According to Politico, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “offers a detailed account of the deadly attack on the American embassy in Benghazi — and a pointed rebuttal to Republican critics who’ve laced into her over the incident — in a much-anticipated chapter of her forthcoming book, Hard Choices.”
“The 34-page chapter is Clinton’s most complete account to date of the attack and its aftermath. Her tone is less defensive than defiant: Clinton takes responsibility for the “horror” of the loss of life in Benghazi, but puts it in the context of “the heartbreaking human stakes of every decision we make” — and she accuses adversaries of manipulating a tragedy for partisan gain.”
Good. A fighting Clinton is always a site to see. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that 55% of Americans say they support Hillary Clinton running for president. The same poll finds 66% of Americans disapprove of Karl Rove raising questions about Hillary Clinton’s age and health in advance of her potential presidential run.
“The lopsided negative reaction to Rove’s commentary — just 26% approve of his topic of criticism — includes majorities of every age group as well as Democrats and independents. Republicans split evenly on the issue, with 45% approving and 46% disapproving of Rove broaching the issue.”
“That’s a clear majority even without an announcement, though the scrutiny that comes with an actual run would surely impact those numbers. Remarkably, her support is just about unaffected by the passage of time: She had 57 percent support for a presidential run a month after President Obama’s reelection, when the post-2012 glow was still on. The question for Clinton, as her book rolls out and that rolls into midterm campaigning, is whether this support is a ceiling or a floor. She’s faced a nonexistent Democratic field and a disorganized Republican one. That won’t last forever.
Well, we are about to find out.
Look, we’ve collectively decided, as a country, that the occasional massacre is okay with us. It’s the price we’re willing to pay for our precious Second Amendment freedoms. We’re content to forfeit the lives of a few dozen schoolkids a year as long as we get to keep our guns. The people have spoken, in a cheering civics-class example of democracy in action.
It’s hard to imagine what ghastly catastrophe could possibly change America’s minds about guns if the little bloody bookbags of Newtown did not. After that atrocity, it seemed as if we would finally enact some obvious, long-overdue half-measures. But perfectly reasonable, moderate legislation expanding background checks and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines was summarily killed in the Senate for no reason other than that a sufficient number of United States senators are owned by the NRA. It made our official position as a nation nakedly explicit: we don’t care about any number of murdered children, no matter how many, or how young. We want our guns.
MICHIGAN–GOVERNOR–EPIC-MRA: Gov. Rick Snyder (R) 47, Rep. Mark Schauer (D) 38.
MICHIGAN–GOVERNOR–Detroit News/WDIV-TV: Snyder (R), Schauer (D) 35.
MICHIGAN–SENATOR–EPIC-MRA: Gary Peters (D) 44, Terri Lynn Land (R) 38
MICHIGAN–SENATOR–Detroit News/WDIV-TV: Peters 40, Land 35.
OREGON–SENATOR–PPP: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) 50, Monica Wehby (R) 36.
OREGON–GOVERNOR–PPP: Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) 49, Rep. Dennis Richardson (R) 36
GEORGIA–SENATOR–REPUBLICAN RUNOFF–Public Policy Polling: Jack Kingston (R) 46, David Perdue 34.
GEORGIA–SENATOR–Public Policy Polling: Michelle Nunn (D) 45, Kingston (R) 45; Nunn 48, Perdue, 46.
NEW MEXICO–GOVERNOR–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–Research & Polling Inc.: Gary King (D) 22, Lawrence Rael (D) 16 and Alan Webber (D) 16.
HAWAII–SENATOR–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–Honolulu Civil Beat: Sen. Brian Schatz (D) 44, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D) 39.