Obama, Clinton and Iraq: You Make the Call
Hillary Clinton today used her appearance on NBC's Meet the Press to question whether Barack Obama really has strongly opposed the Iraq War. You can watch the video here and then read Obama's response here. Getting past the sheer absurdity of Clinton -- one of the chief proponents of the war -- attacking Obama for not opposing the war enough, let's just take a look at the record and ask a simple question: Who is correct? As you'll see, it's not such a cut-and-dry issue.
Here's what I reported back in 2006 in my profile of Obama for The Nation:
Then there is the Iraq War. Obama says that during his 2004 election campaign he "loudly and vigorously" opposed the war. As the New Yorker noted, "many had been drawn initially by Obama's early opposition to the invasion." But "when his speech at the antiwar rally in 2002 was quietly removed from his campaign Web site," the magazine reported, "activists found that to be an ominous sign" -- one that foreshadowed Obama's first months in the Senate. Indeed, through much of 2005, Obama said little about Iraq, displaying a noticeable deference to Washington's bipartisan foreign policy elite, which had pushed the war. One of Obama's first votes as a senator was to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State despite her integral role in pushing the now-debunked propaganda about Iraq's WMD.In November Obama's reticence on the war ended. Five days after hawkish Democratic Representative Jack Murtha famously called for a withdrawal, Obama gave a speech calling for a drawdown of troops in 2006. "Those of us in Washington have fallen behind the debate that is taking place across America on Iraq," he said. But then he retreated. On Meet the Press in January, Obama regurgitated catchphrases often employed by neoconservatives to caricature those demanding a timetable for withdrawal. "It would not be responsible for us to unilaterally and precipitously draw troops down," he said. Then, as polls showed support for the war further eroding, Obama tacked again, giving a speech in May attacking the war and mocking the "idea that somehow if you say the words 'plan for victory' and 'stay the course' over and over and over and over again... that somehow people are not going to notice the 2,400 flag-draped coffins that have arrived at the Dover Air Force Base." (emphasis added)
In April of 2007, I wrote this small piece for Radar Magazine, noting some more back-and-forth:
When it comes to his Iraq dance, has Barack Obama stolen his moves from Hillary Clinton? The freshman senator has been trying to position himself as the antiwar candidate in the Democratic presidential primary, but this weekend he told the Associated Press that he will support continued funding for the war -- even if President Bush follows through on a pledge to veto any hard withdrawal date.That move puts Obama in lonely, treacherous waters -- directly in opposition to Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who announced he will push to cut off funding for the war within a year.
But it's not the first time Obama has bounced around on Iraq. He regularly says he's against the Iraq war, for example, but when asked by the New York Times in July 2004 how he would have voted in 2002, he said, "What would I have done? I don't know." Fast forward to 2006 when he told the New Yorker's David Remnick that senators who saw intelligence reports on Iraq may have been justified in voting for the invasion. "I didn't have the benefit of U.S. intelligence," he said. "And, for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices." (emphasis added)
So yes, Obama did oppose the war back in 2002. But yes, between that speech and the announcement of his presidential run when loud opposition to the war became a Democratic primary necessity, he has dithered between not talking about the war, supporting funding for the war, and even suggesting that he might have voted for the war had he been in the U.S. Senate at the time.
Clinton, as I suggested to start, is making a fool out of herself by attacking Obama for not opposing the war more strongly. As Obama himself today correctly pointed out, he "stood up against the war when she was voting for it, at a time when she didn't read the intelligence reports or give diplomacy a chance." At the very moment Obama was speaking out against the war, she was actually IN the U.S. Senate helping drive the country into war by being the most famous Democrat in America pushing it.
All of that said, however, outside of this particular campaign scuffle, those who want the war to end should be cognizant of Obama's full record. While it is true that, as Obama said, he "clearly and unambiguously oppose[d] the war in Iraq," it is also true that he did not always clearly and unambiguously use his position or platform to help actually end the war in Iraq. And just as Clinton's strong support of the Iraq War is relevant, so too is Obama's behavior, as both records may indicate what these candidates would -- and would not -- do as president.
Cross-posted from Credo Action
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Not only are their Senate records on the war very similar, their other votes are pretty similar, too. And, they have both taken millions from the corporatists and mult-nationals which means not much will change for the middle/working class should either of them win the WH. I say, look to the candidates that are getting the cold shoulder from the media, before they are all forced out of the race.
If this story was written the exact same way, but with all the statements and viewpoints being from Hillary, people would be screaming "triangulation".
And you didn't even bring up his running away from the Iran vote before, during and up to 24 hours afterwards.
I see Obama as more of a triangulator than Bill was but somehow with Obama, this is "hope".
It amazes me that the progressive community is so enamored with the "hope" that Obama will bring the country together in compromise when in every other single debate we call them out for their naivete for saying the same thing. We have a name for it - capitulation.
So I am very perplexed. The republicans are not calling out "to bring the country together" we know they will obstruct and bring everything to the right. Many people have noted that Obama has been attacking issues (social security for example) using right wing talking points.
Although I was not swept up in the Bush personality, many people were. He said he was going to "change" Washington. He went in with arguably more experience governing then Obama has.
Why so many people are willing to make the same mistake all over again is beyond me.
I would not be saying this if I felt Obama was offering substantive policies. Edwards is, but it doesn't look like he is going to win. I think Hillary has more nuts and bolts answers, but no one seems to care.
I really fear an Obama Presidency because after reading about all of them for the past year, I have no idea as to what he is going to do when he gets into office. I suspect he is going to capitulate to the right, taking as small of steps as Hillary has admitted to up front. (if you consider pulling troops out of Iraq and national health care small steps) Progressives will have buyers remorse, and they will probably come up with a new word that means the exact same thing as triangulation.
Senator Obama is constantly saying that he has been against the war from the beginning while implying that his rivals voted for war. I believe he is trying to compensate for his own real lack of foreign policy experience and judgement - that is being disingenuous and I am being kind for not calling it worse. If, however, he really believes his own rhetoric on this issue, then he is not competent to be president.
Senator Clinton does not seem to understand much about Iraq either. And, as for John Edwards...
There are so many who continue to cling to the false claim that a vote for this resolution was de facto support for an invasion of Iraq. It was, in fact, the opposite. It was a united effort to avoid war by giving the President the clout he needed to force the UN to act insofar as keeping the sanctions on Iraq and the weapons inspectors in Iraq...all in an effort to avoid the need for war to enforce all of the UN resolutions that were being violated by the Saddam regime. The Levin amendment would have, to some extent, decreased the strength of the resolution to do this.
Senator Biden has been the most honest, straightforward, and forthright about his vote on this resolution and the context within which that vote took place and he remains the only one who understands what needs to happen to end the civil war in Iraq without leaving a failed state behind.
I fully expect that the media are not capable of informing anyone about anything as complicated as Iraq but I did expect better from the Huffington Post.
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I love this article, as it clearly shows that Obama can be blown any which way the wind blows. He speaks out against the war when it's convenient, and avoids the topic altogether when it's not. He did this during the Alito confirmations. When the Repugs were scheduling a cloture vote (would shut down the debate) Kennedy and Kerry (believe it or not) were trying to garner support for a filibuster. Obama's response was, "We don't need to filibuster, we need to win elections". Well, there was no election to win at that particular moment, and his comment was pure political posturing. If he and some of the other gutless dems had bellied up to the bar, Alito might not be enjoying a lifetime appointment to the Supremes! When it counted, Obama folded!!!!!!!!!
Generally good analysis, you correctly highlighted that Hillary Clinton has been a hawk regarding Iraq and her critisicm of Obama has been completly hypocritical. And Obama's stance on the issue has been on of triangulated nuance since entering the Senate. That said, carolinwoodstock correctly points out that Obama's position has not been as waffly as the Clinton campaign would like us to believe. Neither have been a true leader in the fight to get out of this war. But given the choice between someone who waffles in how firmly he as opposed the war and someone who has voted for it since the beginning, I'll probably choose the waffler.
We do know what both candidates would do as president, both on the war and on demestic policy. Just follow the money. Both will say anything they think will help their prospects but will act in accordance with the taking of money from the corporations.
Don't try the BS that Obama hasn't taken any. He has taken substantial amounts. If he took a bit less than Clinton, it just means he sold himself more cheaply.
Clinton's criticism of Obama's history about the war is not that he didn't oppose the war enough. Her criticism is that he presents himself as a long-time critic, which is not true. He bobbled back and forth with the changes in public support or non-support of the war. Why do intelligent people purposely distort Hillary Clinton's statements. It's very clear that she's contradicting his false statements about his ongoing positions, and she is absolutely right. Stop shilling for Obama. If you support him, that's fine. But it doesn't give you the right to ridicule Clinton for an argument that you have made yourself.
"It would not be responsible for us to unilaterally and precipitously draw troops down," he said. I could go my whole life without having any Democrat lend legitimacy to talk radio right wing playbook talking points. This being the best of the best, imagine what you'd find if you looked deeply enough into the middle of the Democratic pack in the U.S. Congress. And it scales from there down to used to be Democrat Lieberman, making it very easy to see what John Edwards means when he says that it's the system, itself, that's corrupt. When a very small minority reflect views on positions that match those of majorities of voters it becomes very hard to ignore the fact that this nation dramatically needs a top to bottom house cleaning. Isn't a democratic political system that fails to provide meaningful representation to voters the quintessential definition of political corruption?
There is only one way that we will ever have a realistic hope of getting all of the bums out of office in one fell swoop. We need to create a whole new system of government that abolishes all current elected offices, and allows for a 100% fresh start.
THE SECOND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION!!!
Strangely, although this issue has been written up extensively, Sirota leaves out a few relevant details. Yes, Obama did vote to fund the troops and has repeatedly stated that he thought this was the best policy since we were in there and we couldn't just cut funds. When he started pushing for a change was when he saw that Bush hadn't kept his promise to push towards a withdrawal date. I can't think of a single inconsistency in his approach on this. As far as the "I don't know" quote, here is an excerpt from Patrick Healy's NY Times article of March 22, 2007: ndeed, reporters asked Mr. Obama about the Democratic presidential ticket throughout the 2004 campaign, because Senators John Kerry and John Edwards had both voted for the Iraq war resolution. In an interview with The New York Times in July 2004, he declined to criticize Mr. Kerry or Mr. Edwards over the Iraq vote, but also said that he would not have voted as they had based on the information he had at the time.
''But, I'm not privy to the Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''
The Clinton campaign has lifted part of that comment -- ''I don't know'' -- to question whether Mr. Obama would have opposed the war resolution had he been in the Senate at the time. The campaign has also cited other remarks Mr. Obama made in 2004, when he said there was ''room for disagreement'' on the war resolution.
Obama has repeatedly said that he specificially framed his remarks in such a way as not to be criticizing the Democratic ticket of Kerry/Edwards who were---as we might need to be reminded-- trying to defeat George W. Bush.
I do not understand how articles like Sirota's can be written in a time when a simple Google will pull up all the relevant quotes and facts.
"He regularly says he's against the Iraq war, for example, but when asked by the New York Times in July 2004 how he would have voted in 2002, he said, "What would I have done? I don't know."
Whoa, slow down for a minute. If I recall, the entirety of his quotation reads as follows:
"What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made."
Clearly, this implies consistency in his approach toward opposing the war in Iraq. And, insofar as his support for funding is concerned, he obviously recognized his vantage point as that of being between a rock and a hard place. If he voted against funding, then President Bush would have elected to retain the presence of US troops in Iraq under the burden of dwindling supplies, in which case the end result would have entailed republicans portraying Democrats, and thus Senator Obama, as disregarding the safety of "our troops". That was clearly a no-win situation, for which I don't at all blame him for his response.
Regarding opposing the war from the start, that is a fairly easy concept to understand. On this topic, no one can rightly say anything other than that Barack Obama was right to have opposed it and accurately predicted the problems we are facing at this very moment.
In stark contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't even bother to read the NIE and voted against the Levin amendment. I thought she was a policy wonk and would be up on the details provided by the NIE. It is also telling that the chairman of the intelligence committee changed to a no vote after reading the NIE. Maybe if HRC had more experience or, more importantly, better judgment, she would have known to read the fine print on the war.
Only after it became clear that things were going awry and that public opinion had turned did Clinton come out against the war. Too little too late for my taste.
Well, she said, throwing her partisan two-cents in, John Edwards has promised unambiguously to get us out in ten months.
In Obama's defense, I think he was trying to be supportive or at least not non-supportive of his colleagues in the Senate when he gave one of those answers, specifically about how he might have voted. Taken out of context, it sounds wishy washy but less so in (and I think someone laid it out here at Huff Post but it might have been Salon, oops.)
But moving on with my partisan agenda, I believe absolutely if we were to base our primary votes on who (whom?) will get us out of Iraq quickly and cleanly we would be voting for John Edwards. His message is clear and unequivocal.
Grating, spinning appearance by Mrs. Clinton.
The overall impression I had of her was that this is one deeply, deeply unhappy woman.
Clinton focuses on economy in Presidential race Obama focuses on RACE!Obama Trinity United Church of Christ, an African-American mega-church unorthodox pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright describing the September 11 attacks as a “wake-up call” to America for ignoring the concerns of “people of colour”, and for claiming that Americans “believe in white supremacy and black inferiority . . . more than we believe in God”. Wright travelled to meet Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, in the 1980s with Louis Farrakhan, the black supremacist leader of the Nation of Islam, and subscribes to the “Black Values System”, which preaches self-reliance but claims “middle-classness” is ensnaring blacks. Reverend Jeremiah Wright went to Tripoli to visit Colonel Gadaffi with Farrakhan.
Billionaire Clinton backer Bob Johnson, who founded Black Entertainment Television, said he’s “a little bit insulted, if you will, by Senator Obama letting his campaign imply that Hillary Clinton does not revere what Martin Luther King did for African Americans.
I am perplexed as to why he voted against time tables and deadlines and voted for $300 billion dollars worth of funding for a war he passionately claimed he was against. I find it odd that it took 18 months to speak openly on the U.S. Senate floor. For a man of "change" and bringing new ideas to the political process he does not appear to be a man who puts ACTIONS behind the words as it relates to the war in Iraq.
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