Hillary's Talking Without Speaking

You know, I'm beginning to think that Hillary Clinton has John Kerry disease. Actually, that's an insult to present-day John Kerry, who actually manages to speak with some clarity when he's not telling jokes. But 2004-era Kerry tied himself up in knots trying to explain his positions, trying not to commit to one side or the other and rhetorically tie his hands. Hillary is exhibiting these tendencies.

First there's the three-page letter she sent to Iowans trying to explain her vote on the Lieberman-Kyl amendment seeking to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

In a three-page letter mailed directly to Iowans, Clinton (D-N.Y.) insisted her vote last month to name Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group does not put her in league with the Bush administration.

Clinton wrote that she was about to vote "no" on the measure, but changed it to "yes" after Democrats removed language she thought President Bush "could use to justify military action."

"After the problematic language was removed, it was clearly a vote for stepped-up diplomacy, not military action," she said.

This is as dense as anyone saying the initial authorization for Iraq was a vote for more diplomacy. We've seen all too often that this President will use votes like this as mandates for military action. Why would you even give him a pretext for doing so? It's just disingenuous to paint the Lieberman-Kyl amendment in that manner. Yes, the worst was taken out of it, but what remained is still propagandistic and unadvisable. Nothing in that amendment will lead to negotiation, but it may lead to war. Why take the chance?

Similarly, Clinton managed to say a lot while saying nothing at all in this interview with Michael Tomasky:

I want to start with some questions about foreign policy and terrorism. If you become president you'll enter the White House with far more power than, say, your husband had. What is your view of this? And what specific powers might you relinquish as president, or renegotiate with Congress - for example the power to declare a US citizen an enemy combatant?

Well, I think it is clear that the power grab undertaken by the Bush-Cheney administration has gone much further than any other president and has been sustained for longer. Other presidents, like Lincoln, have had to take on extraordinary powers but would later go to the Congress for either ratification or rejection. But when you take the view that they're not extraordinary powers, but they're inherent powers that reside in the office and therefore you have neither obligation to request permission nor to ask for ratification, we're in a new territory here. And I think that I'm gonna have to review everything they've done because I've been on the receiving end of that. There were a lot of actions which they took that were clearly beyond any power the Congress would have granted or that in my view that was inherent in the constitution. There were other actions they've taken which could have obtained congressional authorization but they deliberately chose not to pursue it as a matter of principle.

I guess I'm asking, can a president, once in the White House, actually give up some of this power in the name of constitutional principle?

Oh, absolutely, Michael. I mean that has to be part of the review that I undertake when I get to the White House, and I intend to do that.

That's a vow to "study the issue," which is pretty much what Bush says when someone asks him about climate change. In truth a President cannot be reasonably expected to give up their own power. Congress must seize the mantle. But these are not encouraging signs. It's the kind of answer that's like a nice finish on the coffee table, but doesn't end up making it look any different.

Later in the interview, she completely equivocates on the issue of Michael Mukasey's Attorney General confirmation, saying she's going to "look closely" at his record and was "troubled" by some of his comments. Again, talking without speaking. And then there was the fallback position that there's nothing the Congress can do on Iraq because "we don't have the votes," which is not true at all (how about not passing a funding bill?).

In some ways this is endemic to the politician, but it's just the kind of gobbledygook answers that really damaged Kerry in 2004. For some reason we may be headed right back to the same type in 2008.

UPDATE: I will say that this answer on terrorism shows more intelligence than we've seen in 7 years of Bush:

Do you think that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, or do you think they have specific geopolitical objectives?

Well, I believe that terrorism is a tool that has been utilized throughout history to achieve certain objectives. Some have been ideological, others territorial. There are personality-driven terroristic objectives. The bottom line is, you can't lump all terrorists together. And I think we've got to do a much better job of clarifying what are the motivations, the raisons d'être of terrorists. I mean, what the Tamil Tigers are fighting for in Sri Lanka, or the Basque separatists in Spain, or the insurgents in al-Anbar province may only be connected by tactics. They may not share all that much in terms of what is the philosophical or ideological underpinning. And I think one of our mistakes has been painting with such a broad brush, which has not been particularly helpful in understanding what it is we were up against when it comes to those who pursue terrorism for whichever ends they're seeking.