Opinion: Hillary Clinton: Online with a Web chat Thursday

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Wondering what Hillary Clinton would say about Barack Obama’s qualifications for the presidency in the wake of her husband’s less-than-laudatory answer to that question in a recent interview with ABC News?

Theoretically, the chance to quiz the senator from New York on Obama’s resume will present itself at 9 a.m. PDT Thursday.

In a video sent today to those on the e-mail list for her failed presidential campaign, she announces she’ll conduct a Web chat at that time on HillaryClinton.com.

Ostensibly, it’s part of her ongoing effort to stay in touch with her backers and hear of their concerns.

But as she notes at the start on the video promoting the online chat, there remains that little matter of retiring the hefty campaign debt she incurred in falling from the frontrunner’s perch in the Democratic presidential race and ending up an also-ran to Obama.

She offered thanks in today’s message to those who have contributed money that helps, as she put it, ‘pay the small vendors’ for services rendered to her campaign.

No mention, of course, of the big vendor whose bill represents a significant chunk of the debt -- Mark Penn, who fresh from helping derail Clinton’s White House run has been dispensing occasional wisdom at Politico.com.

She does mention Obama -- once, and with emphasis. She applauds efforts to ‘work together’ to elect him ‘so we will be able to fulfill the goals we care so deeply about’ (universal healthcare prime among them although, as she stressed during their marathon primary battle, his plan on that issue is not near as sweeping as hers).

-- Don Frederick