Hillary Update; My Take On Bloomberg

I'll be honest. I started out liking Hillary in large part because she is Bill Clinton's wife, and the "Two For One Deal" logic worked for me.

But as I see her in debates and news coverage of her positions, I like what I hear (so far at least.) She listens to the questions and gives thoughtful answers with a good mix of overview and detail, and that are not motherhood and apple pie generalities. The matters on which she prefers to be silent (Imus, Scooter Libby pardon) are ones where she's resisting playing to the gallery which goes to her credit. So I don't find MSNBC's labeling her an "artful dodger" as fair when she chose to avoid scoring cheap political points by playing to the influential Democrat left. I hope she maintains enough of a lead to be not forced to pander.

Talking of leads the latest democrat nomination polls shows her widening it a bit. Even the latest one by the tricky Fox News for June 26-27 shows Hillary:Obama:Edwards at 42:19:10 up from 36:23:12 on June 6-7. This is with Gore running, and without Gore the Hillary:Obama: Edwards numbers are 47:21:13 on June 26-27, versus 41:26:15 on June 6-7.

The general election polls also show Hillary now leading all the Republican contenders, though some leads are very slender and within the margin of error.

There has been some speculation in the comments following my earlier post of June 15th about how Michael Bloomberg as a third party candidate can change the dynamics. I went out on a limb there to give him under 1 in 50 odds of making President, and under 1 in 5 of spoiling it for the Democrat nominee. If anything, I think he'll help Hillary by splitting the votes of the centrists who (irrationally) hate her. Anyone think differently?

If I were Bloomberg, I'd jump into the fray only if both Giuliani AND Hillary did not secure their respective party nominations. That's because with a farther left Democrat and a farther right Republican squaring off, a centrist like Bloomberg would become more appealing to the mainstream. As I've said I think well of Bloomberg and can see myself supporting him in that eventuality, or even in preference to Giuliani. Just so long as polls show that Bloomberg voters are not throwing away their vote like those Naderites or Perotists of old.

Fox Outfoxed In Falwell Death Debate?

The (ultra-)liberals and I think differently on many issues, but distaste for Sean Hannity types is not one of them. Hannity, for those who don't know about him, is the pompous and obnoxious host of "Hannity and Colmes" program on Fox News, who is the toast of the right-wingers, the narrow-minded, the Creationists, the Bushies and the Evangelicals (all these terms describe the same group of people. :-)) His sparring partner on the show is poor Alan Colmes who generally offers fairly weak rebuttals (by Fox design, I'm sure) meant to reflect the leftist view.

Well, following religious idealogue Falwell's recent death, the atheist Christopher Hitchens basically said "good riddance" about him and "Hannity and Colmes" brought him to defend such mean spirited comments. Hannity (like Bill O'Reilly, another Fox host) generally manages to beat down guests who hold views different from him. But Hitchens seems to have withstood his attacks quite well and land in some choice comments of his own. All without raising his voice like Hannity does.

My daughter Rubina sent me this link covering the exchange on YouTube. Hope you can see this before Fox compels YouTube to pull it.

By the way, Fox insists it is "Fair and Balanced" and not a right-wing / Bushy apparatchik. Then how do you explain or justify this show being called "Hannity and Colmes" when the names should be switched per alphabetic order?