© Dan Habib/Concord Monitor/CorbisClinton speaks with reporters in Manchester, N.H, during the 2008 Democratic primary.
Forget all that troubled history, and a Clinton run for president in 2016 seems like a no-brainer, an inevitable next step after the redemption of her past few years as a well-regarded, if not quite historic, secretary of state. But remember the record, and you'll understand why Clinton, although rested, rich and seemingly ready, has yet to commit to a presidential race (people around her insist it's not greater than a 50-50 proposition), even as she's an overwhelming favorite.
If Clinton says yes, she'll have access to a bottomless pool of Democratic political talent and cash to match all those hyperbolic pronouncements about her inevitability. If she doesn't run, the single biggest factor holding her back will be the media, according to an informal survey of three dozen friends, allies and former aides interviewed for this article. As much as anything else, her ambivalence about the race, they told us, reflects her distaste for and apprehension of a rapacious, shallow and sometimes outright sexist national political press corps acting as enablers for her enemies on the right.
Clinton isn't insane, and she's not stupid. "When you get beat up so often, you just get very cautious," says Mike McCurry, her husband's former press secretary, who joined the White House team to find a first lady traumatized by the coverage of her failed Hillarycare initiative. "She [has] had a very practical view of the media. ... 'I have to be careful, I'm playing with fire.'"
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Wow, that's a question with at least a dozen answers, all of them piling up into a formidable roadblock.
My best guess is that it is what went on in Benghazi, and that Benghazi Attack was the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
There's a hint of a M. O. in that. It's troubling to her, as it could open up into a campaign-wrecking scandal at the drop of a hat.
She's not sure of her footing.
Her red phone rang, and rang, and rang.
A hint of what goes on behind the scenes in a very twisted foreign policy, of which she played a significant part.
A foreign policy that is still torching off Civil Wars as I write.
A foreign policy that is highly skilled at pointing fingers while others do the shooting and dying, while the perpetrators slip out the back door.
Nagging doubt. It could be her under the Bus for running interference.