What was this, an exercise in source-stroking? It's as timid an article as Hillary Clinton is a candidate, though at least it's not smug, self-righteous and incapable of accepting blame or responsibility, the traits that are coming through loud and clear in Hill's refusal to say those three simple words, "I was wrong." We already have a stiff-necked, competitive asshole in the White House; why on Earth would we vote for another? Let's face it, the sort of politician you describe so well is the type that typically finishes sixth in Iowa with about 3 percent of the vote. If her last name weren't Clinton, that's where this one would finish, too. Haven't we had enough of the legacy candidates to last a lifetime? Sorry, but it's time for something new. This candidacy is WAY too '90s to fly as late as 2008. I'll give you this much -- at least you didn't bring up the Inevitability argument. Should we take this as a sign that she's not inevitable anymore?

Authentic moderate my ass. Authentic panderer is more like it.

If I wanted prudent I would vote for George Herbert Walker Bush, he's tanned, he's rested, he's ready.

I'm committed to refraining from comments about writers, but I've felt for a long time that Walter Sharpiro is a DLC fellow traveller.

And this article reads like DLC fan mail:

"they portray her reluctance to recant her Iraq vote as an act of intellectual honesty" Shapiro writes. "What she regrets is the way that Bush misused the authority given to him by Congress and grotesquely mismanaged the war."

This is exactly the position of the DLC crowd that runs the Progressive Policy Institute. Tufts University Poly Sci professor Tony Smith lays it out:

"Many Democrats, including senators who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, embraced the idea of muscular foreign policy based on American global supremacy and the presumed right to intervene to promote democracy or to defend key U.S. interests long before 9/11, and they have not changed course since. Even those who have shifted against the war have avoided doctrinal questions.

…

Since 1992, the ascendant Democratic faction in foreign policy debates has been the thinkers associated with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and its think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). Since 2003, the PPI has issued repeated broadsides damning Bush's handling of the Iraq war, but it has never condemned the invasion. It has criticized Bush's failure to achieve U.S. domination of the Middle East, arguing that Democrats could do it better."

Hillary's position to a tee—Dems can do George Bush's policies, but better. We need real change in the leadership of the US, not just another attempt at the same neoconservative thing coming from a different place on the political spectrum.

Please, please, for the love of God, stop referring to her as simply "Hillary"! That is the most demeaning, patronizing thing, and everyone is doing it. Please, Salon, rise above it.

I understand the need to distinguish her from her husband, and when there's confusion that's fine, but generally speaking, we know who's running for president!

She hasn't come clean on her vote on Iraq and I am not into dynasties.

i was surprised to find mr shapiro writing for a progressive journal. i remember his writing very well on usatoday. while he was bettrer than the aged ultraconservaive hack he alternated with (richard benedetto) i always considered him somewhat right leaning too.

Only if you consider being to the right of Richard Nixon moderate. Nixon threw in a few progressive policies, too. CETA, for example.

There will be eight years of intentional damage to the country to clean up and put to right. This will not be a time for mealy-mouthed pandering. Telling the truth and repairing the damage is going to involve hurting some feelings and putting some people in prison.

If things were slightly askew, a moderate might be up to the job,but I'm afraid that incremental half-measures aren't going to get the job done. As Jim Hightower says, there ain't nothin' in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.

But rather than a cynical political tactic, Clinton's refusal to apologize for her Iraq vote and her sadder-but-wiser incremental approach to healthcare reform may represent something basic -- her core beliefs.

I don't care if her stance on Iraq and other issues is propelled by focus groups and finger to the wind political calculus, or if she is genuinely sincere. She's wrong on those issues and she sucks period.

This is an answer to the letter-writer who laments:

"Please, please, for the love of God, stop referring to her as simply `Hillary'! That is the most demeaning, patronizing thing, and everyone is doing it. Please, Salon, rise above it."

The reasons that I do it and will continue to do it are as follows: 1). To avoid confusion with her husband, the former president; 2). Because she as a candidate has fervently embraced the single name with her bumperstickers and her website labeled "Hillary for President." and 3). It is the way that most Americans think of her, rather than reacting when the see the word "Clinton."

If Denis Thatcher had somehow become Prime Minister, I would have followed the same guiding principle -- the first elected official gets the last name, the second in the family is known by her/his first name.

After Bush, Americans are likely to be damn sick and tired of dividers and deciders and firebrands and name callers and the whole lot of them. By running on a platform of reconcillation and restoration, Hillary may very well win the whole thing in a walk.

That doesn't mean the end of liberal ideals at all. A Clinton victory would mean a great opportunity for the left, if they would only take it. Moderates can be moved, if they can find support. If, however, the left decides to take their ball and go home (as they pretty much did under Bill Clinton) then the moderates will be once again forced to take their support from the center and from the right of center.

Hillary Clinton presents a great opportunity for the left to grow up, a sort of do-over for the Clinton administration. That's her appeal and it's undeniable.