Time's cover story on Hillary by Karen Tumulty is predictable, largely channeling anonymous Clinton aides and strategists about her forthcoming campaign for the White House. There are no conservatives quoted. It only gets unpredictable when Tumulty turns the corner to acknowledge (mean-spirited) conservatives. Typically, in her starry-eyed reflection on the "outsize status of both Clintons," and how her race will be "brutal," she exaggerates the number of anti-Clinton tomes by a factor of five or ten, but she surprises by actually naming the forthcoming Jonah Goldberg book, as well as the Brent Bozell-Tim Graham media-bias packet:
Hillary has already figured as Lady Macbeth in enough volumes to fill a bookmobile, and in the next year the publishing industry will be adding to the collection with such titles as Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton and Whitewash: How the News Media Are Paving Hillary Clinton's Path to the Presidency.
It was fairly devoid of the gooey-squishy Clinton-loving quotes that old-school Clinton lovers like Time's Margaret Carlson produced, but there were a few paragraphs that could make a conservative queasy, such as:
FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, THE Clintons have been the most fascinating tango act in politics. Sometimes they moved perfectly in synch. Other times, they had to make up the steps as they went. But always each has known what to do when the other stumbled. She became a Clinton not when she married Bill but after he lost his first bid for re-election as Arkansas Governor and she realized the state's voters weren't ready for a first lady who kept her last name.
Now the choreography is reversed, and it is Hillary's time to take the lead.
And the closing paragraph:
Can they win again? In her memoir, Hillary closed by writing of her final moments in the White House Grand Foyer. The longtime butler there "received my last goodbye embrace and turned it into a joyous dance. We skipped and twirled across the marble floor," she writes. "My husband cut in, taking me in his arms as we waltzed together down the long hall." A farewell, perhaps. Or maybe the Clintons will yet want to have another dance.
On Time.com, a "photo essay" narrated by Time photographer/Teresa Heinz Kerry buddy Diana Walker sounds like a proud aunt recounting how Hillary is a terrific fit for the job of a Senator.
