STEVE CHAPMAN'S SLIGHT CHANGE OF HEART ON HILLARY CLINTON

Here's Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, from his new column "Why Obama Should Withdraw":

... Obama might do his party a big favor. In hard times, voters have a powerful urge to punish incumbents. He could slake this thirst by stepping aside and taking the blame. Then someone less reviled could replace him at the top of the ticket.

The ideal candidate would be a figure of stature and ability who can't be blamed for the economy. That person should not be a member of Congress, since it has an even lower approval rating than the president's.

It would also help to be conspicuously associated with prosperity. Given Obama's reputation for being too quick to compromise, a reputation for toughness would be an asset.

As it happens, there is someone at hand who fits this description: Hillary Clinton. Her husband presided over a boom, she's been busy deposing dictators instead of destroying jobs, and she's never been accused of being a pushover.

Not only that, Clinton is a savvy political veteran who already knows how to run for president. Oh, and a new Bloomberg poll finds her to be merely "the most popular national political figure in America today."

Now here's what Steve Chapman had to say in 2007 about his new favorite politician, the "less reviled" "figure of stature" and "savvy political veteran" Hillary Clinton:

Everyone knows Hillary Rodham Clinton, and everyone has a different reaction to her. Some find her as irritating as fingernails on a chalkboard. Some find that she makes their skin crawl. Some run screaming from the room. And some want to drink a gallon of rat poison while lying across a railroad track.

...many people in both parties see her as ideologically repellent. Conservatives think she's an arrogant busybody with an addiction to big government. The left regards her as a cynical trimmer who can't admit when she's wrong.

... many people, again in both parties, just can't stand her. You want a uniter, not a divider? Hillary has a way of uniting people who ordinarily would be pelting each other with eggs.

I know that every Hillary-hater on the right (which is basically everyone on the right) was ordered to do a 180 on her the moment it became clear in 2008 that Obama had the delegate math on his side. But this is a somewhat more neck-snapping turnabout than most, no?