John Podhoretz

John Podhoretz

Opinion

Hillary needs to switch to decaf before opening her mouth again

Facing the prospect of a defeat at Bernie Sanders’ hands in Iowa — and what right now appears to be a near-certainty she will lose in New Hampshire — Hillary Clinton apparently chugged five Red Bulls and downing three cans of Mountain Dew before taking the stage at Monday night’s CNN town hall meeting. Then, she began to talk.

Andtalkandtalkandtalk.

She appeared determined to prove to everyone’s satisfaction that she isn’t what Donald Trump says Jeb Bush is. No “low energy” Hillary here, no sir.

If she were running for tobacco auctioneer-in-chief, after Monday night she’d have the race in the bag. Elect me president, she seemed to be saying, and I will speak more words more quickly and with fewer breaks for breathing than any president we’ve ever had.

In this respect, she really did give Democrats in Iowa a choice next Monday when they gather in their caucuses for the first vote of the presidential year. The choice is this: Do they prefer being yelled at by Bernie Sanders or being motormouthed by Hillary Clinton? (I assume the party has already decided against the race’s Propofol in human form, Martin O’Malley.)

In the course of her 45-minute appearance, Clinton wanted to stress her experience in foreign policy as a counterweight to Sanders’ lack thereof. And in the course of her ceaseless patter, she said a few astonishing things.

She recounted a time in 2012 when Israel informed the United States it was getting ready to attack Gaza due to what she called “an unfortunate spate of missiles” being fired at Israeli population centers. So she flew from the Far East to Israel and she talked to the Israeli cabinet and then she went to Egypt and talked to President Morsi and then she flew back to Israel and then there was no war hallelujah she did it.

How wonderful. Only there was a war — in 2014, a year and a half after she left her job as secretary of state.

During that year, Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israeli population centers. Whatever she negotiated had been worth exactly nothing, and indeed by delaying action in response to her diplomacy, Israel was forced into a far more extended conflict than the one it might have fought two years earlier.

That was what we call a failure, not a success.

At another point, she made the astounding claim that only Republicans politicize foreign policy, something Democrats never do — actually citing the experience of the Reagan administration, which spent eight years doing battle with Democrats on Capitol Hill over every single aspect of its foreign policy.

But it’s probably pointless to issue these objections, since the substance of these sorts of events is far less important than the way the candidates perform.

So even though I think Sanders’ economic program is a fantasy and his socialist political philosophy is morally horrific, I’d still say he made a far better impression.

At first, Clinton came across as determined and engaged, but the torrent of words simply got the better of her and the viewer.

By contrast, Sanders seemed passionate in general and utterly charming in specific — meaning, when he engaged with the Iowa voters who were asking him questions. He’s a long-time small-town rural politician, even with his Brooklyn accent, and his talent for hand-to-hand politics is unmistakable and vastly superior to Clinton’s.

Will this town hall make a difference in Iowa and New Hampshire? I have no idea, but this I know: Hillary Clinton, for your own health and for our national sanity, please switch to decaf.