What Was Clinton Thinking?

by Taylor Marsh

Clinton's vote yesterday on the Lieberman-Kyl legislation was a very bad vote. Last night Edwards called her out on it. It wasn't as bad as the Iraq vote many Democrats in the Senate cast, including Edwards, but it's certainly how the Iraq war began. It also gives Republicans the opening they're hoping for. This is an ominous development. I'm with James Webb, as well as Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, who also voted against the legislation.

Those who regret their vote five years ago to authorize military action in Iraq should think hard before supporting this approach. Because, in my view, it has the same potential to do harm where many are seeking to do good. ... .. ... We haven't had one hearing on this. I'm on the Foreign Relations Committee, I'm on the Armed Services Committee. We are about to vote on something that may fundamentally change the way the United States views the Iranian military and we haven't had one hearing. This is not the way to make foreign policy. It's not the way to declare war.

James Webb (via Think Progress)

There are reports on MSNBC that Obama wasn't feeling well, but he missed the vote. After the Cornyn skip out it's not exactly inspiring.

As for Clinton, this is the path she took on her way to voting for the Iraq war. Posture strongly and load up for the worst. It's not surprising, because she wants to show toughness. Let's also remember she is still the junior senator from New York. Let's also be honest about something else.

This non-binding resolution was about Iran's moves in Iraq, but it was also very much about Israel. We've been talking about this a lot lately, which brings me to something I read recently that is foreshadowing for worse things to come.

But one sentence from the Hillary Clinton press release of September 10 stands out. (Curiously, the the statement is not up on Clinton's campaign website.) In staking out her position on "Standing with Israel against terrorism," Hillary Clinton defends Israel's right to exist with "... an undivided Jerusalem as its capital." Oddly enough, this places her in direct contradiction with the plan put forward by a certain President Bill Clinton in December 2000.

He proposed dividing Jerusalem:

The general principle is that Arab areas are Palestinian and Jewish ones are Israeli. This would apply to the Old City as well. I urge the two sides to work on maps to create maximum contiguity for both sides. ... ..

(snip)

So, candidate Hillary Clinton is running to the right, not only of former President Bill Clinton, but also of the centrist Israeli Government. In fact, Hillary Clinton's press release says nothing at all about a two-state solution, about a Palestinian state, or even a peace process. (Palestinians do, though, exist as terrorists and/or as promoters of incitement). ... ..

Clinton vs. Clinton on Israel, by Daniel Levy

The Clinton Parameters are important. They are also where Democrats have stood since his presidency. I have a request for a comment into the Clinton camp, as well as having asked for the press release quoted from above, or a link, so I can read it for myself and verify it. I have yet to get a response, though I've had a conversation about it and traded emails as well. They've responded to every single request I have made so far, so stay tuned.

Clinton's vote siding with Lieberman is a harbinger for more saber rattling on Iran. It also shows she's learned nothing from her earlier Iraq vote. It is also a sign that her Middle East policy will likely be weighted towards Israel, which hasn't been doing the U.S. or Israel any good at all. There's only one thing Clinton and others who voted in favor of Lieberman's Iran amendment fear more than Iran's possible involvement in Iraq, or them going nuclear, and that's standing up to the Israel lobby at large. It's not going to happen. As much as people talk about change, things surrounding our policy towards Israel stay the same. It's dangerous, but no one seems to have the courage to join with liberal Israelis who truly want piece. Clinton voting with the neoconservatives today was wrong any way you analyze it.

Biden and Dodd voted against the Lieberman-Kyl legislation when all eyes were on them (full roll call). Coupled with Biden's Iraq legislation today that passed, he's had one hell of a day. They both deserve a lot of credit. The Democrats who voted for Lieberman's nonsense don't know what they're doing, which is how we got into Iraq. Like Iraq, it signals danger and a possibility of one small step at a time to kaboom.

Comments

[elizabethsullivan]

Hillary is so focused on the general election and not doing or saying anything to give the Republicans ammunition that she will sell out the party that has been sticking up for her all these years.

I am so tired of her. I am so tired of Bill. Hell, I am even tired of Chelsea.

Hillary is smug, condescending, and patronizing. She won't deal with "hypotheticals" but will happily speculate about a program that, at a minimum, will cost $20,000,000,000 per year (and that is before factoring in the bureaucracy that will be needed to support it) and is just the kind of policy that reinforces the "big government" label that Dems have been fighting. It is also the worst kind of pandering - pandering to the economically disadvantage when she knows good and well that she wouldn't waste political capital on that program in a million years.

But, the Clintons only really care about the Clintons. Whatever bargain they made over their marriage all those years ago is their business but I sure wish they would find another arena to work out their marital issues.

I volunteered for Bill in 92 but Hillary couldn't buy my vote. Not even for $5,000.00 per baby.

[redondobeachdem]

Hillary is a hawk. Even in the last debate, when Tim Russert recalled her vote to authorize war, the most important vote of her life, SHE GOT IT WRONG. He then asked WHY WE SHOULD TRUST HER JUDGMENT to be president. She gave her standard 'non-answer'... "I take responsibility for my vote."

Zbignew Brzezinski, one of the most distinguished foreign policy experts in America, recently endorsed Obama because of his good judgment. He noted how President Kennedy was advised by those around him to use nuclear weapons during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And yet, this young, wise president said no to them, using a naval blockade instead. He saved us from nuclear war...THAT is the good judgment Brzezinski's talking about.

Obama spoke out against this "rash, dumb ideological war of choice". He did it in 2002 and every year since then. Everything he predicted came true. He said we'd be in a quagmire that would drain our treasury and cost too many lives. He said it would destroy our moral standing in the world. All this, sadly, has happened.

The wisdom that Senator Obama has shown is what our country needs. In contrast, Senators Clinton, Biden, Edwards and Dodd ALL voted for the war and Sen. Clinton didn't even take the time to read the 90 page NIE (National Intelligence Estimate), even with 10 days to read it, before casting her vote to go to war.

To send other people's kids to war without reading it was dereliction of duty. She did not ask the hard questions before voting and feared looking weak, MAKING A POLITICAL CALCLUATION.

If being first lady in the governor's mansion for 8 years and another 8 years in the White House qualifies for 'experience' to be president, then why not Laura Bush for president? How preposterous is that? This is how the Clinton Machine spins and manipulates perceptions.

Time served in Washington does not equate with good judgment.

In Obama, we have someone who will unite our country and yes, the world. The moment he is inaugurated, the healing begins.

[Doofus]

What were THIRTY stupid Demos thinking?

Seems like October 2002 all over again.

Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Clinton
Conrad
Dorgan
Durbin
Feinstein
Johnson
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Levin
Menendez
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson
Nelson
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Salazar
Schumer
Stabenow
Whitehouse
Lieberman

[altohone]

Well, I'd like to think Obama was really too sick to attend... previous statements suggest he would have voted no... but all the caving in by the Democrats leave me wanting to see a doctors note... and I'm an Obama supporter.

As for Hillary, anybody that expected a different vote from her hasn't been paying attention.

Thanks for pointing out the press release Taylor!
Hillary's statement on Israel is considerably more disturbing than the Iran vote when the big picture is taken into account... assuming another vote in Congress would be needed before Bush can attack that is (big assumption perhaps). Every Muslim leader mentions an Israel/Palestinian peace as the most important issue to prevent recruitment by radicals... Hillary taking the right-wing stance on Jerusalem doesn't bode well for such a peace.

I'll add my voice to those seeking moderate Jews to raise their voices above the sounds of the war drums.

[Think82]

Matthews nails Hillary in int. w/ Biden:

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=msnbc&vid=cecbba4f-fc95-4a88-a5b9-1d32f7f23f08

[jhNY]

You don't get to be senator in New York by going up against AIPAC or being amenable to a two-state solution in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Not now. Maybe never. And that should matter when we're picking candidates for president, but the trouble is, all that aside, which candidates can you be certain would not be in total support of the Likud/AIPAC policies in the mid-East, besides Kucinich and Gravel? If you guessed 'nobody', you guessed right!! But I'm guessing you'll vote for somebody else. Why? Fear of looking like a loser by backing one?

[Think82]

BIDEN 08! He had the original Iraq soultion and knew to vote against the Iran resolution. What are we waiting for? The next president is right in front of us.

[outnow]

Hillary is bought off by the MIC and the AIPAC. My liberal Jewish and Israeli friends claim that the agenda is totally militaristic and radical. Many Israelis, including some Christians there, are socialists.

Hillary long ago signed off of the Axis of Evil agenda. She is from New York. Iran has been in her sights for five years, and Syria is next. She has no empathy for people - she is a corporate attorney and a Goldwater Girl. She and Lieberman should run as right-of-center corporate militarists.

I have seen her fail on health care and stand by while NAFTA whittled down jobs in favor of her Wall Street friends such as Robert Rubin at Citibank, former Treasury Secretary. The Clintons played ball with Greenspan and set up the WHO for the New World Order.

Who is she kidding - she only pushes the right wing further right. She is going to either lose or be so right wing that it is a win-win for all right-wingers. This is their strategy. They tell me it is. What is her position on social security? Toss the trust funds to her Wall Street friends and MIC friends?

Vote for John Edwards or Dennis Kucinich. Forget the DLC, they are not Democrats. She voted for war in Iraq and she voted for war in Iran. She cannot articulate her position on Social Security. She was evasive last night.

[bringbackimus]

I hope those who favor H. Clinton just because "its time for a female president" will think twice about voting for her. Voting for H. Clinton because she is a woman, is the same foolishness as voting for Bush because you would like to have a beer with him. She has not apologized for her vote on Iraq, because she is really a pro-war candidate, as indicated by her support for the Lieberman amendment. The media, however, will let her Lieberman vote fly without any "hard" questions

[Thurber]

I'm glad you're seeing the light. Hillary reminds me lately of a political Katrina heading for the Democratic party. Both are/were huge disasters just waiting to strike. Both are/were (despite neocon claims to the contrary) completely predictable so the damage could have been greatly mitigated.

There is one major difference. Hillary is still preventable. The question is, will act before its too late this time?

[ebbtide]

Showing toughness is not riding a galloping horse and sticking to it "resolutely". It is not tough--it seems to be the game she has invented for her run, but it shows her unwillingness to intelligently discuss anything to do with war, except to wait for Obama and Edwards make their statements--same on the convoluted health care proposal. They say, many, that she is bright. She seems to=be a very bright task oriented person. She talks phoney, she gestures phoney as if she is well trained and that laugh--now it seems that the laughing Hilloary will cackle her way through tough questions and that is not tough either. She is a fence sitter and we the people watching the candidates and their positions recognize that--she avoids answering the questions trying to appear "tough". We people deserve better than what she is trying to hand us--phoniness, feigned toughness, inability to clearly present her ideas in an intelligent manner--

[lmwish]

Last night, when H Clinton laughed at Mike Gravel for shaming her for the Iraq vote, she was behaving exactly like Cheney and Bush. That laugh was arrogant, patronizing, condescending, malicious... unforgiveable ..all of her answers last night seem to have an heavy dollop of "how dare you question me...I know what's best"
But that laughing ...that I can't vote for ..ever ... under any conditions

She owes all true Democrats an apology ... she behaved just like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice... the worst traits of them were all wrapped up in that laugh....

[dtd]

I was waiting for her to shout, "I'm the Queen! How dare you question me? Off with your heads!"

[JimR]

Here we go again...

What is wrong with the Democrats? Apparently, they stand for... nothing. Spineless weasels afraid they won't look tough if they vote against it.

[SevereTireDamage]

I agree completely with this analysis.

Also, I think I realized something seeing that comment about standing up to the (right-wing-militant-faction-of-Israel lobby. (Because they speak neither for the majority of Israelis nor the majority of American Jews, I feel it is fallacious to call them the "Israel lobby".)(Likud lobby, maybe.)

In the spirit of that ancient Vulcan saying, "Only Nixon could go to China", it appears that it's going to take a major national Jewish politician to crack the false edifice of these groups. A "Sister Souljah moment", if you will...

Who wants to suggest someone?

[mommadona]

If you have to ask what she was thinking, you obviously haven't been following the "Iron Maiden"

[JimR]

Yup. Hillary is bad news.