I'm less likely to idealize Henri, who wanted to be king for mostly the same reasons other people want to be king, and was willing to fight a long, bloody war to get the throne.

But yes, he's much more sympathetic than many of the Kings before or after him.

Hal, Hal, Hal - you sound like you're pulling from Henry IV's scripts themselves - a few hundred years have passed - hit refresh to 2003:

In fact, in the last few months, Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly confounded the expectations of people who judged her from her White House years. She has appeared publicly with Newt Gingrich, her onetime political foe. She has called abortion a "sad, even tragic choice." She has stood fast in defense of her vote authorizing President Bush to go to war in Iraq. Over the last few weeks, she has found defenders among prominent conservative commentators who feel she was maligned in a new unauthorized biography.

Yeah, Hillary was in the Senate for 8 years, seen as a team player, a compromiser and hard worker, not a prima donna - and then she ran for president - seemed to be both a humiliating but very growing experience for her - you should read about it, was in all the papers. Maybe what she did in 1996 is trumped by what she did in 2003 or last year?

By the way, did you catch this better quote:

“HC says press has big egos and no brains,” wrote Blair on May 19, 1993, during the White House travel office controversy. “That [the White House is] just going to have to work them better; that her staff has figured it out and would be glad to teach [Bill’s] staff."

Yep, egos & no brains - If you're going to cherry pick from a cherry pick of Hillary quotes, cover the good stuff too - note that when Bush ran for President, he regularly flattered the press and gave them obsequious names, flattered them up - seemed to work - they never bothered reporting that he lied on Social Security or his military service.. Guess that HIllary is pretty perceptive little gal.

Even that quote about being non-bending you introduce with? Looking at it from another side, Blair notes:

“[Hillary] sounded very up, almost jolly,” wrote Blair. “Told me how she and Bill and Chelsea had been to church, to a Chinese restaurant, to a Shakespeare play, greeted everywhere with wild applause and cheers—this, she said is what drives their adversaries totally nuts, that they don’t bend, do not appear to be suffering.”

If she were royalty, it'd be more like Marie Antoinette than Henry IV - "Let them eat shit". I like her the more - wish there were more Democrats willing to take the fight to the opposition, humiliate them as needed.

And the opposition has always made it rather personal. Try the pictures of Hillary here - okay, I'll print a couple to perhaps make you realize she's a rather pretty woman - and people have done their best to taint her with the worst of her photos, the ugly duckling, whether catching her mid-word or that geeky big glasses with farmgirl skirt look - like we all don't have a bunch of 70's fashion looks we'd like obliterated.

(yes, frankly I'd assumed as well that she was homely, except when she started to go for that Sharon Stone look on the campaign 1992 and then someone told her to ditch the headbands and go to a dowdy frumpy boring Washington bangs cut)

Also eye-catching are her takes on Washington & being pragmatic/bending to reality:

July 28, 1993: (eight days after Hillary confidante and deputy White House counsel Vince Foster is found dead) HC says it’s time to stop complaining about DC and its insane process and just figure out how to make the crappy thing work.

HC still in despair that nobody in WH tough and mean enough.

Sept 26, 1993: [Ahead of Hillary’s three days of testimony before Congress on health care reform] She’s begun to see that they don’t really care about the issues but want to feel they’re part of the process. So she’s slobbering over their “craft” as she testifies.

Dec. 3, 1993: [Oregon Republican Senator Bob] Packwood—HC tied of all those whiney women, ans she needs him on health care. I told her I’d been bonding with creeps, she said that was the story of her whole past year.

Now, you give part of a quote, "I know I have to compromise. . .  But I’m just not going to." - do you remember what the whole quote was?

“I know how to compromise, I have been compromised. I gave up my name, got contact lenses. But I’m not going to try to present to be someone that I’m not.”

The name change came when her husband was running for governor in conservative Arkansas and people thought her strange for not taking his last name:

In one of my conversations with the President, he emphasized the point that not only had he not requested her to change her name but he had at first resisted her changing it. “She understood that it was part of a picture that we had painted for the voters that made them feel alienated from us. And she said to me—I never will forget.. . . I respected her so much for this, because she came in to see me, and she said, ‘We’ve got to talk about this name deal.’ She said, ‘I couldn’t bear it—if we’re going to do this, let’s try to win. I couldn’t bear it if this costs you the election. It’s just not that big a deal to me anymore.’ ”

Clinton continued, “And, see, the interesting thing is, Hillary told me she was nine years old when she decided she would keep her own name when she got married. It had nothing to do with the feminist movement or anything. She said, ‘I like my name. I was interested in my family. I didn’t want to give it up.’ And she was a young child when she decided that.”

So she re-made herself to help her husband win. Pretty awful of her, no? at least you seem to think so:

The problem is that nobody can win solely on her own terms, not even Hillary Clinton.  There are always compromises that have to be made.  You just hope that your candidate's compromises don't fundamentally undermine positions that drew you to her in the first place. In this vein, it's hard to be optimistic about Hillary.

Yep, that's pretty horrid - she won't suck up to the press, so let's second-guess her fundamental positions and wring our hands in despair, oh-oh-oh... welcome to doomsville. But I understand you're a bit stuck in the way-back machine, as people have had this quandary about the Hillary duality for a long time, such as this NY Times piece in 1992

"You know, some people think of you as an inspiring female attorney mother, and other people think of you as the overbearing yuppie wife from hell," the reporter said. "How would you describe yourself?"

Such a quandary, eh? Hal brings up Hillary in 2003 - "Senator Hillary Clinton voted to authorize George W. Bush to use force against Iraq" - wow, Hal - you got her - a vote for threat of war and inspections which then found now weapons, supported by Biden, Kerry, John Edwards, Feinstein, Harry Reid, Tom Harkin, Daschle, Schumer, Lieberman, Max Cleland, Mel Carnahan, and the next month the entire UN Security Council. The same effort that the anti-war candidate Obama took 3 years to withdraw from, leaving 20,000 "non-war" soldiers and 5000 military contractors. Why exactly is Hillary the only one carrying the water for Bush's push for war?

Hal: In 1993, first lady Hillary Clinton was front and center in the fight for true health care reform.  As a Senator in 2005 and Presidential candidate in 2008, she supported an incremental approach. 

Gee, I thought this was common knowledge - in 1993 bitchy Democratic Senators like Byrd and Moynihan sabotaged their own party's "Hillarycare", even denying the use of reconciliation the way the 2010 ACA bill finally painfully passed,  while she & Kennedy got SCHIP passed in 1997 and Obama was able to expand it easily in 2009. Many people think expanding Medicare would have been much simpler and less divisive approach than Obamacare, without another bitchy sabotage of abortion by D-Ben Nelson. [hint: if it doesn't have your name, it has a better chance of passage - thus the "Marshall Plan" and not the "Truman Plan"]

"What is so disappointing is that her core principles don't require her to keep up the fight for universal health care, to stand up to (not for) big banks, and to support peaceful solutions to complex international problems." - okay, Hal, I'm losing you - Hillary should learn to compromise, and after getting thrashed by a candidate with no experience who whipsawed from supposed anti-war to surging in Iraq and Afghanistan and who compromised hugely with both banks and big pharma in his 3 major thrusts his first 2 years, you expect Hillary should hold her course and be principled?

"In direct contrast, Hillary Clinton's overweening sense of self prevents her from compromising on small stuff, e.g., she will not display humility or admit fault. "

- okay, now you may have stepped on the stupid rail. First, if you look just a little bit, you find that Hillary's humility including showing up to Congressmen's districts to stump for healthcare - always being prepared unlike many slackers - as well as being deferential during her time in the Senate rather than coming in as a rock star. (try that, Anthony Weiner). She even changed her name to help her husband, and noted his loneliness and difficult times in the White House to forgive one of the most humiliating cases of infidelity in US history. She played Secretary of State to her party's president who'd just beaten her, and proved wrong the contention paraded for 2 years (actually 20) that she was too divisive and would tear things down - nor has she staked out criticism of the same guy despite presumably running to replace him next year.

So what are her big faults? lessee, she got lots of campaign contributions from banks. (more than Obama? he got $67 million from lawyers & investors) She didn't say anything about Glass-Steagal (which isn't the same as "decline", but whatevers). She backed arms for the Syrian opposition - uh, like high on my list compared to decapitation by ISIS, war in Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan, risk of war with Russia.

Aside from that pesky streak that keeps her from admitting "fault" (you mean about Benghazi, or what?), what are the other sins? "policies that would benefit poor, working and middle-class Americans" - you mean war or you mean benefit the poor and average joe? I have trouble how these war issues cross over to economic? Compared with Obama who put his bundler Penny Pritzker in as Commerce Secretary, I just don't understand the big complaint. Call me when the snoozefest is over.

Post deleted - duplicate