The Iraq Debate Returns

With all the race/gender nonsense in the Democratic Presidential primary, I'm happy to get back to an actual issue. And Iraq really ought to be front and center of the debate. When you're talking about becoming President, your foreign policy should simply be the primary factor, since the ability for a President to set their own course outside of Congress on foreign policy is (sadly) far more pronounced than on domestic policy. So yes, let's get back to the Iraq vote. And I really can't understand for the life of me what the Clintons are doing.

Bill Clinton really wants to blunt Obama's advantage on Iraq. His "fairy tale" comment was clearly about this; it had nothing to do with race. But what is he really saying here, and what is Hillary saying? Nobody disputes that Obama gave a forceful speech rejecting the Bush Administration's case for war back in 2002. The Clintons want to say that Obama hedged on his anti-war rhetoric in 2004 (based on truncating a quote), and that he hasn't followed that up with action in Congress. But has Hillary? It was part of Clinton's attack that "Hillary and Obama have the same voting record on the war." Why does that in any way reflect well on EITHER of them? If your argument is "Obama is just as bad as my candidate on the war," it's not exactly a ringing endorsement, nor does it help get us any closer to ending the war. Not to mention that there are other mischaracterizations involved in this as well.

Plus, Obama's speech in 2002 DID matter. That was the time to be forceful and outspoken against what George Bush was trying to do in Iraq. And Hillary Clinton did not lead when the country needed her. Dick Durbin says this pretty well:

“I’m really troubled by his questioning the sincerity of Barack Obama’s opposition to the war in Iraq,” Durbin said. “I really think it is unfortunate to question Barack’s sincerity on the war. He has been there from the start, opposing this war.” [...]

“It was not easy to be against that war back when we cast that vote in October of 2002,” Durbin said. “I was one of 23 who voted against the war. Barack was supportive — one of the few candidates speaking out strongly against it in Illinois.

“If President Clinton had opposed that war as strongly as Barack Obama at the time, it would have helped a lot of us who had voted against authorizing an invasion.”

Instead, Bill did not speak out, and Hillary voted for the war, and now she's trying to lie about it and sell to us that a vote on the "Authorization of Military Force in Iraq" wasn't a vote for military force. She's also claiming that Bush would have gone to war anyway so... it was responsible to give him a Congressional authorization to do so? She also continued on this horrendous line of argument that she "trusted" Bush to use every diplomatic recourse and then was "misled" by him, and frankly I don't want anybody in the White House gullible enough to be "misled" by George Bush (I suspect she wasn't misled at all, but simply thought that war was a good idea, which is also disqualifying).

What I really don't understand is why the Clinton campaign would want to highlight this issue. It puts her in the worst possible light, and reminds everyone that she voted for the war. As Matt Taibbi said on Bill Maher's show, "We have 70% of the country opposed to the war and may wind up with 2 pro-war candidates. If that doesn't tell you how fucked up the system is..." Obama's campaign isn't exactly making the war a centerpiece of his campaign. He mentions it in his stump speech, but that's about it. His recent commercials haven't brought it up at all. Why the Clintons would pre-emptively discuss her war vote is baffling. She's simply not on solid ground here.