The Party’s Over, Hillary

In terms of substance, Hillary clearly had her paws all over the health-care fiasco, the demise of which I’m sure she sincerely believes is the result of a vast right-wing conspiracy. She is also party to the Travelgate fiasco, which if not as illegal as William Safire would like us to believe, was certainly not adroitly handled. She is very probably involved in other even less ethical transgressions that the public would be forced to read about for years in the New York Post (the paper of record) should she run and/or be elected. Her child-care pensées likewise have the firmness and nutritional value of semi-freddo blancmange. And she seems charmless, humorless, and probably not much fun to get drunk with (D’Amato and Moynihan, by contrast, are most certainly big fun in their cups). Her iconicity shows how hard up we progressives are for feminist heroes and how hard up we New York Democrats are for any one who will play north of Peekskill. The Clintons have wasted our collective time with all sorts of bad behavior and they have managed to arrogate to themselves most of the decade. They should have the good grace to leave the next one to someone else. Wendy Shalit for Senate.