Instant Analysis of Yesterday's Newspaper

More right-wing hackery from the Washington Post:

Comparison To Clinton Is Dismissed
French Counterpart Lacked Substance, Senator's Camp Says

By Anne E. Kornblut and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 8, 2007; A06

There was a time when advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) looked abroad for proof that women can get elected to a top leadership role in the modern world: Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister; Angela Merkel, the German chancellor; and Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile.

But as presidential candidate Segolene Royal was defeated by a conservative man who had been France's chief law enforcement officer, the Clinton campaign was quick to dismiss comparisons between their candidate and her Socialist counterpart across the Atlantic.

Comparisons, plural. So people have been comparing Senator Clinton to Royal. And who might those people be? Well, Post writers Kornblut and Junior Bacon are reputed to be people and, since the article doesn't identify anyone else making the Clinton/Royal comparison, it must be them.

Or maybe the Clinton "camp" spontaneously contacted the Post to dismiss a comparison that no one's made, just to gin up some negative publicity for their candidate. That could happen.

The article also portrays Senator Clinton's advisers as attacking Royal as an unqualified female, thereby implicitly attacking the Senator's feminist credentials:

Unlike Royal, who emphasized her charm and femininity rather than her strength on foreign policy, Clinton has proven her national security bona fides, her advisers said.

Interestingly, the article doesn't name the advisers who bashed Royal with this remark. The article elsewhere identifies two Clinton advisers (Wolfson and Penn) by name, but doesn't attribute this criticism to either of them. How many friggin' Clinton advisers did the Post need to interview to write this manufactured non-story?

The best bit is this:

Some Republicans saw the Royal defeat as an unexpected ray of hope after the victory of Nicolas Sarkozy, who ran a Rudolph W. Giuliani-style campaign of zero tolerance for criminal or civil strife. At the same time, the Sarkozy election gave a boost to the Bush administration, which has never had an ally in power in Paris.

The defeat after the victory? I'm no expert on French politics, but I thought the defeat of Royal and the victory of Sarkozy pretty much occurred simultaneously.

(I also have trouble reconciling Giuliani's "zero tolerance for criminal strife" with his infinite tolerance of criminality within the N.Y.P.D. and his employment of bagman Bernie Kerik.)

The Post loves the Clinton-Royal comparison that no one else is making so much that it's got another article (from Reuters) on the subject online today. Interestingly, these stories reveal that the Clinton "camp" is remarkably on message.

From Kornblut and Junior Bacon:

"Other than the fact that they are both women, they don't have much in common," said Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director.

From the Reuters article:

"One has nothing to do with the other," said campaign spokesman Phil Singer. "Other than the fact that they are both women, they don't have much in common.

Proof positive that even Hillary's staff is robotic!