Hillary Lite

Gerard Baker writes in the U.K. Times Online about the vaulting ambition of America's Lady Macbeth.

It's about Hillary Clinton.  Here's a tidbit:

As you consider her career this past 15 years or so in the public spotlight, it is impossible not to be struck, and even impressed, by the sheer ruthless, unapologetic, unshameable way in which she has pursued this ambition, and confirmed that there is literally nothing she will not do, say, think or feel to achieve it. Here, finally, is someone who has taken the black arts of the politician’s trade, the dissembling, the trimming, the pandering, all the way to their logical conclusion.

Fifteen years ago there was once a principled, if somewhat rebarbative and unelectable politician called Hillary Rodham Clinton. A woman who aggressively preached abortion on demand and the right of children to sue their own parents, a committed believer in the power of government who tried to create a healthcare system of such bureaucratic complexity it would have made the Soviets blush; a militant feminist who scorned mothers who take time out from work to rear their children as “women who stay home and bake cookies”.

Today we have a different Hillary Rodham Clinton, all soft focus and expensively coiffed, exuding moderation and tolerance.

"Soft focus" she is.  She's become "Hillary Lite."  Every serial number -- every defining belief -- has been filed off to produce a smooth, clean product for public comsumption. 

That's what "let's chat" is all about -- a pretense that Ms. Clinton is now a blank slate -- a tabula rasa.  Come, let us reason together!  You can't be offended by my beliefs because I haven't formed them yet.  Literally, "what's not to like?"

Will anyone be fooled by it?

Many will be.  Some already are.