I didn’t get a chance to read the op-ed Tim Graham referred to below until just now (scroll way down). I think Tim is right. Everyone knows I’m a fan of Beinart’s, but I think his column is a bunch of wishful thinking. It seems like he stumbled on the conclusion first and the argument second. One point Tim didn’t make: Peter tries to portray the “campaign” against Hillary as a fundamentally partisan conservative enterprise, as if conservatives have been working overtime to paint her as moving to the right (he notes a conservative publishing “imprint” is coming out with a (potentially) anti-Hillary book. He leaves out that the author isn’t a conservative).
But I’ve been paying a little attention to this story and I’d say that the majority of the Hillary’s-positioning-herself-as-a-centrist stuff has been pushed out there by liberals and “non-partisan” journalists. Peter notes that in his opening graf but then seems to insinuate that conservatives are driving this supposed myth. I don’t see how he can make that case.