Huffington on Hillary

As part of the City Arts & Lecture series, we saw Arianna Huffington speak a few months ago, and I was as impressed by her as anyone else we saw this year. (Though I'm going to give Tony Bourdain the top nod.) The thing you have to like about Huffington is that she is absolutely unafraid to speak her mind, sort of like Gore Vidal (who we also saw talk.)

And todays post at her blog about Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations is a gem. A few excerpts:

With Democrats on the rise, her perfect plan seemed to be working out perfectly.

And then suddenly, unexpectedly, came a rumbling in the distance. A rumbling caused by a boy named Barack. Indications are that before the year is out, Barack will officially be in.

All at once, a surge of enthusiasm and support for the boy named Barack is threatening to ruin all of the girl named Hillary's perfect plans -- like sand castles being washed away by a rising tide.

So, my little ones, what is the lesson to be learned from this tale?

That you might as well speak your mind and do what is in your heart because you never know what waits around the corner -- what unforeseen forces are headed your way.

And that's really why people like Obama - he seems, at least at this point, to say what he means - regardless of whether everyone over at Daily Kos likes it, regardless of what his advisors are possibly telling him. Hillary, on the other hand, couldn't be more transparent - coming out against violent video games is positively Lieberman-esque. And doing any sort of canoodleing with Rick Santorum is always inexcusable. I'm not in any way counting out Hilary's hopes in 2008, but I'm glad it's no longer even close to a slam-dunk that she'll win the nomination. Hope to see that tide continue to turn.