Her Way: A New Book Explores Hillary's Iraq Problem and Why It's Not Going Away

Sometimes I really hate the fucking internets tubes. ARGHHH!!!1!

OK, I'm calm now. The thing worked.

Her Way, a new book about Hillary Clinton, documents her entire Senate career and the triangulation and shiftiness in her stance regarding the war as she tried to keep step with public opinion.

That little game of political chicken Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton played during the Senate vote on the Iraq spending bill Thursday night would not have surprised you if you had read Her Way, the new book by New York Times investigative reporters Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr. which I've just finished.

Neither Clinton nor Obama were on the Senate floor when the voting began. Sources tell me that Obama was holding off to see if Hillary would go first. When it was clear she wouldn't, and time was running out on the vote, he headed into the chamber and voted no. Less than a minute later, Clinton barreled in and did the same.

It was yet another example of her instinct for "followership." Anyone willing to bet that if Obama had voted yes, Hillary would still have voted no?

The idea that Clinton is all tactics and calculation -- and would rather stick her finger in the air to see which way the political wind is blowing than actually take the lead on something -- is painstakingly documented in Her Way. Forget the stuff about Monica, Gennifer Flowers, Vince Foster, Hillary's record as a lawyer, or the Clintons' 20-year plan for both of them to become president. The money chapters are the ones on Iraq. When it comes to Hillary's shape-shifting stances, explanations, and votes on the war, Gerth and Van Natta offer a definitive and chilling portrait of a politician solely driven by political expedience -- even when it comes to life and death matters such as Iraq.

It's a portrait that will likely prove to be an anvil around her neck throughout the 2008 campaign, unless she can somehow transform herself from political weather vane to political leader.

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