"Clinton Gives War Critics New Answer on ’02 Vote" - NY Times (Feb 27, 2007)
Hillary Clinton announced that she wouldn't apologize for her vote on the Iraq war. THIS is the kind of experience democrats have been lacking.
The truth is, the people who have been clamoring for an apology not only won't be the ones to decide the general election, but they won't decide the primaries either. They are the fringe left, vocal like all fringe groups but ultimately without muscle. Clinton didn't toss them aside willy nilly. She did what a smart politician does. She polled, found out the numbers and made the expedient decision.
Democrats are sick of losing. They were sick of it when they nominated the lackluster candidate John Kerry. The idea was that at least he could win. Well, now we have a candidate who actually fits that bill (so to speak).
David Brooks' sincere defense of Clinton's motivations for the vote notwithstanding, it's all about positioning. The fact is, the margin of the vote was not "1". Her vote didn't make the difference. So, with that in mind, she took the opportunity to show that a woman can vote for the use of force so that she could not be viewed as potentially weak on defense in 2008. If the senate had not voted to authorize the use of force, Bush would've done it anyway. The evidence of massive resources being redployed from Afghanistan to Iraq long before the vote is well documented now. And then, we would've had the same vote that republicans are blocking now - to not fund troops already in combat. Guess what? A republican majority would not have voted against their president any more then than the current republican minority has now.
So, what does this all mean? It means Clinton's vote was meaningless and it's only purpose was to craft her image as tough, which it did according to polls, so the apology thing is total bullshit.
Only 2 things on earth will stop this war: A democratic president or 60+ antiwar votes in the senate (preferably both). Since neither is going to happen before 2008, it's pointless to focus on the 2002 vote. The question is, who can make it happen in 2008?
I was a supporter of John Edwards in 2004. I find him intelligent and charming and I was annoyed that he couldn't seem to speak off script. I supported him among a dismal field of candidates. Next to Obama and Clinton he looks like a child trying to play with grown ups. Obama just issued his first apology for calling the lives of soldiers killed in Iraq "wasted". This was a defensible thing to say, but he chose to back out of it.
Hillary did something you hear a lot about in Washington by rarely see. She actually DID take responsibility for her vote. She accepted the losses she might incur from it and stuck to it. Does "sorry" from Edwards bring one soldier back to life or hasten getting any of the troops currently in harm's way to safety?
As it turns out, this whole idiotic thing about an apology will be meaningful after all. It shows the oh-so-rare image of a democrat with a spine. She's going to make a great president.
9 comments:
Obama apologized for his politically shitty choice of the word, "wasted." That was a good call, even as those poor dead fuckers WERE wasted. Dead for no worthwhile cause, that's wasted in my book, but I'm not a presidential candidate, and I therefore don't have to think twice about the things I say. He needed to get his point across with a little more class, and he didn't. And therefore he apologized for not using the more politically correct term, "in vain." I think it was a smart move on his part.
Now... Hillary refusing to apologize for her Iraq invasion vote ain't quite the same deal; She doesn't need to apologize, but she does need to man up at some point, and admit she fucked up by voting in favor of the invasion. She hasn't done that, and I don't believe she ever will. She is a plastic, political whore, and she will say and she will do, whatever she believes she needs to say/do in order to grab the next rung on whatever ladder she's currently trying to climb.
Y'know what I believe about Ms. Hillary? I believe she'll be disappointed if she ever finds herself President, as she'll be bereft of the one thing in life that excites her, that being a higher position than the one she currently resides in.
Unless, of course... she decides she can someday become God.
Cheers
Ok, I have a longer response for you under this one, but just right off the bat I want to point something important out.
Hillary critics think she wants power for power's sake. Ok fine, let's say she does. What do you think she'd do with it? Do you really think you'd see a pointless pre-emptive war costing over 100,000 deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars? The same people who hate Hillary now hated Bill when he was in office, but he looks pretty damn good now doesn't he?
And for those who like Bill but not Hillary, why is ambition ok for a man and not a woman?
The left likes to pretend that they live in a bubble where there is no other point of view and that the whole country would/should agree with them if they were just smart enough. Well, even if that's true, they aren't. And they aren't going to be anytime soon. The reality is that this country is very conservative so any advancement of the liberal agenda is a chess move. You don't get something for nothing. Does that make the liberal who understands that a whore? Does it matter what you call them? Look at the evidence. Who's the only democratic president since 1976? How successful was the one we had in 1976?
It's time for the left to wake up and smell the $6 coffee before it becomes $12.
now.....here's the rest:
Criticizing her for ambition is a little weird. Even Obama has admitted that he hasn't risen at the rate he has without his own ambitions and maneuvering. As Maureen Dowd recently pointed out, the man has written 2 books about himself and he's only held national office for 2 years. Wanting to be president is the first and most essential qualification of the job. I don't fault Obama for that, but you can't then point the finger at Hillary. Hell, she had 8 years of having to play stupid, bake cookies and pretend she wasn't capable of sitting in the big chair when in fact she was a partner in Clinton Inc. This woman has paid her dues.
As for Obama's apology, it was expedient to apologize but what would've been inspiring would've been to see him stick to his guns and make a clarifying statement "wasted as 'in vain'" and then follow up with "That's the whole point, each life wasted on this war is a tragedy. I'm running for President so that it won't happen again". He could've pivoted and used the incident to underline the point of why there needs to be a change of leadership and how it isn't just numbers dying over there but actual lives lost.
Oh well... pulling back the focus a little it was a neophyte mistake. Something to start keeping a list of where our jr. Senator is concerned. If he had said that in the 3rd debate in the general election it might've been a bigger problem.
The hairsplitting on what Clinton needs to admit - well, it's hairsplitting. She already said she'd do it differently if she could do it again, blah blah blah. It's not worth even getting into the details about how the vote was actually for authorizing the potential use of force and not specifically for an invasion, but look, in the end, like I said, her vote didn't make a difference and it will ultimately help her in the general election so.... unless you really think she's in favor of the war, it's doesn't amount to anything. I’m also sure that showing she can not acquiesce under pressure will help her more than if she had.
If you’re really concerned about her motives, people need to keep some perspective here. You're talking about a 60's liberal wasp from Chicago who learned about real politik from being married to slick willy who was so slick he served 2 terms as president. Don't confuse a chess move with the ultimate goal of the game. She's not the one who has or will start a war and get tens of thousands (hundreds by the time it’s over) of people killed just to line the pockets of a few friends who hold stock in the military contractor who will be given the no-bid contract to supply EVERYTHING. Before Bush/Cheney came along it wasn't such an outrageous idea to give a president a little power with which to negotiate. I'm not saying she didn't know he'd do it. I think if she had cast the swing vote, she would've gone another way. Under the circumstance tho she was thinking about 2008 and if you’re really concerned about doing the greatest good, that was the best move, cause it will help get her elected.
You can’t underestimate just how afraid this country is, men and women alike, of having a woman with her finger on the trigger. There was a recent poll in Arizona, the state that is the only one in the nation not to recognize MLK’s b-day as a holiday, about whether they’d rather have a black man or white woman as president. Black man won. Normally, that would be a nice gesture against racism, but considering the source, it’s really a statement about the ground any woman needs to cover in this country to reach the top. If Hillary shows up with anything less than iron balls (in a box presumably) – she can forget it.
Clinton has already been part of a winning team. She's seen how it's done. Will Russ Feingold ever be president? How about Biden, Kennedy, or even Obama. Liberals like to pretend that there are more of them then there are. This country is not liberal. It never was. Even at the peak of the 60's "revolution" Nixon got re-elected and most of the “liberals” from that era are now CEOs and have their own IRAs invested in Halliburton.
Clinton has been playing her cards perfectly. All she needs to do is keep on keeping on and she'll be president. And when she is, we'll be a hell of a lot better off then we are now.
And if she pretends to be "non-liberal" through non-liberal actions... uh, then she's a liberal pretending to be a centrist for the sake of popularity... or, uh, wait a minute, I'm getting confused.
A couple points of contention:
1) I loved having BJ Billy as my president. I did not enjoy the baggage that came along with Slick Willy, in particular, his defacto co-president in chief, Ms. Hillary. I did not vote for Ms. Hillary, and I was appalled at the power she was given, (or the power she grabbed,) from her hubby.
2) I don't see Dubya's reeson for the invaziation of I-rak as having anything to do with business opportunity. If I did, I'd have more respect for the idjut. In my opinion, the invasion was based soley upon personal revenge for Big Daddy George HW, and a religious agenda to accelerate the "end times," and thereby bring Jee-ee-sus back to our world a little sooner than Mr. Nails-in-his-hands had planned. Call that a crazy theory, but the idjut in chief IS an admitted religious fruitcake...
As for our nation being much less liberal in population than the left prefers to believe, brother I do believe you are dead nuts correct. And I actually see this as a good thing. While I'm adamantly against the continuation of our current "war on terror," I am almost equally opposed to the agenda in general, that the left wing would offer our nation if ever the libs would wake up one morning and find themselves in the power chair.
I LIKE freeways, and I like new home construction, and I like offshore oil wells, and I like the right to bear arms, and I like seeing welfare and other subsidies cut and/or removed completely... and dangit man, that's one of the reasons I LIKED President Billy so much. He warn't not no tree-huggin' stinkin' hippy liberal like his wife, and that suited me well.
Ah... crap, none of the contenders for 08 give me a warm fuzzy, but so far I see Obama as closest to my own views on how we oughta do it. We'll see how fast he falls from my grace when he starts talking about welfare.
And woman/black/male/white/yellow/transgender president? That does mean something to a large segment of the population, but I couldn't give a shit just as long as President One-armed Malaysian Transvestite shares my values on social, but more importantly, fiscal responsibility.
2008 is gonna suck. We're alllll gonnnna die...
Cheers
Brother, I don't like the what you say but I sure like the way you say it :).
You're right, she's a lamb in wolf's clothes. You'll hate her when she wins. But you'll get a lot of what you liked about Bill. He's a lot leftier than you seem to think too. They were always partners. Remeber the bit about him being a bit fat liar? :). He fooled a lot of people but he was always pushing left as far as he was able. It's always been about give a little to take a little. You'll be getting the exact same management team you had in the 90s. Do you really think her whole healthcare thing wasn't approved by the hubby? It was a collective mistake of the whole administration, not just her. The reason Bill gets away with it and Hillary doesn't is because he had years of being a southern governor to shore up his "I'm not a hippie" creds - even tho we all know damn well he inhaled. His ambition was also greater than anyone's. He was happy to leave the campaign trail in 1992 to attend an execution. Did he really favor the death penalty? No, he favored getting elected so he could save more than one A-hole's pathetic life. That one move put him ahead of H.W. in the polls and he never turned back.
As for W's religion. Check out a Frontline on the subject. I think PBS online has it available. His religion is a total sham. Basically his wife was going to leave him and shatter his life if he didn't join this group in TX that turned out to be the Federal Holiday Inn Prison of religious rehab. He met more business contacts there than anything and it also gave him the only poker chip he had to getting into the family biz. H.W. wasn't too popular with the Jesus Freaks so W was dispatched to shore them up. He's about as religious as I am, which is ziltch.
Take another look at the biz side of the equation. We're talking hundred of billions of dollars funneled right out of your pocket and mine directly into the coffer of ONE single firm that Cheney had helmed. A publicly traded firm at that. Start to wonder just how many PACs, trusts, think tanks, and just plain scary individuals can share that pie. It's ingenious in a way. In one swoop they funded their whole movement for a generation or more. Add to that the record oil revenues and broker revs - Goldman Sacs had a profit rise of 60% this year - all this money isn't lifting ALL boats, just the ones who were tipped off. Consider that it's pre-arranged and not just a fluke of competition and the dynamic of how the right is so well funded starts to come into focus. I worked for Credit Suisse (doing graphics) when Enron was going on. Also Merryl Lynch, and few others (I was a hired gun). I can tell you, if any of these wall st people start earning more than 15%, somebody's going to be facing jail time sooner or later. Insider trading is a joke. It's the only real kind of trading there is.
Obama, he's not your man. He made his name helping the poor in Chicago and even tho he's tried to position himself, republicans are already letting him have it for his 100% party-line voting record in the senate. He's as liberal as they come and I don't think he has the stomach the Clintons do for making real trades.
Actually it's too bad about your feeling regarding Clinton, she's your best bet in this party.
Incidentally, I like new home building too. Particularly low income homes that can replace the disaster that "projects" brought on inner cities.
"Transvestite shares my values..."
Maybe Guiliani is your man after all :).
I have no problem seeing Dick Cheney as a steely-eyed money man, caring more about his two-mommy granddaughter's inheritance than his partys agenda, or even his nations future - but I've never bought into W's supposed nose for business. W's business record prior to his current job as chief writer of rubber checks, looks more like John Belushi's than Sam Walton's. I just don't see the retard as having enough business sense to pick up a hundred dollar bill if he saw one lying on the sidewalk.
W quit cocaine and demon alcohol with the help of some dead, long-haired hippy named Jesus, and I really do believe that his born-again-ness is the real deal. I don't think he could have stayed away from the Lincoln Bedroom liquor cabinet all these years if he didn't have The Lord whispering in his ear all the time... Of course, at his autopsy, the docs will probably find a micro receiver sewn into his ear, tuned to a transmitter in Cheney's cell phone... "George - This is God speaking. I want you to invade Iraq, George, and I want you to commission Halliburton to build ten-thousand arks..."
Maybe you're right about Hillary bein' the gal for me. If Obama's Plan for The Poor is the traditional lefty boilerplate mantra of "helping" the poor by paying the poor because the poor are poor... well then he needs to have a long sit-down listen session with me, so I can fill him in on all the little Halliburton type Housing Authorities all over this country who use that game to stuff their own pockets, and the pockets of their friends, all in the name of "helping" the poor. It is an amazing industry, and because it's spread so far and wide, it's a bigger money-grab than Halliburton can ever hope to become.
But I suppose that's for another time to discuss.
I'll take a closer look at Prince Obama, Champion of the Poor, and at Ms. Hillary as well. Could be you're right.
Cheers
There's actually quite a bit of speculation about whether he has kept his nose out of the juice in the last few years. But that aside, the money thing, and the war thing, and basically EVERYTHING was Cheney's idea. Cheney and Rummy had this thing planned since '91. Look at it clearly. Cheney was the Defense Sec. in 91. Then while he's out of office he's the CEO of a military contractor and organizes them to be the obvious choice for the next war. Then he's put in charge of finding the VP candidate for W and picks....himself! He also never divested from Halliburton. After some press attention he put his holdings in a blind trust, but he's STILL got CEO level stock options with them.
W was and is just window dressing. The fact that his religion isn't sincere is just a side note of his pathetic little life. It's how he got to be the one chosen to be the window dressing. Rove saw how useful the evancgelicals could be when Poppy didn't get them to come out in 92. All of sudden the weird loser kid who got sent to Jesus camp is useful.
Anyway, it's history now.
Check this out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/us/politics/19clinton.html
the end of that link is:
us/politics/19clinton.html
Y'know, this brings up a major problem for myself, and I would imagine many millions of American voters as well:
There are no presidential candidates who come even close to representing my and my fellow normal dude/dudette type voters' wants and needs.
My perfect candidate:
Favors: abortion rights, separation of church and state, gay marriage, balanced federal budget, strong military, States rights, gun ownership, overhauling legal immigration/work visa programs, racial profiling, three strikes, legalization and taxation for all currently illegal drugs, tax relief for the middle class, oil exploration/extraction, weakening of the EPA in favor of business development... and a basic philosophy of leave people the fuck alone, and quit stealing their Goddamned money... or at least, steal maybe 20% less of it.
He/she/it abhors: preemptive war, religion (particularly Islam,) Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, Berkeley, Hollywood, The Bible Belt, The Pope, and most importantly, he/she/it would despise the American welfare/subsidy system as it currently exists, and would work towards implementing a handout system based on reward for merit, and forced sterilization for all who continually refuse to properly supervise their own reproductive organs... okay, that last one ain't never gonna fly, but a man's gotta have his dreams - right?
Hillary, Obama, McCain, Guiliani... none of 'em come close to representing my wants, so as usual, it's going to come down to a choice of lesser evil - and that was how we wound up with Dipshit for the last 7 years.
Wake me up when it's time to vote, and I'll just flip a coin. I'm gonna go bury my head in the sand and take a long nap.
Cheers
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