Hillary Clinton & Iraq
Posted on February 15, 2007 - Filed Under American Politics |
There’s an interesting assessment of Hillary Clinton’s intransigence on the Iraq war and, how it will affect her ‘08 presidential bid, here on the Daily Kos. Essentially, Clinton is taking all kinds of heat from the left-wing of the Democratic Party for not admitting that her vote in favour of going to war with Iraq in 2003 was wrong. Other Democratic presidential hopefuls such as John Edwards have come out and stated unequivocally that they made the wrong decision when voting for the war, but Clinton has so far refrained form stating similarly, instead saying only that she would not have voted for the war if she had known what she now knows.
The difference between Clinton and Edwards’ positions may sound like empty rhetorical nuance, but it’s of supreme importance to voters on the left. As the Kossack writes in response to another Democrat’s call for party unity in blaming only the GOP:
I have no interest in giving a pass to those Democrats who aided and abetted Bush’s mistakes, and I especially have no interest in giving a pass to those who demonstrate Bushian inability to offer self-reflection and admit that mistake. It’s not a question of offering an “apology”. I want acknowledgment of past mistakes.
before going on to say that:
Those who have admitted their mistakes are now free to train their sights on the GOP. It doesn’t absolve them from their terrible judgment, but it mitigates it. While it’s best to not make a mistake in the first place, it’s even worse to compound that mistake by refusing to come to terms with it.
Later on in the post Clinton is further criticised for trying to fudge some sort of connection between the Iraq war and 9/11.
All this begs the question of why on earth Clinton is persisting with this policy. A possible explanation is given in the post:
After resisting for so long, she finds herself in the thick of the presidential primary (yes, even a year out) with no room to maneuver. If she suddenly reverses course and decides that yes, she’ll take personal responsibility for her vote, it’ll feed into the strongest anti-Hillary narrative — that she’s a panderer and will say what is most politically expedient at the moment.
Other people suggest that, as a woman in the running for the presidency, she has to somehow compensate for her gender by appearing hawkish on foreign policy. However even if there is some merit to this idea and voters really are distrustful of a female presidency, the Iraqi misadventure has become so unpopular that it’s hard to see a Clinton apology for her compliance with it impacting negatively on her foreign policy reputation.
It must be said the position of the Daily Kos is not the position of the average US voter, but it is rather closer to the position of the Democratic primary voters, and that could banjax the Clinton machine more than any conservative hysteria about a Hillary presidency.
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