at least a little informative. i consider her a pretty compromised candidate who lost whatever true progressivism she might once have had....but at least she is smart, which is refreshing.

unfortunately it is all moot.

by all indications america is getting ready to vote for another republican president, most likely rudy, over ANY of the democratic candidates....especially h. clinton. republicans thrive on having people to hate/fear.....and boy oh boy do they LOVE to hate hillary clinton. that swiftboat stuff is small potatoes compared to what will happen in "hillary vs rudy.'08"

sad but true.

the only thing that is lower in the polls than "w" is the democratic congress.

I don't know what to make of that interview, Mr. Shapiro. Has Salon already sided with Clinton? I kind of feel like it has.

Oh, goodness gracious breakdancing Christ. The interviewer was just fine. I wasn't too thrilled by the interviewee's answers, but it sounds like if Shapiro had done anything short of chopping her head off and sticking it on a pike, you'd still be accusing him and Salon of favoring Clinton.

Hillary is SMART! That is important. More important than her being likable. So many people voted for Bush because they "liked" him. Look where that has gotten us. In the end, all that matters is what kind of president she will make. For those who have read her book you know that she is very knowledgable about foreign policy, she has travelled everywhere and her experience in the Senate is invaluable too. And people have to admit - even if you don' t like him - having Bill there to clean up the mess that Bush has created with foreign countries - would be a HUGE asset. They still love BILL! I can't say that I love Hillary but this time around, after the disaster that is Bush, it is time for Americans to make an intelligent decision. There is too much riding on this election to elect someone they "like." We must elect the best person for the job.

I don't know what to make of that interview, Mr. Shapiro. Has Salon already sided with Clinton? I kind of feel like it has.

Several words are repeated in that interview, like mantras, campaign hitching posts -- experience, understanding, inherit -- and I don't know when she says...

my experience gives me an edge -- that I understand the challenges we're going to face and that I will be able to marshal the resources in order to begin addressing them from Day One.

...if that's really true. Her experience sure didn't help her understand the challenges the Bush League imposed on the Democrats and the country at large. She was as outflanked as the rest of the DLC.

I didn't get a sense of much information being conveyed in that interview, unfortunately. The Clinton lovers will cheer, and the Hillary haters will hiss, but the candidate herself doesn't appear to be saying much. That's too bad.

As for the "Hillary" versus "Clinton" line, I'm well aware of that; hell, I noticed when Saddam Hussein was invariably called "Saddam" in the press, like a pat on the head -- Hitler was Hitler, Stalin was Stalin, but Saddam, well, he was Saddam (and I don't think they were worried about confusing him with the King of Jordan). Maybe we should just start calling Cheney "Dick" -- people will know who we're talking about, now that Nixon's long dead.

That, dear sir or madam (as the case may be), is the reason why you could never be elected president of this (or any)country. Unfortunately, however, you do sound like many of our citizens these days, except for your points 4 and 5, which clearly propel you across the line into crackpot territory.

The editors of Salon must be thrilled at the diversity of its readers.

I haven't decided which candidate to give my paltry financial support to, but I do think that I will refer to "Senator Clinton" in the future. She is a member of the Senate, after all.

I found Ms. Clinton's tenor and tone surprisingly cordial in the interview. This runs counter to recollection. Indeed, most recently there was her scathing attack of Barak Obama because former Clinton supporter David Geffen who has switched camps claimed the Clintons had turned lying into an art form.

Her swift, vicious response was a page out of the Carville play book. One can argue it is a necessary campaign function, but it becomes difficult these days to not argue that Americans seem sick and tired of it.

Her Dean-like shrill yell won't play well. Snarky comments about a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy won't play well. Mocking women by saying she's not some Tammy Wynette singing "Stand by your man" won't play well.

Indeed, the Matt Lauer interview made famous by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy gets selectively edited to only include the VRWC comment. Matt's follow-up question was to ask her "but what if it is true" to which she replied that it would be "very grave indeed."

That doesn't get mentioned anymore.

Stand by your man.

I know some people don't trust Hillary because she is always so prepared, pundits call her stiff and practiced. I always feel like we are seeing two different people. I like it that she is prepared. I don't have a problem that she is always the smartest person in the room...

I am in agreement on all of this. Furthermore, in contrast with the "smart guys" in the Bush administration – Wolfowitz comes to mind, in particular – she is not so blinded by ideology and so impressed with how smart she is that she is unable to learn from mistakes.

In my opinion, Hillary's biggest drawback is that she seems to approach a political fight leading with a compromise instead of settling for a compromise in the end. This is a problem I have with the most Democrats these days, and against slash-and-burn Republicans it is a losing strategy. It is why they come off like wimps.

I also see far too little recognition among Democrats of the very serious damage that the Bush administration has wrought on the foundations of American democracy - some of which was already underway long before Bush. Bush is a symptom of what can happen when the imperial presidency is in place. I'd like to see a Democrat (or a Republican, for that matter) who would convince me that one of their major goals is to reduce the power of the presidency: No signing statements. Unqualified denunciation of the 'unitary executive' horseshit that makes bastards like John Yoo cream their jeans. A promise to never inappropriately invoke 'executive privilege'. No wars without Congressional declaration of same. Maybe with these kinds of issues on the table, a Democrat in the White House could put together a comprimise coalition with people like McCain to bring in real campaign finance reform - with public financing of presidential and congressional races.