There was a moment in the recent MSNBC debate when it became clear, to me at least, that Hillary has this thing down. To be sure, I’ve been a member of the Hillary fan club for some years now. I wrote “The Case for Hillary Clinton” at a time when her people, many of them old friends and even former employees of mine, weren’t allowed to talk to me for fear it would be seen as confirmation of ambitions she was not yet ready to acknowledge. But it is one thing to convince yourself, and hopefully some of your readers, that Hillary could and should be elected president; it is quite another to see in action the traits and strengths you imagined and fantasized, now concrete and real and unmistakable even to skeptics.

The question that had dogged Hillary, and me as I traveled around selling her candidacy, was whether she could ever be her own woman, judged independently of her husband, especially when so much of her experience and credibility dates from her association with him. The answer came in her response to moderator Tim Russert’s question about when, if ever, the American president should approve an exception to the general prohibitions of terror.

It was a complicated hypothetical, worthy of any law school exam or foreign policy seminar. America had captured the No. 3 man in al-Qaida. A bomb was scheduled to go off somewhere in our country in three days. He knew where. If ever there were a case for torture, was this it? As president, would you approve the use of torture in these circumstances or promise a pardon to any interrogator who used torture to beat the answer out of him?

No, said the Democrats – to a man, and a woman. Information secured through torture was inherently unreliable. It would do irreparable harm to the stature of the United States in the world community were we to be seen following the very policies we most harshly condemn. If the United States doesn’t stand against torture, what kind of country are we?

Hillary Clinton gave essentially the same answer as the rest, but Mr. Russert, in her case, thought he had an ace up his sleeve. What if he were to tell her that the person who had helped develop this hypothetical as an occasion where torture might be justified was none other than William Jefferson Clinton, her husband?

Hillary didn’t miss a beat.

He’s not running, she said in essence. I am.

It happened again when he asked her about whether it was good for America to have 28 straight years with a Bush or a Clinton in the White House (assuming two terms for Hillary). Well, she said with a twinkle, I thought Bill was a pretty good president. But then she turned serious. I’m running on my own, she said. I’m going to the people on my own.

It happened a third time when he asked her about disclosure of the donors to presidential libraries or foundations maintained by presidential candidates. She reminded him that she had sponsored legislation requiring such disclosure. He reminded her that her husband’s foundation had yet to make any such disclosure. You’ll have to ask him, she replied, and then smiled and suggested that the two of them might have to discuss it later.

The big news this week is that Hillary topped Obama in fundraising this quarter, besting him in the one area where he has consistently held an advantage. That’s important. But the fact is that both of them will have more than enough money to compete. The big news in my book was last week, when Hillary made clear to anyone watching, as she will to the millions more who have yet to tune in, that she’s running for president as her own woman, as the most qualified candidate in her own right. It’s hard to imagine who could beat that.

Susan Estrich is a syndicated columnist and author.