Hillary Clinton might be the opponent that many conservatives claim they want to face in the general elections–but that might be true for reasons that are somewhat surprising.

Those clumsy “folks,” as he probably calls them, at the RNC–you know, what remains of the political operation of George W. Bush, that guy whose approoval is less than 30%, that guy who never got any immigration “reform” bill or Social Security Bill or–remember the Orwellian [arghh, so much Orwellian stuff from these clowns–Clear Skies and all that] “ownership society” buzzword from the 2004 campaign? You get the idea. Those people seem to fairly salivate at the idea of Republican candidate taking on Hillary.

But why should anyone listen to the spin from Bush’s people? Bush is finished politically and he was so busy with “war on my mind” that he has practically no major accomplishments to point to. I think there might be some lonely, arid days out at Crawford after the power is gone. (He did get to sign off on quite a few tax cuts though–for his “base” he is actually a great president, and always will be.)

And will Bush ever travel internationally after his term ends (assuming he doesn’t start adding lifetime rule to his other lawless assertions of executive power–Congress has done so little to check him so far, maybe they would accept that as well) when he will probably be indicted by the International Criminal Court as a war criminal?

Is that a bit too far? Well, no. For the great crime–invading Iraq based on falsehoods, the false charges about the WMD, the violation of Iraqi sovereignty–the UN would have to enforce its charter. As it is, the UN seems more interested in legitimizing the brutal, imperial occupation. So for the great crime Bush will likely not be indicted. But for some of the small crimes committed in ICC signatory nations, Bush could easily be held responsible. This would include the CIA “black sites” secret prisons in Poland and Romania (for which I would seriously recommend debate in the European Parliament and the EC for both of their expulsion from the EU superstate, by the way) and the illegal kidnapping of an Islamic cleric in Italy, for which several American agents face trial in absentia in Italy.

So back to Hillary and why the Bush administration types like the idea of running against her. They love the idea of demonizing her the way they and the media did with Howard Dean and Tom Daschle (and by that I mean inflating both of those mediocrities to be leviathons of liberalism). Check out this old Sean Hannity interview with Dick Cheney from June 2005:

‘HANNITY: Not just Howard Dean. I mean, Harry Reid, in front of school children, called the president of the United States of American a loser. Hillary Clinton said there’s never been in the history of this country an administration I believe more intent upon consolidating and abusing power. What is going on in your mind, I mean, as you hear those this? The campaign was over in November.

CHENEY: I sounds to me like…

HANNITY: Seems to be — seems like campaign rhetoric, right?

CHENEY: Well, or beyond it. Maybe Hillary’s spending too much time with Howard.

HANNITY: That’s a good line. And Harry Reid.

[…]’

But as I was saying, the Hillary demonizers are only one group of right-wingers that want to see her run. Another group, the more surprising one, actually wants Hillary to be president because they seem to think that she will be just as much of a warmonger as any Republican candidate, and probably more so. Here’s what Weekly Standard writer and Fox News analyst Fred Barnes said, talking about the Youtube debate this month:

‘FOR HILLARY CLINTON, the presidency is not in the bag. Even winning the Democratic presidential nomination is considerably less than a sure thing. But of the 18 Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, Clinton is the most likely to be the next president. And she did nothing last night in the bizarre presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina, to alter that.

Clinton managed to maintain at least the outward appearance of seriousness in a debate that included a taped question from someone dressed as a snowman, another from a sanctimonious Planned Parenthood official who asked if the candidates had talked to their kids about sex, and an especially silly one about whether the candidates would be willing to be paid the minimum wage as president. Most of them lied and said yes.’

Yes, here we go again with that “serious” thing. (Remember that old Kool Aid commercial?–“Now it’s time to get serious–SERIOUSLY WACKY!!”) And here’s an eerily similar comment from another creep, New Republic writer Michael Crowley:

‘But the one who stood out was Hillary. She shows really impressive poise and confidence, and didn’t lose her stride even in the face of offbeat questions about her gender and voter fatigue with the Clinton and Bush families. I also particularly liked her answer about nuclear power: She explained that nuclear has promise that is hard to tap for reasons of cost and waste–but that instead of writing it off (as John Edwards seemed to) we should redouble technological efforts to address those problems.’

These kind of people supporting Hillary is the one of best reasons yet to support Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton will say anything or do anything to win the Democratic nomination–even friends of the Clintons sometimes let slip occasional truths about their dishonesty–and after that watch out for a Joe Lieberman-style strategy, where she courts the right wing to win the general election.