A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

The Washington Post reports that Hillary Clinton has finally decided to embrace her husband's legacy in her run for the Presidency. Among the reasons for this earthshaking tactical decision is the following:

Obama has made challenging the 1990s a mainstay of his platform, saying it is time to "turn the page" on the partisanship -- and implicitly the scandals -- of the Clinton era. This is a major part of his case that he is the most electable Democrat, able to expand the electoral base to states where Hillary Clinton is still viewed as polarizing.

But the Clintons regard any discussion of the Nineties to be good for them, evoking memories of a booming economy and a time when the United States enjoyed greater popularity around the world.

And of course, Hillary Clinton wants to throw into the trash heap of history one of the major policy initiatives that helped bring about "a booming economy" and "greater popularity" for the United States; free trade. There are few more reliable routes to economic prosperity than trade liberalization and to Bill Clinton's credit, he recognized and acted on that fact when he was President.

Too bad both Clintons have backtracked from that stance in the effort to elect Hillary Clinton President. Power should never be achieved as a goal in and of itself. It should be achieved in the service of more noble efforts. Whether the Clintons have adopted their new trade stance because of expediency (the most likely possibility) or because they suddenly, genuinely believe in protectionism, their stance on trade does them no honor. And if implemented, it would do the country a lot of harm.