Obama and the Media Invoke Senator Clinton's Pre-war Position By Way of Selective Memory

"It is time for new leadership that understands the way to win a debate with John McCain or any Republican who is nominated is not by nominating someone who agreed with him on voting for the war in Iraq." Senator Obama on January 30, 2008

Keith Olbermann refers to it as the "Obama rebuttal," the argument that Senator's Clinton's "experience and that of Republican rival, John McCain led to their participation in the worst American foreign policy mistake in decades if not centuries, a single Senate vote in 2002, authorizing the use of military force in Iraq."

The statement is accurate, the way a broken clock is accurate twice a day. It looks at a single date, October 11, 2002, when both Clinton and McCain both voted for the Iraq resolution, and then ignores everything they said and did thereafter. If you look at the entire record, the pre-war positions of Hillary Clinton and John McCain were polar opposites. Any suggestion otherwise is more than a little misleading.

Clinton's position was substantially similar to that of Hans Blix, who believed that Saddam would never allow intrusive WMD inspections without the threat of force. But once the inspections were under way, neither Clinton nor Blix saw any basis or pursuing military action. McCain's position was like Dick Cheney's. He didn't care about inspectors or evidence of WMD. He just wanted war, period. He demanded as much in his speech at the Center for Strategic & International Studies on February 13, 2003, one day before Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei presented the U.N. with their initial findings - that there was nothing there. And, just like he does today, McCain justified his stance by perverting history.

Obama and the media prefer to suggest some equivalency between the pre-war positions of Senators Clinton and McCain, conflating the October 2002 vote with the decision to invade in March 2003. As I've explained before on HuffPost, this is less than entirely honest. Republicans and their lapdogs have been pulling this same stunt since 2004. Here was the Republican party line used against presidential candidate John Kerry:

"[L]arge stockpiles of mass destruction do not exist. Saddam may have had the intent, the interest, but they're not there. John Kerry is obviously going to try to take advantage of it. Every time he does you hear George Bush and Dick Cheney saying, `Well, that's interesting senator, because you voted to authorize the war.' ... [T]hus far, what President Bush has been able to say is, "Well, I believed they [WMD] were there. Former President Clinton believed they were there. John Kerry believed they were there. If it was a mistake, it was an honest mistake." That's his view." Tim Russert on Today, September 17, 2004

"That's his view," said Russert. But what about the facts that Russert kept from NBC's viewers? John Kerry did not "vote to authorize the war" without exhausting all other means of peaceful resolution. On October 2, 2002, John Kerry said, "The vote that I will give to the president is for one reason and one reason only, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections." [emphasis added] Nor did John Kerry "believe" that the WMD were there at the time of the invasion. As he said, on March 14, 2003, "Nothing I have seen in the intelligence over the last years suggests to me that in terms of threat to the United States that there is, at this moment, such a compelling rationale that there is a distinction of weeks or months." In other words, Kerry said Blix should have all the time he needed.

Back then, Russert blurred this clear-cut distinction to make the Republicans look better. Now, Olbermann and others blur that same distinction to make Hillary Clinton look worse.

Read John McCain's speech at the Center for Strategic & International Studies to get the full effect of his verbal grandiosity and hysteria - very much at odds with that aw-shucks persona we see on television. And then compare it with Senator Clinton's statements at the time.

"Today, new threats to civilization again defy our imagination in scale and potency. I believe Iraq is a threat of the first order, and only a change of regime will make Iraq a state that does not threaten us and others, and where a liberated people assume the rights and responsibilities of freedom. ... "Proponents of containment claim that Iraq is in a "box." But it is a box with no lid, no bottom, and whose sides are falling out. Within this box are definitive footprints of germ, chemical and nuclear programs, and from it has come blood money for Palestinian terrorists, and support for the international terrorism of al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam."

The evidence for these "definitive footprints of germ, chemical and nuclear programs," from which comes "support for the international terrorism of al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam," was nowhere in the NIE. (A "footprint" means there's an industrial infrastructure, which is more substantial than a few suspicious trucks or aluminum tubes.) Here's what Mohamed ElBaradei reported, with his usual 100% accuracy, on the "definite footprint of a nuclear program" one day after McCain's speech:

"As I have reported on numerous occasions, the IAEA concluded, by December 1998, that it had neutralized Iraq's past nuclear programme and that, therefore, there were no unresolved disarmament issues left at that time."

Senator McCain then gave his phony analytic framework:

"For a policy of containment to work, as it did in the Cold War, four components are necessary: reliable allies; a clear goal with a consistent doctrine; the economic and military capability to enforce the doctrine; and the political will to support the demands of the policy. ...We enjoy none of these assets today with regard to Iraq.

"Today, Iraq is growing stronger, not weaker, under a policy of containment. We are also dealing with a regime driven more by the unstable character of a risk-taking mass murderer than by the caution that mutually assured destruction encouraged in an enemy with a more intelligent appreciation of its vulnerability.
...

"The United States does not have reliable allies to implement a policy to contain Iraq. West Germany was a front-line state in the Cold War, as Saudi Arabia is today a front-line state and key "ally" in the confrontation with Iraq. During the Cold War, West Germany welcomed the deployment of hundreds of thousands of Americans and hundreds of military installations on its soil; placed few restrictions on American forces stationed there; worked hand-in-glove with us to conduct military training and exercises; and permitted us to station tactical and theater nuclear missiles on its soil sufficient to defend Western Europe.

Except the U.S. military was stationed on land, sea and air throughout the Persian Gulf, in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates and in Saudi Arabia. Backstopping U.S. force, if necessary, were Israel's significant military resources.

Then there's McCain's delusional insinuation that Iraq's military power was ever comparable to that of the Soviet Union. McCain was ignoring that other dirty little secret, which was apparent to anybody who took a cursory look. The U.N. sanctions worked. Notwithstanding the kickbacks to Saddam, which involved skimming off the top, Iraq's industrial capabilities had been decimated by the sanctions imposed after the first Gulf war. As ElBaradei told the U.N. Security Council,

"[D]uring the past four years at the majority of Iraqi sites industrial capacity has deteriorated substantially due to the departure of the foreign support that was often present in the late '80s, the departure of large numbers of skilled Iraqi personnel in the past decade and the lack of consistent maintenance by Iraq of sophisticated equipment."

Senator Clinton's position was far more prosaic, given her affinity for the facts. For her, military action was always subject to one simple question, can we avert the threat of WMD by some other means? Here's what she announced to the media:

"Hillary Clinton tells Irish TV she is against war with Iraq," Irish Times, February 8, 2003

"Hillary Clinton prefers 'peaceful solution' in Iraq," Associated Press March 3, 2003 "[Clinton said the US] should continue its attempts to build an international alliance rather than going to war quickly with Iraq...[I]nspection is preferable to war, if it works, the New York Democrat said."

Senator Obama, like any honorable politician, goes after his opponent by framing the past in a way that's advantageous to him. Fair enough. But neither he, nor the media, are recounting the complete story in an entirely fair and evenhanded way.

Comments

[Beowoof]

Hillary, John Edwards, and John Kerry did not say....it's not the right time! No! Exhaust all efforts and then we'll vote! They all voted for war, they all lost and will lose in the presidential because of it. Their generation, who saw that waste of human life in Vietnam voted for a new one. Some of us don't care why.

[TheRealMacDaddy]

Theere are specific instances in Human history that we identify as "Defining Moments". These are times one can point to and say right here something happened, whether it be good or whether it be bad. Yes Sept. 11, 2001 was one of those defining moments. These points in time can be argued and debated from here on out but it does not change their importance, does it?

I agree with the many other contributers here. Sen. Hillary Clinton's defining moment came when casting a crucial vote to wage war she gave that authority to George W. Bush. Everything she said prior to and everything she has said since amounts to a Hill[ary] of beans.

I am not so aged nor blinded by the Clinton 'mystique' that I do not remember the days leading up to the "VOTE", I remember her and almost every single member of Congress (yes, both side of the aisle) puffing up as so not to appear unpatriotic. It was even suggested back then that Sen. Clinton cast that vote with her eye to the future and her eventual run for the Presidency. She knew she would need to be able to show centrists and independents that she was as tough as any man.

Her miscalculation was she could not foresee that the War would go on and on and on and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, it was not the short little jaunt that Bush had predicted. Thus her vote to send 5000 Americans off to their deaths has become an albatross for her.

Sen. Clinton has already shown her lack of foresight and inability to make good judgement. Coming back at a later date and time to say, 'I'd like to take a Mulligan on the Iraq vote' shows she is still just pandering for the nomination. Who do I want answering the telephone at 3:00 in the morning? Not her...I might wake up to find we've nuked Canada. She demomstrated an inabilty to make a solid decision and now won't take responsibilty for her past actions, no amount of spin can change her "defining moment" and that sounds alot like George "Dubya" Bush to me, how about you?

[AliDaKat]

I just cannot get over the fact that Senator Clinton didn't even bother to read the bill, and then went ahead and voted yes on the single most important vote of her senate career.

Senator Clinton would be a much better President than John McCain, no doubt about it, and I will support her if she wins the nomination, but based the actions taken on the night she added her voice to the 'yeas' on Capitol Hill, she was never my first choice for President.

Bill Richardson 08 :)

[1question]

I agree.

Sen. Clinton is guilty of legislative malpractice. The failure to read and understand the intent and true meaning of things is my primary issue with her.

"...it's NOT about the words...it's the results that count...!"
---- Sen. Hillary Clinton [Feb., 2008]

Sen. Clinton voted to authorize an unjust war in a nonaggression country...I believe to be part of the many war crimes committed since 9/11.

Millions of innocent souls lost...billions more of wasted resources.

"...it's NOT just about what you say...but (it’s always) what you do..."
---- (my grandfather) [Xmas 1962]

It's NOT just the position papers and speeches...it's always be...THE VOTE.

Are we suppose to forget about that...!?!?

[BJMS]

This whole thing is the biggest FAIRY TALE I've ever heard!! Hillary Clinton was FOR this war for YEARS - not just once in 2002...She didn't change her tune until the public did...NICE try...

[doxyluv13]

David, this is a disgrace. I'm so glad I read the newspaper everyday so I"m immune to such blatant dishonesty.

If your assertion about Hillary's war views was true she would have mentioned it loud and clear before now. Instead she has super-parsed her position pretending she was for enhanced inspection when she voted for war, or the approval of Bush's ability to go to war, which is the same thing.

Beyond the war vote itself, Hillary's conduct around this issue has shown her to be temperamentally unable to admit error. In the 11 contests in a row Hillary's lost, I've never heard one statement from her campaign about what they were doing wrong and what they needed to improve. Instead they blame others for her mistake. Sure this is Hillary's most serious character flaw.

The sad truth is that Hillary voted to give Bush his war because she was either too timid to say no, or because she was really in favor of going to war with Iraq.

John Edwards admitted his mistake and apologized for it and it ceased to be an issue for his candidacy. It may well turn out that Hillay's whole campaign founders on her expediency in voting for the war and her dishonesty about why. So be it.

[ms.understood]

I certainly hope that you aren't so duped by the newspapers that you don't see what the facts are. As a matter of fact, all media has become so biased that no one should really believe very much that's printed.

[efranklin]

Obama and the media invoke what? As if they're somehow working in tandem. I'm sure there's a late night comedy skit you want to point us to? The problem is that Hillary's position on the Iraq War has been a convoluted and incomprehensible one. She wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to be both the dove and the hawk. It is no surprise that this comes across as evasive and inauthentic. These are character traits that Clinton would do well to rid herself of as soon as possible, because they are wreaking havoc on her electability. Regretting, as John Edwards did, her Iraq War vote would have been the shrewd move to make a long time ago.

[Marrob]

David, AWESOME ARTICLE but of course the "Obama-Worshipers" are drunk on the kool-aid and will call you a liar. They don't want to hear the truth when it comes to Hillary, they just want to beat Hillary in the primaries even if it means a lose to McCain in the beneral. This primary is the "ABH Primary".

[MichaelDeane]

The only ones who drank the kool aid are the Clinton supporters who deny her record but it is simply inconvenient to the campaign she is trying to run.

I am an Edwards supporter who is now supporting Obama, specifically for his Iraq position. Edwards apologized for his vote and it was a non factor for me. However Clinton and her team made a calculated decision to support the war because 1. she was going to run for President and 2. she didn't want to appear to be weak militarily.

So she voted to authorize the war. That decision was wrong. She made a cold, calculated decision and erred. She has blood on her hands.

Now she is trying to parse her position with the nuance. But anyone with anything going on between their ears can see through this--except the wild eyed kool aid drinkers among her supporters.

You can't have it both ways.

[westview]

FINALLY A LITTLE TRUTH!!! Thanks for a great article that reminds us all of what was actually going on eight years ago. An awful lot of people thought the only way to force further inspections was to back this vote. It was not just the politicians who made the mistake, they were getting a lot of forceful calls from their voters too. Some for inspections some rooting for revenge but all wanting that resolution passed. It is easy for Obama who did not hold national office at the time to deliver a speech on the issue. I would have respect for that if he had come to the nation's senate and followed that up with votes to stop troop funding. Nope. He did nothing controversial or in opposition to the Iraq situation after the election.

[ms.understood]

I totally agree. This guy is not fit for the Presidency. All he talks about is change and how he will usher it in, when he's just like the politicians that he is playing off of. I am one who is not enamored by his smooth talk. Americans are the only population of people who vote for people based on party affiliation or whomever makes them FEEL good, not for the candidate who is best for the job. And anyway, what can we expect from a population of people who voted for Bush a second time? I think it's safe to conclude that they are not very smart!

[Fabienne]

Can't the Obama opponents ever come up with a new metaphor?

[ntmessage]

Olbermann and many in the media not only have amnesia but also must have fired their fact checking departments. Previously I just thought it was all the Newsweek (Obama week) talking heads, but Shuster just back from suspension was trying to pipeline Axelrod talking points on Hardball, before Matthews stopped him yesterday.

Indeed, I seriously believe that many Obama supporters, especially those in the media are *projecting* their anger of Bush onto Hillary with little knowledge of the overall successes of the Clintons in foreign policy during the 90s. You can argue this is clever politics, but for the media and the so-called objective news programs to exhibit, what is a clinically diagnosable psychosis on the air truly is astounding.

Colin Powell has said he would do it differently if he had it all to do over, as Hillary has said. Frankly, he is more culpable than anyone, since he used his reputation to convince the United Nations to pass the resolution that actually started the war. Cherry picking a long record is just gotcha politics. The world changes every year. Heck it changes every day. Obama has moved his positions around, Hillary should be able to as well. Otherwise, you get Presidents like Bush.

If Obama is as principled his supporters think he is, then he should do something that is actually risky and stand up for principle.

1. Barack Obama should reject all delegates, pledged or unpledged that supported any aspect of the war, even in speeches.

An action like this would actually put Obama on the same high ground as those that unfairly blame Hillary for the Bush Administration and the war.

If he does that, he gets my vote for principle. If he does not he is just a politician like everyone else, but has limited National and almost nonexistent Global knowledge.

There is every reason to believe that Hillary provides a fresh capability to promote real change all over the world. I do believe the worldview that Obama seeks is a lot more like the world during the Clinton Administration. This along with an updating of policy I believe makes Clinton the better candidate on desirable change, foreign affairs and the war.

Plus she has a better plan on ending the war in Iraq.

[Fabienne]

The "overall successes of the Clintons (? was Hillary making foreign policy then?) in foreign policy"? Like stopping the genocide in Africa? Like bombing Iraq repeatedly while imposing sanctions on the country which killed thousands without effectiing any real changes there? Like normalizing relations with Cuba?

[LeeFromVA]

David, Why would a Senator vote for the Authorization Bill? The President has authority to go to war without the Congress. Dubya played the Dems like a fiddle. He knew they were afraid to be on record opposing the war. They would look weak on terrorism and have a hard time with re-election. In Hillary's case the answer is obvious. Her political aspirations for the White House clouded her judgement. That's her problem, she always puts her ambition ahead of what's right. Barack Obama made the correct judgement call. His words on the Iraq war, before it began, could not be written more accurately with the advantage of hindsight. But Sen Clinton refused to even admit that giving Dubya a blank check was a mistake, even with hindsight. She's more concerned with positioning herself politically than she is concerned with what's best for America. Obama's judgement extends far beyond this issue. He has run his campaign in a consistent manner. Have you noticed the press is always asking, what can Hillary do to win this nomination, and everybody has an answer: Find her voice, be hawkish, attack Obama, cry, play victim, laugh incessantly, change her slogan, change her tactic, copy Obama's themes, mock Obama, etc. No one ever wonders what Barack Obama should do. Why? Because we all trust his judgement. We know his response to the sillyness will be exactly right. He plays it cool, and sticks to his message. Then the press asks, why is Hillary losing? As if it isn't obvious.

[LisainNYC]

Agree with everything in your post, Lee, except that the constituiton gives CONGRESS the authority to go to war, not the President.

(Which is why Vietnam was called a "military action" and Korea was called a "police action".)

[VicPerry]

Nope, sorry, seen variations on this article all year. "Selective memory" doesn't do it: people KNEW what that vote was about at the time. Hillary Clinton was counting on America to stay traumatized, bellicose, paranoid and stupid, at least long enough for her to run as the roughest toughest Democrat in the land. For all that's gone wrong this decade, at least her cynical calculation didn't add up.

[Jimbo62]

I challenge you to go back and look at Hillary's speech about her vote, she was trying to look tough, with her eyes clearly on her presidential ambitions. I think it is ironic that she thought that looking tough and swinging to the middle on the war would help her in her future presidential bid and now it is biting her in the ass. Poetic justice at the expense of how many thousands of innocent lives. You apologists should never be able to sleep again with all those lives hanging over your heads. I will never forgive Hillary for giving Bush cover for his damn war. I remember watching Hillary give that speech and screaming at the TV. She enabled Bush and gave legitimacy to the damn invasion. And remember what the title of that damn resolution was. I don't care what she said around that time, how did she vote? How did her vote help Bush politically? She is just as responsible for that bloody war as he was. At that point, she had her own bully pulpit and could have helped to prevent that mess and she didn't. I also get sick of her lame excuse that she was mislead by the intelligen­ce.......I wasn't, I sensed they were rushing to war and really didn't want to continue inspections, why was she so blind to it. Oh yea, trying to look tough to get elected president.

[Kane]

What is it about a bill entitiled, "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002" that is so difficult for anyone to understand?

Mrs Clinton entered this political campaign saying that she was ready to make history. Instead, she and her surrogates have spent considerable time trying to re-write history. Mrs Clinton argued for the war, voted for the war "with conviction", stood quietly watching Shock & Awe, defended her vote, defended the war, criticized the handling of the war while continuing to defend the policy, and refusing to admit that her vote for the war was a mistake.

It's not ancient history. The only selective memory is on the part of Clinton and her surrogates.

[LizM]

Kane,

You must read beyond the title of this resolution to really understand what this resolution was all about.

[ariadne1]

hillary clinton might not have believed in the war BUT she voted for the war because it was politically expedient... this type of person is much more dangerous and hypocritical in my eyes.

she did not care about descending on a sovereign secular nation, throwing it into chaos, endangering the entire populace, setting it back 100 years. she did not care about sending our young men and women into a poorly thought out war zone without proper equipment and without adequate 'troops on the ground.'

she does nothing without first determining how it may help/hurt her. she is a self serving politician... hillary comes first; the country second.

[vanessa04]

Chris Dodd and John Edwards also voted for the war. I guess that also make them self-serving politicians who put themselves first, the country second. Dodd has endorsed Obama. Who, amazingly has no problem accepting the endorsement (even though Dodd helped drive the bus into the ditch).

And it will certainly interesting to see Obama's response if Harry Reid endorses him.

Many of those Democratic Senators who voted for the war were reelected in 2006. Dodd and Edwards were both Presidential candidates at one time. Yet the criticism is reserved for Hillary.

Bias showing much?

[Unrepentantliberal]

Mrs Clinton had her fingers in the wind to see which way it was blowing and followed accordingly. That is not taking a stand on principles or being a leader. Mrs. Clinton excites the republicans in a way that John McCain doesn't. Barack Obama excites Democrats! Case closed.

[Eoin45]

Exactly right.

[EmmaTraynor]

Thanks David, this looks like an interesting piece. I didn't get past the first paragraph, but it looks long and filled with many justifications. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

So here's the thing. I, Emma, knew Bush was going to war, period.

Why would I vote for somebody who wasn't able to read the situation as well as I could?

Well, I wouldn't, of course.

But again, thanks for writing.