Hillary Exemplifies “The Art of War”
People in politics love to quote from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”; Clinton seems to exemplify its famous maxim that in order to win you have to know both yourself and your enemy. She realizes that she doesn’t have the spectacular political talent of her husband or of Barack Obama, and she makes up for it by being obsessively prepared and organized.
On Hillary’s characters, Lemann writes:
Clinton’s biggest mistakes, like setting up her private e-mail server, spring from excessive fear and caution, rather than excessive confidence. She works hard and doesn’t give up. She attends to details. She doesn’t have an exaggerated sense of her own powers. She seems unlikely to believe that she can remake vast swaths of the world with one or two bold strokes, as George W. Bush did after the 9/11 attacks. And, as this summer and fall have shown, she can expertly defenestrate an adversary when the situation calls for it. None of this may thrill those of us watching her campaign, but these aren’t bad qualities in a Presidential candidate, or, for that matter, in a President.