I am no Blitzer fan, I think he brings a whole host of neocon presuppositions to his work and slides them into almost everything, but even I was surprised at how bad he was. Most of his questions were all-too-obvious recycling of Republican talking points, and he spent a lot of time demanding yes or no answers to questions that weren't real. (Yes or no: would you support torture if it prevented a million winsome orphans from dying tragic, painful deaths?)
I was also surprised at how irrelevant Hillary Clinton appeared for much of the night. Her subjects appeared to be whether or not she waffled on a variety of topics and whether or not she's comfortable in the kitchen. Maybe it was because she really seems constitutionally unable to give a straight answer to anything (and please: Iran is responsible for killing American soldiers? Who's she channeling, Joe Lieberman?)
But my visual of the event was a bunch of guys talking seriously about Pakistan, and Iran and health care and the economy, and workers' problems, followed by Hillary saying she couldn't remember the NAFTA debates that clearly. Maybe I am way off base, but it struck me that she may be being marginalized, rather cleverly, so all we hear from her is that she's really, really, really not triangulating and furthermore, it's time for a woman to be president. Way to go, cable media.
It would help if I had some sense of what her goals are for this country if she were to become president. All I have gotten from her is a sort of Bush redux--she wants to be president to be president; she will listen to me (right!) and it's time for a woman. Granted, replacing Jerry Falwell with Gloria Steinem would be a net plus, but is it enough? Other than that, she wants universal health care without annoying the insurance or pharmaceutical industries, peace in the Middle East without annoying Israel, and free trade without annoying the unions.
Never...gonna...fly.