Although Jonathan Berstein makes an articulate and comprehensive case in today's Salon Magazine that we would be no less disappointed in the actions of our president if Hillary Clinton had won the nomination and election instead of Barack Obama, I'm inclined to disagree.
Not with his points about how hamstrung any president is by the degree of resistance he or she faces from the opposition party, or even by the intransigence of their own party, and lord knows President Obama has experienced more than his share of both, but with Bernstein's apparent assumption that those factors probably would have led to the same sense of disappointment, betrayal and utter frustration with Hillary that Democrats are now experiencing with Obama. Hah!
I concede that Hillary would never have had the same opportunity to succeed that Barack Obama had on the day he was inaugurated. Forget the crazy tea partiers, Rush Limbaugh and FOX News. Not since JFK has a new president been sworn into office with such high hopes that he would be a transformative leader who could affect real change. Hillary had too much baggage and came with too much distrust from the progressive community to have inspired the kind of faith we had in Obama, so clearly she would have started off at a distinct disadvantage.
But somehow I don't see her giving up the fight before it even started on every single issue on which she campaigned. As she's proved time and again, she's a scrapper who has weathered incredible personal attacks and as far as I can tell, doesn't have a pathological need to be viewed as the most reasonable, conciliatory person in the room. How many people actually believe that she would have gotten burned by the Republicans on her first major bill, as Obama did on his stimulus package, and then kept coming back for more on every subsequent bill? Does anyone really think she would have been afraid to use her recess appointment privileges to fill the posts that the GOP has been relentlessly blocking for the past three years? Call me crazy, but I don't see Hillary declaring that the 14th Amendment solution was "off the table" before even sitting down to negotiate with the Republicans on extending the debt ceiling.
I'm not saying that Hillary would have had any more success than Obama has had in fulfilling his campaign promises, I'm saying I don't believe she would have been so reluctant to engage in the battle or intimidated by the fact she might lose. I'm sure there is plenty that we in the progressive community would be mad at President Hillary Clinton for, but I'm fairly positive it wouldn't be because she was unable or unwilling to lead.