Fighting For What?

Hilzoy:

Clinton is presently making a big deal about the fact that she is “a fighter”. After this primary season, I don’t think there can be any doubt about her willingness to fight. What Clinton’s gas tax proposal tells me is what she’s willing to fight for. She is not willing to fight for what she thinks is right in the face of public pressure. She’s not even willing to restrict her compromises to cases in which public pressure to do something stupid already exists. She will sacrifice principle and the public good when it’s expedient for her to do so.

I guess that has always been one of my two major problems with Clinton’s candidacy. Even if we concede that she’s a “fighter,” whether or not these fighting skills will be consistently used on behalf of progressive values is another question entirely. (There was a better argument to be made about this in terms of electability, but the result of the primary despite her large inherent advantages, her reliance on Mark Penn, etc. speaks for itself. Primaries, in this sense, do provide important information.) Having said that, I would find the gas tax stupidity considerably less objectionable if she had a non-trivial chance of winning the nomination. Given that Obama is nearly certain to actually be the candidate, agreeing with John McCain to not only endorse a bad policy bit reinforce GOP frames about the party’s nominee is pretty odious.

With respect to my other major objection, Hilzoy cites Clinton’s vote authorizing the Iraq War as another example. I’m actually not so sure; I think it’s entirely possible (indeed, I think, more likely) that Clinton thought her vote on the war was right on the merits. In terms of evaluating her as a potential president, though, I think this is worse.