"The Republicans can't marginalize Hillary. She has already marginalized herself."

Should I talk about Maureen Dowd's column? Not only is she behind the TimesSelect wall, but she's got a sudden big spoiler for the movie "Matchpoint," which I've been meaning to see. Damn it! But the topic interests me: Is Hillary Clinton angry?

Ken Mehlman recently called her angry. Was that misogynistic? Dowd assumes it was. While it's a classic move to fault women for being weak and for being strong, and that's an unfair trap that we need to notice and reject, we need also to avoid the opposite problem of claiming that every criticism of a woman is misogynistic. If women are going to run for high office, we have to deal with strong criticism. Mehlman only said "I don't think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates... Whether it's the comments about the plantation or the worst administration in history, Hillary Clinton seems to have a lot of anger." Slapping the label "misogynistic" on that is too easy.

But here's Dowd's real point:

Hillary's problem isn't that she's angry. It's that she's not angry enough. From Iraq to Katrina and the assault on the Constitution, from Schiavo to Alito and N.S.A. snooping to Congressional corruption, Hillary has failed to lead in voicing outrage. She's been too busy triangulating and calculating to be good at articulating.

The Republicans can't marginalize Hillary. She has already marginalized herself.

This chimes with the Kerry complaint quoted in the previous post. HC seems to be preserving herself for the presidential run, holding back, knowing that the Mehlmans will snap back whenever she speaks up. The Democrats want her to expose herself more, to help them in this election year. And, really, she should. How does that carefulness -- "triangulating and calculating" -- establish that she is strong enough to be President?