Things sure are getting weird with Hillary. And I don't just mean the arresting spectacle of the 60-year-old presidential candidate in her suit and good jewelry knocking back Whiskey and yukking it up with some working-class fellows in an Indiana bar. Hey, I'd be driven to drink too if my poll numbers were plunging as rapidly as the Dow. And if I got booed by a labor crowd in Pittsburgh the next morning when I was only trying to point out how un-elitist and non-bitter I was.
Really, how rude!
Come to think of it I might be confusing the timeline and details of those events. My memory's not so good. But apparently neither is Hillary's, as evidenced by her repeated telling of Bosnia snipers firing on her entourage at the airport when they, um, didn't. Oh, if only I had John McCain's sparkling facility for getting facts straight, like his impressive grasp of Sunnis and Shiites and who's fighting whom in Iraq.
But, seriously, Hillary's desperation for blue-collar votes and her tiresome attacks on Obama are leading her down some awfully treacherous trails. Last night's debate made her look positively petty and peevish. Why does she insist on linking Obama to personalities that have no relevance to his candidacy or character? Like former '60s radical William what's-his-name, a guy most Americans have never heard of. For that matter, when did George Stephanopoulos, who came across as flacking for Hillary all night, start channeling Sean Hannity?
Speaking of transformations, Hillary has gone through some startling personality changes herself. This incarnation took its latest form when she morphed into a gun aficionado while wistfully recalling an episode from her childhood. To wit:
"You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught be how to shoot when I was a little girl," she told a group of supporters.
You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their grandchildren. It's part of culture. It's part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it's an important part of who they are. Not because they are bitter."
No, but they are a bit miffed over losing their jobs to outsourcing, their homes to rip-off mortgage artists, having to shell out $4 a gallon for gas while the oil companies continue to rake in record profits and pay a good chunk of their taxes for a war they don't want in Iraq.
I just hope Hillary doesn't start marching in front of some Planned Parenthood in the Heartland to appeal to the right-wing. Or suddenly profess her concern for the "unborn" as John McCain did the other night during the Hardball college tour before a crowd of Villanova students. Her base could have issues with that.
According to the latest Washington Post poll, they may already be disenchanted with her. Sixty-two percent of voters believe that Obama is better able to win in November, while only 31 percent now say Clinton is more electable. And 58 percent say they don't think she's honest and trustworthy. Not good.
Well, at least now I know where Hillary stands on gun control. I think.