ve seen Obama flounder so badly on health care, on the bank bailout, on foreclosures, and on the jobs front.

Yes, yes, that has crossed my mind. In fact it crossed my mind way back in January of 2008. I don’t know why you’re so late in realizing this simple fact, but welcome to a growing club.

I’ll leave out the part of the post where Rothschild establishes his CDS creds–you probably can guess what it says. Hillary is a “centrist” and “hawkish” and a drama queen. He doesn’t explain how that differentiates her from Barack, but I understand he need to justify himself to his audience. But…here’s the but:

Remember back in the campaign, when she mocked Obama’s invocation of bipartisanship by saying: “The sky will open. The lights will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect!”

She was criticized for being harsh, or as the sexists put it, “shrill.”

But she was right, especially when she added: “Maybe I’ve just lived a little long, but I have no illusions at how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear.”

She also made the case that she could take a punch and keep on fighting, and she called into question Obama’s willingness to play hardball.

Even the editor of The Progressive has to admit now that Hillary was right about Obama. Too bad he didn’t figure that out in time to make a difference. Nevertheless, welcome to the club, Matthew.

And then there’s this:

52 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama doesn’t deserve reelection in 2012, according to a new poll.

44 percent of all Americans said they would vote to reelect the president in two and a half years, less than the slight majority who said they would prefer to elect someone else.

Obama faces a 44-52 deficit among both all Americans and registered voters, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday. Four percent had no opinion.

Only a little more than a year into Obama’s presidency, and he’s already looking like a lame duck.