Hillary-Bashing Tryouts: GOP candidates try to show they have "man-stuff" to take her down

WP, Achenblog, by Joel Achenbach
09/19/2007
Hillary-Bashing Tryouts

(NOTE: The writer engages in some sarcasm here.)

The candidates in both parties continue to huff and puff on the hamster wheel that is the 2007 presidential campaign. Divorced from meaningful votes by actual citizens, the process has been both frenetic and static: Much verbiage and scampering around the country, but no real movement in the polls or any sense that someone has emerged decisively from the pack. Frustrated by their lack of traction, Republicans will now turn to the next mandatory ritual in the campaign: Hillary-bashing tryouts.

This is where you try to show your fellow Republicans that you have the man-stuff to take down the socialist senator from New York. It's the hypothetical general election campaign: Close your eyes and pretend it's September 2008 instead of September 2007.

A fine example: John McCain last week issued a three-sentence statement attacking Hillary Clinton for something she said in the Senate hearing with Petraeus, and for not repudiating the controversial "General Betray Us" MoveOn.org ad....This feels like practice rhetoric. McCain doesn't actually talk that way on the stump. But his campaign must think that the "not tough enough" theme will benefit the former POW and hurt the woman (women are, as you know, powderpuffs) who is leading the Democratic pack.

Giuliani got into the act with a full-page ad in The New York Times, again attacking Clinton and MoveOn, and has now released an Internet ad that is all about Hillary. Titled "She Changed," it shows her voting for the War in 2002, then changing her tune when she became a candidate....But wait, there's more! Rudy also has come out with a press release attacking Hillary's health care plan...

***

All's fair in love and politics. Wrestling with substantive issues such as health care is appropriate in any season. But I don't remember a primary election in which candidates in one party were so quick to go after a specific candidate in the other party....

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/?hpid=opinionsbox1

shoes and I dare any one of these asswipes to debate her on anything. She would have them for dinner....

Pretty early to be this desperate, isn't it?

The GOP line-up: