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Blathering About Bill and Hillary: The Right's Lazy Attacks

Charles Krauthammer's column in the Post today accomplishes nothing. Offering no evidence, Krauthammer posits Americans are gripped by a "deep unease" over the possibility of a Hillary Clinton-Bill Clinton co-presidency. He doesn't use polls or anecdotal evidence to support this claim. He has done no interviews. He just declares this to be true.

And as for why Americans are wary of such a situation, Krauthammer insists that it goes beyond the psychodrama of Bill and Hillary's troubled marriage, but repeatedly falls back on that troubled marriage to make his point. For example, take this paragraph, with my thoughts in bolded brackets:

The cloud hovering over a Hillary presidency is not Bill padding around the White House in robe and slippers flipping thongs. [invokes Bill's infidelity while insisting that Bill infidelity is not the issue] It's President Clinton, in suit and tie, simply present in the White House when any decision is made. [why is that a bad thing?] The degree of his involvement in that decision will inevitably become an issue. [it will? evidence?] Do Americans really want a historically unique two-headed presidency constantly buffeted by the dynamics of a highly dysfunctional marriage? [presents no evidence that Americans object to "unique two-headed presidency"; again invokes Bill's infidelity while insisting Bill's infidelity is not at issue]

I can't help but note that considering how disastrously this administration has run the country, most Americans would probably welcome Bill Clinton back in the White House. But that's not the point. The point is Krauthammer has no evidence. The sort of sloppy, lazy writing on display in that paragraph is found throughout his column.

The real culprit here may be the standards of column writing, which have gotten so low that even columnists for the Post and the Times can blather on without making any substantive points and without including evidence. Here's a great example.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/02/07 at 6:57 AM | Comments (1) | Email | Print

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