Fireproofed—and Firing Away
Hillary Clinton's 'asbestos' wards off her rivals' flames.
Hillary Clinton said she was wearing her "asbestos pantsuit" in Las Vegas, but, more important, she was wearing a smile and carrying a fistful of ammo and sound bites. It was time to drop her rising challenger, Barack Obama, and she did it with the grin and grace of a Park Avenue gun moll. Asked at the end of a ragged CNN debate whether she preferred diamonds or pearls, she answered "both."
By that time, in other words, she was confident enough to joke about the very thing critics had been blasting her for the previous two weeks: her penchant for taking all sides of all issues.
Better rested and more relaxed, Clinton raced to the center of the ring throwing punches at Obama, claiming that his health plan would leave 15 million people uninsured and that his Social Security plan would require a "trillion-dollar tax increase." Obama counterpunched, but the point is that he was backpedaling for a change.
CNN's Campbell Brown did Hillary the favor of asking about the "boys" who were supposedly attacking her. The senator from New York was ready with an aria of lines—surely written by Mandy Grunwald and maybe even focus-grouped by Mark Penn. Clinton denied that she was playing the "gender card" but, rather, the "winning card." "I understand," she said, that "people are attacking me not because I am a woman but because I am ahead." However prefab, they were good lines—and they worked.
There was even some residual, albeit minimal, virtue in Hillary's having flipped and gyrated on the issue of driver's licenses for illegals. Having decided to change positions—and privately nudged, through intermediaries, Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York to do the same—she was able to give a one-word answer to Wolf Blitzer's straightforward question: Do you favor giving licenses to illegals. "No," she said.
Obama, by contrast, was uncharacteristically bobbing and weaving, saying at one point, "I'm not proposing that we do it," before giving up and agreeing with his own previously stated position. Obama also refused to give a direct answer to Blitzer's question about whether American national security is more important than human rights. Intellectually, Obama was correct in saying that it was a false choice. But that did not prevent Hillary from doing her Thatcher-Meir Iron Lady act. "The first obligation is to protect and defend America," she scolded.
Obama also had to concede to Blitzer that he had failed to vote on an Iran measure he had been lambasting Hillary for supporting. "It's true, it was a mistake," he said.
To be sure, Hillary had her lame moments. She airily dismissed the NAFTA debate in 1993 as a cavalcade of "charts," forgetting, perhaps, that union members think they have lost a million jobs as a result of the deal. And she attempted to defend the idea that people making $97,000 a year are members of the "middle class." That's true enough for some people—the ones who think it's reasonable to have diamonds and pearls.
But when you've had a good night, that's a luxury you can afford.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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