Hillary Backs Licenses for Immigrants

Hillary Clinton came out in support of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants today, in an effort to separate herself not so much from her competitors but her own flubbed answer to a question about them at Tuesday night's candidate forum. At the forum she drew gleeful opprobrium from the other candidates for flip-flopping; first she was for then against the hot-button proposal from beleaguered New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Clinton's support signaled the campaign's calculation, Nagourney notes, that it's more important to  counter current charges that she's evasive than to avoid taking a position that might come back to haunt her in the general election. She also tried to retake the high ground after being sacked by her opponents for the stumble. On her web site she accused the six men of engaging in the “politics of pile-on,”  not the "politics of hope."