Judging Hillary's Judgment
Undecided Democratic voters and uncommitted superdelegates should remember that Senator Hillary Clinton's 2002 vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq was at odds with the majority of congressional Democrats -- 60 percent in the House and nearly half in the Senate -- who unlike her opposed the 2002 Iraq War resolution. The 126 Democratic House members and 22 Democratic Senators voting against the invasion included: Nancy Pelosi, current House Speaker; David Obey, current chair of the House Appropriations Committee; Robert Graham, at the time, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and its former chair; Carl Levin, current chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Daniel Inouye, World War II veteran and current chair of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
While acknowledging that Saddam Hussein might possess weapons of mass destruction, these Democrats realized that such weapons did not pose a significant enough threat to justify the war. They knew that sanctions were still effective. When National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice raised the specter of an Iraqi mushroom cloud, Senator Graham countered that "the briefings I have received suggest our efforts, for instance, to block [Iraq] from obtaining necessary nuclear materials have been largely successful." Senator Edward Kennedy cited evidence that "even with Iraq's obstructions, inspections [had] resulted in the demolition of large quantities of chemical and biological weapons."
These members of Congress also predicted that the Iraq War would increase hostility toward the U.S. Congressman Obey emphasized that an invasion could unleash "an anti-U.S. backlash in the Arab world, a backlash that could generate thousands of new recruits for al Qaeda, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations." Senator Graham noted that a war on Iraq "leaves America more vulnerable to the number one threat facing us today, those international terrorist organizations" and that invading Iraq attacks "the wrong target." Senator Levin added that there would likely "be a reduction in the international support we are receiving for the war on terrorism."
Like other prominent Democrats, they understood that an invasion could destabilize the region. Former Vice President Albert Gore forecast that "the resulting chaos in the aftermath of a military victory in Iraq could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam." Senator Levin observed that the invasion could "undermine Jordan, Pakistan, and possibly even end up with a radical regime in Pakistan, a nuclear weapons nation."
While comprehending fully that Saddam Hussein was a brutal murderer, these Democrats knew that an invasion might fail to improve either life in Iraq or U.S. security. Congressman Obey warned, "[T]he most serious consequences would well be those we face after Iraq is occupied, unless the effort is well thought out. Based on discussions with the administration and the intelligence community, I believe much more work needs to be done." Senator Graham quoted Winston Churchill's admonition, "Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter."
The Iraq War may be the greatest foreign policy blunder in U.S. history. It has produced tens of thousands of casualties, American and Iraqi, will cost as much as two trillion dollars, and has inspired the world's one billion Muslims to distrust, if not hate, the United States, thereby increasing the risk of terrorism. A critical question therefore is why Senator Clinton's judgment was flawed, when a majority of congressional Democrats with the same information reached an opposite and, as it turns out, accurate judgment of the wisdom of invading. One benchmark, in other words, for judging her judgment -- and also that of the acknowledged Republican presidential nominee, John McCain -- should be the actions of the majority of congressional Democrats who, along with a few Republicans, opposed our disastrous Iraq invasion from the start.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
THIS IS AN EXCELLENT POST.
They should all go as well. Myself and my three political, history minded, rational thinking , friends knew for a fact from reading public sources that Iraq had no WMDs.
I won a bunch of bets with friends on this issue.
We also predicted 100% exactly what would ensue ,chaos and secular warfare, if the US got rid of Saddam.
It was a no brainer. I think the politicians who voted for this war should pack-up and leave.
Hillary also didn't show up to vote on immunity for Telecoms...and she was in DC at the time. Obama did.
Bill Clinton sent all those jobs to China by giving them Most Favored nation Status and yet he didn't make China uphold their side of the agreement .(Bush hasn't either)
I hope all the people who lost jobs to China realize that it was a Clinton who made that happen and that Hillary will back Big Money over regular Americans.
Obama has at least said he would roll back the illegal power Bush has tried to give the Executive Branch, Hillary hasn't said this.
I will vote for the Democrat though because McCain is more like Bush than Hillary. Hillary is more like a 1970s republiCON.
Congress will do better with a Dem in the White House and of course i would hope a Dem would be better at picking Judges than crazy McCain.
What I think is fascinating is that the SAME Joseph Wilson who regularly posts anti - Obama and pro-Hillary pieces here also was skeptical enough of the Bush Administration Weapons Of Mass Destruction claims that he investigated them and filed an Op-Ed in the NYT in July of 03. That was, of course, after the Iraq vote, but if Wilson had questions, I am assuming he also had them at the time of the vote itself, just seven months earlier.
Look at Hillary's speech justifying her "yes" vote on that resolution
http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html
- it's fascinating because any casual reading of that speech would lead the reader to assume she is justifying a "no" vote. I have read it several times now - and to me it feels like she was either woefully naive, or was more or less just passing the issue and the potential political fallout to Bush.
Hard to imagine how she came to that conclusion based on the rationale in the speech.
And before you start slamming me with the argument that the Bush Admin. had "whipped" 19M New York Voters into a frenzy and she had to vote with them - that's exactly the kind of leadership we DON'T need. Listening to the sentiments of the people and doing exactly what they want is not leadership. Helping the people find the right path is leadership.
Only one of two possible conclusions can be reached. One is that Hillary really believed in her vote, as she most recently suggested she did – if true, that was her commander-in-chief moment and she failed the test. The other possibility is that vote was a political calculation that to run for President, she needed to show she was as strong as the any of the boys. She no doubt looked around at other potential contenders for the Democratic nomination in the next several years and saw that all of them were voting for the war, so she saw no downside to that vote. If that is the case she showed no political courage to stand for what is right and in the best interests of the Country. Either way, she failed the commander-in-chief test. There are no re-takes once you go to war.
Little did she anticipate that someone like Barack Obama would rise up to take away her “entitlement” to be the next President.
To exerpt from her speech:
http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html
"So it is with conviction that I support this resolution as being in the best interests of our nation. A vote for it is not a vote to rush to war; it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our President and we say to him - use these powers wisely and as a last resort. And it is a vote that says clearly to Saddam Hussein - this is your last chance - disarm or be disarmed."
Hillary isn't stupid. She voted for the war cause she wanted to run for President someday but didn't want to look weak on national security. Her vote and the reasons for it show she's unfit to be President.
i've said from day one, that anyone who voted for the war was dead to me. klinton is toast, the triangulating coward.
I have women friends who coo-coo at every word Hillary Clinton says. The same ones who screamed when Bush was revving up his war machine to send young 20 year old kids to die, and kill. There are no excuses for Clinton's cowardly war vote. She did not lead. She hid, hoping no one would notice. What's even more disturbing about her character is the anger and arrogance she shows when questioned about her miscalculation. She ought to do what Johnson did, and say. "I will not run...I regret after seeing the 58,000 dead American soldiers, and one million vietnamese from my generation, that I lacked the moral capacity, courage, and intelligence to not repeat it, for the sake of my country." Ironic, that the one thing she evidently took away from the good old vietnam days was the flag burning...this is her judgment, her moral fiber. Finger to the wind to win.
Regardless of how you feel about Hillary's vote, or the circumstances of 9/11, the matter before us now is where do we go from here. Again, Hillary has left the door open to more folly. Even if she followed through with her stated plans, (which I don't believe for a minute) the goals she's set seem more like a blueprint for even worse and more tragic blunders.
In an article in The American Conservative, they endorse Obama over John McCain, specifically on this one point about ending the "misadventure" in Iraq, saying:
"... [Obama's] election will constitute something approaching a definitive judgment of the Iraq War. As such, his ascent to the presidency will implicitly call into question the habits and expectations that propelled the United States into that war in the first place. Matters hitherto consigned to the political margin will become subject to close examination. Here, rather than in Obama’s age or race, lies the possibility of his being a truly transformative presidency."
http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_03_24/article.html
On this, it appears that all of us agree.
Obama-Webb '08
I'm just a private citizen without any foreign policy experience but I knew at the time the Bush administration was trying to sell us a war based on deception. Yet, Hillary is a U.S. senator who brags about her 35-year experience. went along with the mob mentality and voted for the invasion of a sovereign country who was not an imminent threat to our security.
But she still has learned her lesson. More recently, she voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Iran resolution that could lead to the bombing of Iran.
She shows bad judgment time after time - even bad judgment in how she has conducted her scorched-earth campaign.
Yes! As I and others have alluded to here, her vote in Iraq was not a one time event that could be chalked up to faulty information. Senator Clinton seems to repeatedly make head scratching decisions based on how the political winds blow. Thank you for reminding us about her vote on the Iran resolution.
I will vote for whomever looks like they will restore a sane direction to U.S. foreign policy. What we are doing in Iraq is a disaster, and there is little indication that anyone in Washington has a clue as to how to make things better. The candidates who said, like the Iraqis themselves, that we should take our troops out pretty darn fast, are no longer in the race.
I am not sure that either of the Democrats is committed to giving Iraq back to the Iraqis.
I am sure that McCain won't do it. McCain says, in effect, that it is not honorable to return a country back to its people, once we have taken it from them.
At this point I will be voting for the lesser of three evils, although I still hold out hope that I will hear something better from the Democrats.
Well said.
This is not an issue of judgment; it's an issue of political calculation.
She voted for Junior's Constitution-busting Patriot Act. She voted to enable Junior's unprovoked invasion of Iraq and voted again to aid Junior in making his case for an invasion of Iran. She became Junior's enabler to raise her totally macho dude bona fides and thus her standing among voters. Happily her calculations backfired.
Thanks to Clinton's aid and comfort of Junior we are still engaged in a war that has resulted in thousands of Iraqi and American deaths and is estimated to cost $3 trillion by the time it reaches its bloody conclusion. Iran might take a hit just in time for the fall elections. And our Constitution remains on life support.
In my judgment Clinton should join the Republican Party, because she has worked so diligently and successfully for its agenda.
Intended to mention in the second graf her cynical support of a bill to outlaw flag burning.
The worst judgement that the Clintons have exhibited is to keep acting like they always have, even though they lost the power of the Presidential Pardon. Without that carte blanche mechanism, their machine starts to falter.
I think it will be very interesting if a process server is actually able to make it thru the lines of Secret Service and deliver a summons for the Peter Paul case. Talk about poor judgement! Even the shadow or appearance of breaking campaign law right before a Presidential run is poor form. That she has not publicly addressed this gets filed (for me) under avoidance: tax returns, earmarks, FOIA, library donors, etc.
For some light reading: http://www.hillcap.org/pp_complaint_022504_njw.pdf
The Clintons are never wrong, regardless of how flawed their judgement and ultimate decisions reveal them to be.
Stephen B. Cohen
Should NOT this Article be Judging Stephen B. Cohen's SPIN? If you are behaving Honestly, Mr Cohen, you would clearly state Hillary did NOT vote to Invade Iraq... Clearly, as she explained with her actual Vote, she Authorized a Military Option as (A) a backing for Negotiations in the U. N. (B) as a LAST RESORT...
Since when has there only been ONLY ONE Military Option for the USA?
Based on your "Truth," then if Barack is Elected, the Senate should NEVER again Vote to Authorize any Option of Military Force... NO President should ever be trusted with a "Military Option," because they may use that as a spin to Invade and Occupy another Country... That apparently leaves the only Option of Vote for WAR, or Vote against WAR...
One would think, according to Demon Crapic (oops, did I misspell that?) Barack supporters, that it was Hillary Clinton alone who forced G W Bush to Invade/ Occupy Iraq and call it War... ( Hmm, Barack supporters Demonize Hillary and verbally crap all over her, soooo.... )
G W Bush gets a pass, while another Democrat gets blamed over and over... And Democrats speak of Rovian Republicans... Seems to me Republicans have nothing on way, WAY, too many Democrats, with their win at any cost tactics... I'll say this again... What if Hillary somehow wins the Nomination? Democrats how sown the seeds of their own defeat? Which Party are Democrats working for?
Earth to LarBear??? Yoohoo?? Are you there?
I've read the article a second time and saw no mention of Barack Obama whatsoever, but I did see many prominent Democrats. The point of the peice is to distinguish her vote from their's.
No I get it, he should denounce and reject Dubya to convince you he's right? But then again, your girl Hill supported Dubya and voted for the bill. So, how can we appease you, make you happy?
True, she didn't vote for war, but the "military option as a tool for diplomacy," and which president did she give that option to? Excuse me, but she authorized Dubya to go to war, unlike the majority of her colleagues who didn't buy into his silliness. And history has proven her wrong, and them right.
Do you want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?
Give me a break. Everyone knew then and knows now that Bush was never going to exhaust all other options before using militiary force. If I recall correctly, the administration didn't even believe they needed the authorization to attack Iraq.
"Reality is the curse of the sane"
Yes, NO President should be given the power to invade and occupy a country, to essentially launch a war without a declaration of war. That power was EXPLICITLY reserved for Congress by our founders for a damn good reason. You're right about one thing, she wasn't voting for war... she was voting to give that power over to the President, and that is FAR worse. Every Congressman and woman who voted for that shirked their Constitutional duties and as such, cannot be trusted to faithfully execute their Constitutional duties as Commander in Chief.
Huzzah, LarBear!
First of all, Bush gets no free pass. So let's stop with the false choices. Plenty of blame to go around for this fiasco. Bush led the push for invasion, but Congress opened the door for him.
It is always good to have options, and Hillary Clinton had them. She could have voted against the resolution, telling the president to work through the U.N. first, then come back to Congress. She could have read the NIE. She could have voted for the Levin amendment, which required U.N. approval for the use of force (considering we supposedly went in there to defend a U.N. resolution). She did none of those things.
How about we talk about Obamas "judgement" when he used cocaine or his "judgement" when it comes to marrying someone like Michelle, or his "judgement" about what church he should make his children go to, etc? As far as I am concerned, unless Obama represented a state that had recently been the site that suffered one of the most tragic attrocities on its residents and he had the "courage" to "question" the President even when the majority of the people who put him in office to represent "their will" should we reprimand Hillary for her decision to vote the way she did. I do not beleive Obama would have given his "pretty" speech if he represented New York or if the terrorist struck Illinois and he lost 3000+ of his constituency.
Why are you such a hater? Obama wants to heal the wounds of divisive politics and all you want is to stop him.
No, I just want him to stop using Clintons "war vote" against her in his campaign. Unless, of course he would clearly state that, Yes, I would have voted differently even if I was in Clintons shoes and just experience the tramatic loss of my 3000+ constituents. I was originally an Obama supporter until this issue and his worshippers turn me off to him.
It is not Hillary's judgment that is questionable.. Her ability to tell the truth is remarkably poor when she has conflicting urges. Here is a link to her being fired from ther watergate investigation becaquse of her pattern of lies.
http://www.jzeifman.com
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
