Clinton's shrewdness on the war

The NY Times Saturday had this article on Hillary's brilliant neutralization on the Iraq war question. It chronicles how she's become a supporter of the anti-war side gradually. Here's the crucial sentence: "Mrs. Clinton’s advisers suggested that she executed the shift with minimal political cost because there was no one moment in which she dramatically telegraphed a turn-around."

The lesson from 2004 was learned. Flip-flop without a defining moment (Kerry voting against war funding). Then you can't be called a flip-flopper, and yet it's very difficult to oppose you on the basis of past positions.

The war vote is obviously a festering sore on the Clinton campaign. But the strategy of avoiding defining moments is brilliant, because it does not refresh the memory of that vote. There's a limit to voter anger as time passes. It's just impossible to sustain anger if there's not a steady stream of reminders or smoking guns or defiance by the politician in the crosshairs. This was the Republican mistake in the 1998 midterm.