Hillary's Turn

My story on Newsweek hiring Karl Rove as a contributor drew plenty of comment, which is hardly a shock. "Readers will have to decide if he's simply an apologist," Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham tells me.

Jane Hamsher at FiredogLake:

"Newsweek is hiring Karl Rove to be a spokesperson for the 'right' to balance Markos of Daily Kos. As the man who took Bush's approval rating from 88% to 25%, I think he's a perfect."

Lots of headlines about the McCain incident with the woman who called Hillary that word. The women at Slate's XX Factor blog are not pleased.

Melinda Henneberger: "Thank you, Madam; the potty-mouth McCain supporter (or was she another plant?) who called Hillary the B word just handed Clinton five points minimum -- and the kind of gender-based martyrdom she so benefited from when Rick Lazio looked like he was zooming in to throttle her during their 2000 senatorial race. Brava!"

Meghan O'Rourke: "I agree with Dahlia and Emily that gender is a big part of it for many of the Hillary hatas out there. A while back I mentioned a study that suggests we see 'manly women' as 'pretenders,' which does seem to suggest that lots of us murkily associate not toeing-the-gender script with phoniness. Meanwhile, I don't think the media's new focus on 'gender' is working out that well for Hillary; it seems like she polled better when we weren't contantly being reminded that she is a . . . woman and her competitors are . . . men."

How did that get out?

Melinda: "Despite my irrational and - until now, at least -- enduring soft spot for John McCain , laughing one's senatorial socks off when a colleague is called the B word is no less objectionable than if he had indulged a (theoretical) Obama hater."

And this scooplet from "Inside Edition": "The McCain supporter is former New York advertising executive Linda Burke. Burke, who once lived on the city's exclusive Upper East Side, just off Fifth Avenue, now resides in the ritzy retirement community of Hilton Head."

Still, good news for McCain (remember when the media buried him last summer?) in this Fox poll:

"While John McCain trails front-runner Rudy Giuliani in the race for the Republican nomination, slightly more Americans see McCain as a straight-talker and as honest and trustworthy than Giuliani; furthermore, for the second month in row McCain performs better against leading Democrat Hillary Clinton in hypothetical matchups than any other top-tier Republican."

Rudy leads McCain 33 to 17, with Fred Thompson at 12.