Oops!

John Dickerson:

… the ad also raises a new question the Clinton campaign has been stressing over the last few days: Who has been tested? The ad asks which candidate has faced the extended pressure of a crisis that might prepare him or her for the far larger pressures and crises he or she will face as president.

I love this question and am glad the Clinton team raised it. The problem is that they’re not so great at answering. When I asked campaign staffers for examples of Clinton being tested by a foreign-policy challenge, their response was pretty weak. As Patrick Healy reported in the New York Times, Hillary Clinton did not have a security clearance during her husband’s administration, so she wasn’t in the room for the brutal moments he faced. Her aides named the slew of uniformed retired military officials who have endorsed her, including several four-star generals. That’s nice, but it’s not proof of her mettle. When you make an ad like this, your case for your woman should be stronger than a list of endorsements.

Mark Penn pointed me to Clinton’s 1995 speech in Beijing, in which she declared that women’s rights were human rights. A fine speech and a great message, and boy, I bet her hosts didn’t like it one bit, but that doesn’t really constitute the testing that this powerful ad brings to mind. Also, if we’re talking about speeches, then I think Obama has that covered. He has been arguing for some time that he made a speech in 2002 about why the Iraq war was a bad idea. And hasn’t the Clinton team been knocking that back as just a speech?

A Clinton spokesperson on Hardball tonight claimed that Senator Clinton had proved her mettle under fire by attending the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing. I’m serious.

Update: See also Matt Yglesias.

Boo!

I’ve been working at the other blog (you guys might like this; also this), where I’m getting into as much trouble with readers (see comments to this) as I do elsewhere. I must be an awful person.

Anyway, I leave the spiritual world to come back to the political one, and what do I find but this:

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., debuted a campaign ad on Friday with ominous undertones.

“It’s 3:00am and your children are asleep,” a voice over says in the ad entitled “Children”. “There’s a phone in the White House, and it’s ringing. Something is happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call.”

“Whether someone knows the world’s leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead. It’s 3am and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?” the ad concludes.

I’d vote for the Dalai Lama, but he’s not running for president.

I don’t have much to say about the ad that Pam of the House Blend and DHinMI haven’t said. I also agree with Steve Benen:

Maybe I’ve become desensitized a bit, but this one didn’t really faze me that much. It feels like a regular ol’ Republican ad, except a) this is from a Dem; and b) the ad doesn’t show any brown people we’re supposed to be afraid of.

Paddy at Cliff Schecter’s place has Obama’s response ad, if you’re interested.

Reactions on the Left Blogosphere are divided between “How pathetic is this?” (Obama supporters) and “Obama is mean, too” (Clinton supporters). Oh, and also Gavin’s take.

So if we end up with a Clinton-McCain general election, is the contest going to come down to which one can scare us the most? And won’t that be jolly?

Elsewhere are stories that the Clinton campaign may sue somebody because the Texas primary/caucus rules are so convoluted. Other stories say the Clinton campaign is putting out advanced spin on the next round of primaries — if Obama doesn’t win states in which Clinton is currently favored, then it’s because people are having second thoughts about him. Ezra Klein explains that this is dumb.

Well, all’s fair in politics. Either these tricks will work, or they won’t. We’ll see.

Which brings me to E.J. Dionne’s column. Dionne compares what is happening in the Democratic Party now with what happened in the Republican Party in 1980 —

The Reagan metaphor explains why Hillary Clinton was in trouble from the moment she failed to knock Obama out of the race in Iowa. During the past two months, Democrats in large numbers have reached the same conclusion that so many Republicans did in 1980: Now is the time to go for broke, to challenge not only the ruling party but also the governing ideas of the previous political era and the political coalition that allowed them to dominate public life.

“This is our time,” Obama says in a short sentence full of meaning. The conservative age is as dead now as the liberal age was in 1980. Jimmy Carter, in many ways not a liberal at all, became the whipping boy for the end of liberalism. George W. Bush, no pure conservative, has come to symbolize the collapse of conservatism. “It is time to turn the page and write a new chapter in American history,” Obama says — exactly the sentiment of the Ronald Reagan who invoked Tom Paine.

The frustration of the Clinton campaign is understandable. Like George H.W. Bush, whom Reagan defeated for the presidential nomination in 1980, Hillary Clinton has worked very hard, knows government from the inside out and would clearly provide the country with a safe set of hands. The Clintonites argue, fairly, that there is no way to know if Obama can live up to The Promise of Obama.

That’s right; we do not know. But will the scare tactics chase voters to Clinton, or will they reinforce the sense that’s it’s way time for something completely different?