Charles Krauthammer writes today about Hillary Clinton, and notes that she does share one thing in common with her husband, neither one of them has any principles:
Bill Clinton’s greatest domestic achievement, aside from abolishing welfare, was free trade. The crown jewel was the North American Free Trade Agreement. He got that through Congress over sustained union opposition in 1993. Monday, Sen. Hillary Clinton proposed that NAFTA and other existing trade agreements be reassessed every five years.
The Post correctly called Hillary’s retreat from free trade ” opportunism under pressure,” the pressure being the rampant and popular protectionism of her presidential rivals, particularly in protectionist Iowa. But while “opportunism under pressure” suggests ( pace Hemingway) cowardice, the better description of Clintonism is slipperiness. Adaptability. Cynicism, if you like.
Note her clever use of terms. Reassessing NAFTA sounds great to protectionists, but it is perfectly ambiguous. It could mean abolition or radical curtailment. It could also mean establishing a study commission whose recommendations might not reach President Hillary Clinton’s desk until too late in her second term.
The Post editorial noted “a perverse kind of good news” in Hillary’s free-trade revisionism: “There’s little chance that her position reflects any deeply held principle.” And there lies the beauty not just of Clinton on free trade but of the Clinton candidacy itself: She has no principles. Her liberalism is redeemed by her ambition; her ideology subordinate to her political needs.
(…)
Even Clinton’s response to a debate question on torture — “As a matter of policy it cannot be American policy, period” — is elegantly phrased to imply an implacable opposition to torture and yet leave open the possibility that in extreme circumstances a president would do what she had to do, i.e., authorize torture, regardless of the express policy.
Clinton rarely falters. Always careful, always calibrated, always leaving room for expediency over ideology. That’s Clintonism, of both marital flavors.
Political ambition divorced from principle, however, is sometimes a dangerous thing.
