Is DeLong Being Coy?

Brad DeLong does something odd. (link). Weighing Clinton v. Obama, he says:

[T]he Hillary Rodham Clinton who made such an administrative mess of health reform in 1993-1994 could not have run the campaign she has run over the past two years. Thus I am now confident that either has a reasonable shot of being in the top 20% of American presidents.

Why is this odd? Let’s go to the tape:

My two cents' worth--and I think it is the two cents' worth of everybody who worked for the Clinton Administration health care reform effort of 1993-1994—is that Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life. Heading up health-care reform was the only major administrative job she has ever tried to do. And she was a complete flop at it. She had neither the grasp of policy substance, the managerial skills, nor the political smarts to do the job she was then given. And she wasn't smart enough to realize that she was in over her head and had to get out of the Health Care Czar role quickly.

You anticipate me: that is Brad DeLong, writing in 2003 (link). Now, I have a high regard for DeLong, even if he does get off the reservation every once in a while (link). But I think he deserves to be taken seriously—and indeed, I have long regarded him as a principal component of a mosaic that helps to shape my own view of Clinton. In particular: it has always impressed me how much she is disliked by those in a position to know—those who were close to her in the Bill years (if you doubt me, check the list of Obama supporters from a year ago, back when he was still the outsider). In this picture, DeLong counts as a vital component.

Now, I don’t pretend to be a master of the entire DeLong oeuvre, but I’m not aware of any place where he squarely and explicitly addresses his change of heart. In a cursory Google search, I do find one occasion when a commentator threw these words back in DeLong’s face. DeLong’s response? Actually, I am not clear there is a response. DeLong enters a comment—the single word “touché,” but it isn’t clear whether he is responding to this post or another (link).

A Google search for the critical phrase turns up 1,000 hits—a great many, it seems, from Clinton enemies delighted to find such sharp language from someone you might expect to be a friend.

I don’t suppose you would say "friend" just yet (are the Clintons ready to forgive?), but you’d certainly have to say "friendly." I really think the situation calls for a bit of clarity—more explanation on how he got from “there is no reason to think that she would be anything but an abysmal president,” to now, where she is looking at the top 20 percent.

Postcript: I see that Kevin Miller picks up on the point in the DeLong comments (link).