Clinton War Machine Losing Its Luster?

Now that Hillary has pulled back the ultrasheer veil of civility and vowed to get truly Clintonian on Barack Obama, attacking (among other things) his character and integrity, I've begun to feel a bit sorry for the fellow.  Whether you're a political adversary or Bill's latest gropee, the well-funded, battle-hardened Clinton war machine is something the business end of which one does well to avoid.

But if this opening salvo against Obama is any indication of what Hillary's got in her powder bag, we may be overestimating the menace.

From a Clinton press release issued yesterday:

Today in Iowa, Senator Barack Obama said: "I have not been planning to run for President for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for."

Oh really?
...
In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want to Become President.' "Iis Darmawan, 63, Senator Obama's kindergarten teacher, remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local language and had sharp math skills. He wrote an essay titled, 'I Want To Become President,' the teacher said."

And his lustful audacity didn't end there...

In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want To Be a President.' His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga "asked her class to write an essay titled 'My dream: What I want to be in the future.' Senator Obama wrote 'I want to be a President,' she said."

Clinton lists a few other (more recent) examples of Obama's Presidential ambitions, but they're still pretty squishy.  "It was clear to me from the day I met him that he was thinking about politics," says a law school classmate, perhaps unaware she'd so devastatingly condemned the man by revealing her impression of his interest in politics.

This also seems like an odd battle for Clinton to want to fight.  Granted, Obama started it, calling her out on the long and unflatteringly navigated and negotiated course she's charted toward the Presidency.  But can she really have expected this counterattack would succeed in equating his boyhood daydreaming with her absolute entitlement and self-styled Inevitability?

If anything, it's endearing to her opponent.  The innocent but daring hopes of a bright young schoolboy vs. the calculations of a sitting First Lady who also dabbled in the politically pragmatic enabling of a powerful sexual predator.  The ultimate underdog vs. the ultimate insider.  Hope vs. due.

Not all Presidential ambitions are created equal.  Whether or not Obama was trying to hoodwink us with his claim, this is not a comparison Clinton wants to make.

(HT: The New Editor, via Ace)