Let me finish tonight with this thought. I heard years ago that the difference between success and failure is captured in a single word: purpose.
Muhammad Ali was beaten in ring but always came back. He was never beaten in what he stood for. Mike Tyson was beaten in the ring, beaten in life. What he stood for is anybody’s question.
Boxing expert Teddy Atlas told me this and I hope to never forget it. He was giving me life advice and I cannot thank him enough. Everyone takes a beating now and then, often because you didn’t do something you should have—or did something you shouldn’t have—or you simply had a bad day, a bad week, a bad year. It’s what you do then that sets people apart.
Look at the magnificent job Secretary Hillary Clinton has done the past four years. She lost the nomination fight in 2008 and looks better now than she ever did. She looks happy, confident, strong. She looks like a winner.
She certainly looked like a winner today before a group of senators and congressmen that included the serious, the comic, and of course the absurd.
Good for her, I say. As her legions of followers like to say, “Go, girl, go.”
If she doesn’t run for president, I can’t think of why. After today, I can’t think of a reason out there. If she performs in the campaign anything like she did today, she’ll win and win big. If she performs as well as she did today—look out!
Chris Matthews