Its two years before the 2008 election, yet there are already a number of books by mainstream conservatives on the need for the right to stop Senator Rodham-Clinton’s inevitable run for the Presidency, and giving advice on how to do so (see here, here, and here).

I have previously commented on how the right used Clinton hatred in the nineties as a substitute for a limited government agenda. However, I think something more is at work in the current fear of a Hillary Clinton presidency: the mainstream right has been listening to the libertarian warnings regarding how President Rodham-Clinton may use the President’s new “anti-terror” powers against her political enemies. The current outbreak of Hillaryphobia is thus official conservatives’ odd acknowledgment that critics of the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretaps, the “unitary” executive, indefinite detention of American citizens, etc. have a point.