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

[elkabong]

Hillary Clinton voted to authorize the use of force because she was in the position of being a woman with serious presidential aspirations who felt she needed to appear more hawkish than what her natural disposition would dictate and was one of a large minority of Congressional Democrats afraid of looking weak on National Security.

The MAJORITY of Congressional Democrats voted NO on the resolution. They shouldn't be given short shrift.

I don't begrudge Hillary her ambition, I admire her for it, and her fears of looking "too soft" to be CIC were not unfounded. I understand the tremendous pressure Democrats were under from the Republicans from the White House and from our corporate media - but if you succumb, bet on BUSH and lose THIS big, it's hard for me to remain sympathetic

I like a lot of things about Hillary but I wish she had done the strong thing instead of the thing to make her appear strong. She's capable of either. She'd have had my support if she'd chosen the former.

All this should not be construed to mean Iraq isn't BUSH's FIASCO - lock, stock and barrels and barrels. He DID promise to exhaust all options and go BACK to the UN for a new Resolution before invading. The weapons inspectors WERE on the ground in Iraq reporting progress (finding nothing) and pleading for more time when Bush told them to "get out" so he could commit "Shock and Awe", shovel tons of cash to his pals at ExxonMobile and the M.I.C., execute Neocon and free-marketeers' pipe dreams, win re-election and call himself a "War President"­...oh, and hurry "so our troops [could] avoid the brutal Iraqi summer"... five summers ago:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KvDe7Z-ykDo

[Tasies]

Ask the congressmen and senators who oppossed the Iraq resolution.

[PopeRatzo]

Mrs Clinton's "prewar position" doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot since she voted to authorize George Bush's War".

And don't tell me she "didn't have a choice" because there were some brave senators who opposed the war authorization.

Giving in to George Bush's "forever war" is a tough one to forgive. Sorry.

[NABNYC]

What is misleading and dishonest is the way Hillary Clinton keeps trying to change her vote into something other than it was. The resolution that she supported was entitled a resolution to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. It was not a resolution to negotiate, as she now claims.

Hillary Clinton keeps thinking that she can get away with re-writing her history, but it doesn't work. She has claimed that she only supported a resolution authorizing Bush to go talk to the U.N. That's a lie. She has claimed that she was absolutely correct to vote in favor of the war, because Saddam Hussein was such a bad guy. She has claimed that her vote for war was a good decision, but Bush just bungled the invasion. Up until very recently she stood firmly by her support of this war.

Even worse than the idea that she was misled, or she was wrong, is the sad truth: Hillary Clinton voted for this war because she thought that war would help in her quest to become President. She didn't care one way or another if her vote would send this country into the category of international war criminal for starting wars of aggression. Regardless of what she thought about Iraq, there is the bigger question of why she would support a new international policy by which the U.S. claims the right to be the aggressor, to start wars against another country that has neither harmed nor threatened us. That is the shameful posture of tyrant nations like Nazi Germany.

She's never stood up to stop this war, done nothing to denounce the torture (reject and renounce, anyone?), done nothing to demand the reinstatement of habeaus corpus, doesn't care if the Bush Regime destroys the constitution and tramples on our rights. As long as she gets to be president, she just doesn't care. In fact, that should be her new campaign slogan: Hillary Clinton: She Just Doesn't Care.

[jadez]

Hillary knew she was running for President.
Her vote for war, was calculated to help her achieve that goal.

The idea that she never believed Bush would use her vote to attack Iraq is not believable.

Had the 'war' gone well does anyone doubt she would be using it to attack Obama?

And that tells you all you need to know.

[ESerafina42]

John Edwards did the exact same thing, and while he may have truly regretted his vote (especially since it did NOT help his presidential ambitions as he'd thought it would), I personally think that his "apology" was every bit as calculated.

[shrimptonmcclams]

The trick of your piece is simple: conflate Olbermann's and Russert's comments with Obama's. Thereby giving ammunition for supporters of HRC to continue to justify what is nakedly true: she voted yes to AUMF. It's the same trick I keep seeing all over the place. I guess Olbermann, Russert and Obama got together and decided what they would say?

The only quote from Obama that you use is (as if I needed to remind you):

"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"

Here's your words: "Obama and the media prefer to suggest some equivalency between the pre-war positions"

Obama and the media?!!! Give me a f-ing break. Olberman and Russert can kiss my wang. I don't listen to them and I don't care about them and neither should you. This is about the frigging candidates. How about Clinton and Fiderer prefer to suggest some equivalency between Obama and the media?!!!

Add a direct quote from Obama that supports your case and I will consider your point, I really will, otherwise this piece is intellectually dishonest and you damn well know it.

[LDW]

Thank you, David Fiderer, for paying attention to facts, and for actually attempting to understand history, instead of re-writing it.
The media, including many of the bloggers on HuffPo, have been simply regurgitating Barak Obama's campaign propaganda as fact, and riding the wave of emotion he has generated with his speeches and rallies.
It's high time we saw some real journalists at work during these primaries, instead of a throng pushing their way into the Obama fan club, loudly lauding him as they enter.
Obama has employed dirty political tactics and reversed himself in a hypocritical manner many times in the recent past, yet none of this seems to make the headlines, yet, when Hillary Clinton got misty-eyed during an interview, she was seen as a cynical calculating hypocrite. Obama ‘misspeaks’ and the media treats it as a charming foible; Hillary Clinton says something with the slightest possibility of being taken badly and she becomes evil incarnate in the media.
I am a Hillary Clinton supporter, and have contrasted her treatment by the media with Obama’s, but really, this issue isn’t about Hillary Clinton. It’s about the very frightening fact that a politician with a glitzy campaign and a charming smile is steamrolling over the electoral landscape on a mission to become president and almost no one is asking hard questions about him and almost no one is investigating his past political dealings and comparing his present idealistic rhetoric with his past comportment.

[kimm2749]

I totally agree. I am sure there will be a lot of nasty comments made by obama supporters because they seem to have a tendency to be so mean. It is weird. I support Hillary but feel no need to attack obama.

[MichaelDeane]

The problem with his post and your reply is that they fly in the face of being "factual". You can cherry pick detail all you want but it doesn't mean the picture you present is truthful. We know that now especially after 7 years of the frightened frat-boy-in-chief.

The media has NOT been regurgitating Obama propaganda. They are following the person who has won 11 primaries and caucuses in a row. The media likes winners. I'm surprised they hung in with Clinton this long. Could you honestly imagine what would be said if the shoe was on the other foot and Obama had lost 11 straight? Curiously, I didn't notice any complaints or problems with the media from you folks (there are many angry and bitter Clinton supporters denigrating Obama at any opportunity all over the blogosphere) when the Clinton camp thought they were going to steamroll their way to the general election.

It is the Clinton campaign that has employed the dirty tricks, starting with the drug accusations from Bill Shaheen to the ininuations of experience and his faith to the Bill Clinton comments in South Carolina to the so called "plagiarism" to the photo. This has all come from the Clinton campaign and the media now refuses to play along with her denials (the AP had a story the other day on the plagiarism issue with Clinton's direct denial that her campaign had anything to do with it which was then followed by the simple statement that the plagiarism story had in fact come from her camp).

Yet you and your inifinite wisdom contends Obama is running a dirty campaign with nary a shred of evidence.

Clinton has attacked the media constantly and yet somehow expects to be treated well. She and her husband have always had some form of a contentious relationship with the media with that relationship being directly dependent on how things are going for the Clintons.

Obama did not mispeak. Voters are drawn to him because he is intelligent, composed, on the right side of many issues and because he is willing to revisit the scorched earth state of the contemporary political zeitgeist. He is a breath of fresh air. She and her husband are yesterday's news.

Your last paragraph makes me think you drank the kool aid. Obama came out of nowhere. His is a genuine grassroots campaign. Clinton ran expecting to be coronated. The last debate was hugely telling. He acted presidential, Clinton whined.

I'm sorry she ran such an inept campaign. I'm sorry that she took so long to admit she got her Iraq war vote wrong. I'm sorry that many people do not trust her or even like her. I'm sorry that HRC is not the campaigner her husband is.

I am sorry that you and other Clinton supporters are embittered to a point of being really ugly and really irrational. Some have even suggested they will support McCain. Now how pathetic is that?

[SCharb]

Clintonites pretty much set the standard for "selective memory."

McCain said "Iraq is a huge threat to America!" and voted to invade with enthusiasm.
Clinton said "there is no doubt Iraq is a threat to America" and voted to invade, with some reservations.
Obama said "Saddam Hussein poses no threat to America; let him fade away into the dustbin of history" and wished he could do something about it.

What happened to "words don't matter?" Do Hillary's equivocal words excuse her action of getting us into the worst foreign policy disaster in history?

[uberlefty]

The issue is not if she spoke for or against the war or even her vote for the war. To make a comparison it is like authorizing a study comparing Evolution and Creationism. One is a scientific theory using a proven process to come to a logical conclusion and the other is selecting chosen data to conform to preordained conclusion. There was never any credible evidence that there were WMDs in Iraq. We had fought a war with an Iraq that had chemical weapons and they had declined to use them on our troop formations even when faced with an overwhelming defeat of their troops. They knew that if they did employ WMDs on us or any other nation they would be faced by retaliation in kind. It has been this threat that has prevented the employment of NBC ( nuclear, biological, chemical ) weapons since the end of WWI. In addition the UN had imposed an embargo on Iraq for over a decade. The US had been flying missions over Iraq Since 1991 and was well aware of Iraq's capabilities. The point is that the problem is the policy of preemption. Once you approve a policy of attacking a nation based on a the belief that they might threaten you in the future you have started down a road to endless war. That was the problem with Hillarys vote and McCains vote. There were voices for moderation at that time but Hillarys was not among them. She cant even admit that the vote was a mistake let alone repudiate the mindset that brought us to that point to start with. She is the wrong person to lead this country into a peaceful future.

[sockman]

Your statement that "there was never any credible evidence that there were WMDs in Iraq" is entirely silly. How do you explain the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam? Before making these idiotic statements about Iraq's WMDS you should at least look at some of Hans Blix's testimony before the UN .

[shrimptonmcclams]

Let's just say you're right. That it's credible to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a significant threat to the United States or it's allies. Which is patently absurd (you honestly think he had enough chemical weapons (or nuclear for that matter) to pose a real threat to any of his neighbors or to us?!). But let's just suspend disbelief. What about with what we know now? I know you'll say but we believed it then! Well then if you cannot acknowledge that AUMF was a mistake NOW then you are implicitly endorsing pre-emptive war. HE DID NOT POSE A THREAT. Remember? No WMDs. That's why it mattered so much.

Frankly, I don't give a hot damn whether you admit the mistake or not. I want Hillary Clinton to admit it was a mistake and demonstrate to me she understands why that war was a mistake. She wants to be commander-in-chief and she still can't even explain this to the American people. Just look at the ignorance of that fact on this site. Her whole candidacy rests on the American people remaining ignorant of the fundamental reason why the Iraq war was A MISTAKE!!! That alone disqualifies her for the job.

[uberlefty]

I have read Mr. Blixs testimony and stand by my statement. The FACT that we never found WMDs is all the proof that matters. The gassing of the Iraqi Kurds took place 12 years before Bush made an issue of them. Chemical weapons were also used on Iranian formations during the Iran-Iraq war. These facts are not disputed. What is in dispute is if Saddam had the capability to manufacture Nuclear weapons or the capability to weaponize chemical or biological weapons for delivery outside of Iraq. Any country with a rudimentary chemical capability can manufacture Sarin, Tabun, VX, and Hydrogen Cyanide. The Iraqi government had claimed that it no longer had these weapons in its arsenal and to date none of these weapons has been found. Many countries that have had these weapons have destroyed them for a variety of reasons. I suspect that the Iraqis either disposed of their chemical weapons or never replaced the weapons they used in the 80s. None of these things changes the fact that attacking a sovereign nation for what it might do or someday have the ability to do is wrong. Many countries have NBC weapons and I would argue that invading all of them to neutralize the threat is ridiculous. The real idiocy is buying into the notion of preemptive war. It comes from a primitive mindset rooted in base survival instinct. If we claim we are civilized and posses the ability to project death and destruction anywhere in the world we have a tremendous responsibility to exercise that power as a last resort not a knee jerk reaction. There is nothing silly about it.

[MichaelDeane]

I think what matters is what happened in October 2002 and thereafter. In my view, Clinton blinked when faced with the two most important votes of her senate career: the Iraq Resolution and Kyl Lieberman. She got them both wrong as did McCain.

This parsing of words to suggest a difference between Clinton and McCain on Iraq is a bit meaningless and gratuitous, no? It means and changes nothing.

Clinton can not walk away from her vote. McCain can't walk away from his vote or his constant contentions that Iraq is going well. Unfortunately for our troops, it isn't going well and no amount of orchestrated and staged visits by McCain, Lieberman or any other Iraq war cheerleaders wil change that.

McCain was remarkably candid the other day when he declared that his candidacy will succeed or fail on Iraq--which he then tries to take back.

If the Democratic candidate can keep the issue of Iraq front and center, McCain has a problem. For Obama, that job would be a whole lot easier.

[kimm2749]

well at least she voted, It makes me nervous that obams voted "present" over 100 times. It scares me that when faced with a decision, he won't know how to do that. That is in no way a slam against obama, just the facts.

[BitJam]

Enough of the "present" BS. In the Illinois Senate Obama was following the strategy suggested by Planned Parenthood. The Clinton campaign then lied about this and even though the lies were debunked, the meme remains.

Why Lorna Switched from Clinton to Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVuMYKs8iJs

Lorna was once the president of NOW in Chicago. She switch her support from Clinton to Obama after Clinton's repeated lies about Obama's pro-choice record (the "present" votes).

Obama missed the vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment because Harry Reid put it up for a vote with one hour's notice and it was physically impossible for Obama to return to DC in time to vote for it. So he did the next best thing, he immediately and publicly denounced the amendment. He is not superman but he did make a decision quickly, publicly and unambiguously.

On the other hand, there was recently a Senate vote on giving TelCo's immunity for when they broke the law to spy on Americans. Both Obama and Clinton were campaigning nearby when the vote came up. Obama voted against giving the TelCo's immunity while Clinton missed the vote. Can you tell me Clinton's position on this issue? Is she for or against giving the TelCo's immunity for the illegal spying they did under the Bush regime?

[TimSearl]

It seems to me that the present votes of Obama, represent a nuanced view of the world. It also seems to me we could do with a President with a nuanced view of the world. However, you go ahead and vote for the non-nuanced war cheering Hillary.

[fullkelly]

If Obama actually believes all the misinformation put out by his campaign managers then this essentially just proves what a multitude of people have been saying "Obama is really ignorant of the facts". Even worse is if Obama in reality knows so many of his statements to be untrue but still uses them in his campaign then he is no different than GW Bush and/or Karl Rove .

[Slapnpop826]

Here's the problem, You can't say one thing and then when it's time to vote do another. Hillary has told us all that "action speaks louder than words" when it came time to take action she voted for the war, end of story.

[JakeEasy]

And when it came time for Obama to vote to bring troops home, he voted to continue it. Really a bummer, I know, but I know with a little hope-dust you can manage to ignore that fact.

[shrimptonmcclams]

Keep on justifying your candidates refusal to affirm Congress' Constitutional power to declare war. Seems you're more than happy to cede it to the President. Maybe that's why Sen. Clinton won't acknowledge the mistake, because she wants to retain the power to declare war when there is no direct threat to the United States or its allies if she becomes president (God forbid).

If you can't see the difference between the original vote and the subsequent votes then you aren't thinking about it enough. Care anything about the consequences of Congress withdrawing funding? The regional consequences? The fate of the Iraqi people? The potential of ANOTHER failed state in the Middle East? Oh what was that last failed state? Hmmm...oh yeah Afghanista­n...

What a shame that your candidate has managed to get you to defend an offense to the Constitution.

[westwind]

I would be prepared to accept Hillary Clinton's intentions as being honorable, if she had disavowed (or renounced or rejected?) her Iraq vote when it became obvious that she had been duped by Bush. She still has not fully done so, and has continued to vote for whatever Bush asks for with respect to this war. To add insult to hundreds of thousands of deaths, she then votes for the Kyl/Lieberman Amendment, which gives Bush an opening to war with Iran. If she is not principled or clever enough to see the practical similarity of Kyl/Lieberman to her Iraq vote, she shouldn't be trusted with a senate seat, never mind the presidency.

We already have a president who will never admit he's wrong. I don't want another one to follow him.

[standforpeace]

The only problem with your logic is that Bush needed a formal go ahead from Congress to invade Iraq. And both McCain and Clinton gave him that go ahead. In fact they, and the rest of the members who voted "aye" on the resolution to authorize the use of military force in Iraq, put a loaded gun in George Bush's hands. The only difference between them is that now Hillary Clinton is trying to act shocked and awed that Bush took the title of the bill that she passed seriously. In this instance I think Hillary is right. It's not the words that she said afterwards but rather the action that she took with her vote that matters.


And by the way, while Hillary was busy trying to build her political career with this deeply flawed and immoral vote, Al Gore was one of the few high profile Democrats speaking out against the war. So no, Hillary is not the new Al!

[BitJam]

Obama supporters are not the only ones with a selective memory.

First of all, Clinton has voted three times to give war powers to Bush, not just once. Her most recent vote was in 2007 after five years of hind-sight showing the terrible mistake of her 2002 vote. If she claims she was fooled by Bush into thinking her vote for the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002" was not going to be used as an authorization for use of military force against Iraq, then what possible excuse does she have for voting for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment in 2007? Was she fooled by Bush a second time or does she simply have a learning disability?

If, as you say, Clinton's position was the same as that of Hans Blix then why the heck did she vote AGAINST the Carl Levin amendment that would have actually given the inspectors a chance to do their work before giving Bush the green light to launch an illegal and immoral war?

So just to refresh your selective memory, it was not one vote for war in 2002 that has people upset with Senator Clinton, it is her THREE consecutive votes for war. If it was just her first 2002 war vote and if she had (dare I say it) renounced and rejected her initial support for Bushwar then this would not be an issue. But not only has she defended her vote for Bushwar (at least until the Cleveland debate) she voted two more times for it. These other votes make it clear that her defense of her first vote is a pack of lies. Her vote against the Carl Levin amendment PROVES she was not just voting to get the inspectors back regardless of her speech to the contrary. Her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment PROVES that she either didn't learn from her mistake in 2002 or she lied about being fooled by Bush.

First rule of holes: when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

[StephenS]

Concerning the Kyl-Lieberman "Sense of the Senate" amendment in its final, watered down form:

We do not know how Obama would have voted because Obama and McCain were the two senators who skipped the vote. Would Obama have voted like the majority of Democratic senators, as usual, and voted for it? Also, a “Sense of the Senate” amendment/­resolution has no legal force .

I don't know why Clinton, like Carl Levin, was in the 76-22 majority who voted for it.

[BitJam]

Aren't you getting tired of pulling this old trick? Harry Reid tabled the Kyl-Lieberman amendment indefinitely. Since there were no big votes pending, Obama went to New Hampshire to campaign. While he was there, Reid put K-L back on the table with one hour's notice. It was physically impossible for Obama to return in time to vote so he did the next best thing, he came out publicly against the K-L amendment. If Obama had stayed mum about the amendment then you would have a point that we don't know how he would have voted. But since he immediately and publicly came out against the amendment it is disingenuous for you to pretend he was sitting on the fence.

As far as "no legal force" is concerned, it was ILLEGAL for the US to invade Iraq. We are a party the the UN treaties that make such unprovoked invasion illegal without express consent from the UN which we did not have. As even Senator Clinton has told us, Bush used the 2002 vote as a fig leaf for his illegal invasion of Iraq. Are you seriously suggesting he won't use the K-L amendment as a fig leaf to cover an invasion of Iran? Or are you excusing the vote because it didn't bind Bush to invading? Trust me, Bush is not waiting for a binding resolution before launching yet another illegal and immoral attack.

[Rb07]

It is a sad sign of the times that this rare attempt to counter media bias against Hillary gets no response. Keith Olbermann's reporting on Hillary no longer makes any pretense of being fair. He overtly pile onto her every which way for the first third of his show. It is getting to the point that some of his guests (and not the regular locker-room "guys" like Alter and Finemann and the WaPo stable) actually demur to KO's leading questions on Hillary. I used to enjoy watching KO, but now I find myself fast-forwarding through much of the show. Even his assaults on FOX have lost their luster because MSNBC and KO seem to be mirror images of FOX's unfair and unbalanced reporting. Perhaps this is a calculated attempt by KO to pander to his viewers who tend to be younger and pro-Obama independents, just as FOX caters to older Republicans; but this is a sad reflection on politics today. The Left panders minorities for their votes while the Right serves the interests of the wealthy, and it is the middle-class that gets shafted by both.

[hank48188]

MSNBC has become much worse than FOX NEWS, everyone except Dan Abrams is a hard core Obama Cheerleader and you have to watch CNN or FOX to get a fair and balanced view of things. On the night of the Florida Primary they wouldn't even report the Democratic side of the Primary for more than the first hour, just Republican results. Guess they didn't like the story of Hillary giving Obama a whipping down there.

[kimm2749]

I totally agree. It drives me crazy.

[uberlefty]

You all seem to forget that the media are people as well as reporters and pundits. Its easy to characterize their dislike of Hillary as misogynist but has it ever occurred to any of you that they might know her a little bit better than you do? Was it smart to attack David Schuster for his comments and push to have him fired? No. In all the years that Hillary has been in politics she has done a terrific job of alienating the media. Is that good judgment? No. Do you think that the media has gotten a good taste from her behavior? NO. If someone came to where you worked, demanded service, complained about the service they got, and then complained to your boss in an attempt to get you fired you would probably spit in her Slurpee. Then she stands in front of the store and tells everyone how much you suck. In my opinion she gets all the bad service she deserves. She treats the media like the lowly help. The media cant come right out and tell you the truth about her but if you have an ounce of intuition you can read between the lines.

[jerseyperson]

KO has gone over the top with his anti-Clinton diatribes and selective cherry picking of data. You can also add Andrea Mitchell to these msnbc Obama sycophants. If we read a history of politics..­...remembe­r Jimmy Carter whose slogan was: "A leader, for a change." That was some change in the 1970's.!