Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Senator Clinton Refuses to Apologize for Iraq War Vote

By Manila Ryce
Published Monday, February 19th, 2007, 4:28 am
Filed under: Society/Culture: Civil Unrest, War, Society/Culture, US Politics

Hillary Clinton told anti-war Democrats that she was willing to lose their support rather than admit she made a mistake in a 2002 vote authorizing force in Iraq. She spoke to an audience in New Hampshire on Saturday, saying, “If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.” There sure are Mrs. Clinton; no need to twist our arms.

Someone ought to tell Hillary that just because she wants to take Bush’s job, it doesn’t mean she needs to adopt his mannerisms too. Infallibility may get her a job at the Vatican, but not as US president. Clinton is scared of being branded a “flip-flopper” like Kerry was in the 2004 election. Here’s a newsflash senator, people didn’t vote for Kerry, not because the Neocons called him a silly name, but because they didn’t see him as a real alternative to the big business leadership already in charge. If you offered a real alternative to the status quo, you’d have a chance.

Some within her campaign think her refusal to apologize for an obviously poor decision, amid widespread anti-war resentment, will be a turning point in the race. Richard C. Holbrooke, former UN ambassador and adviser to Clinton’s foreign policy said, “Some of her many advisers think she should’ve uttered the three magic words - ‘I was wrong’ - but she believes it’s self-evident that the Senate Iraq resolution was based on false intelligence and never should’ve come to a vote.”

Clinton is seen as “strong and tough” by a high proportion of Democrats, and an adviser said Clinton thinks that apologizing may hurt that image. She also believes in supreme executive authority in which Congress should not be able to overrule her as commander and chief. Sound a bit like Bush’s ideology to anyone else? She’s tough on terrorism, resolute on national security, will not support a deadline for Iraq, makes unchecked decisions in a vacuum, and is absolutely opposed to the truth when it doesn’t jive with what she’s already decided.

There are 11 more months to go until the primaries and Hillary’s ship sinks deeper everyday from an iceberg she swears she never hit. Rather than try to earn our votes, Clinton already thinks she deserves them. Could an Obama/Edwards presidency be in our future? Time will tell, but unless Hillary switches completely to the dark side and runs as a Republican, she won’t be seeing the oval office in a party that is now so strongly antiwar.

source
h/t Truthdig

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6 Responses to “Senator Clinton Refuses to Apologize for Iraq War Vote”

  1. It appears that you read most of the New York Times article on Senator Clinton in Sunday’s paper, but missed the section where her speeches concerning that vote ar quoted on page 30. They pull several quotes from 2002 until the present, showing clearly *why* she voted the way she did. There’s no apology necessary, as she made a sound decision at the time… though clearly based on incorrect information. There’s no need to apologize when you’re right.

    Peter
    02/19/07 at 6:06 am

  2. @Peter
    I respectfully disagree. Her blank check vote was anything but sound, regardless of her quotes on page 30. It was a stupid plan motivated by business and blind patriotism, not incorrect information. Anyone with a mild understanding of Iraqi politics and Saddam’s weapons capability knew it was incorrect information before it ever came to a vote. I should also point out that her refusal to apologize is motivated by fear of being called a “flip-flopper”, and not her integrity to stand by a “sound decision”. Hillary can say she was right about voting wrong until 2008. It was still the wrong decision. Hundreds of thousands of dead bodies can attest to that.

    Manila Ryce
    02/19/07 at 6:23 am

  3. I think we can agree that it was the wrong decision only with the benefit of hindsight. To be sure - I was and still am against the President’s use of preemptive force in Iraq. But if you read what she actually said in 2002 about her reasons for the vote, it becomes evident that she had grave misgivings about the evidence the administration had presented. On the other point, I’m not sure where all these reports about her not wanting to be labelled a flip-flopper come from, but I’m suspicious of the source since all the reporting seems pretty cookie-cutter. In the end, we may just have to disagree on this.

    Peter
    02/19/07 at 12:40 pm

  4. @Peter
    I wonder why someone with grave misgivings would authorize the use of force at all. The decision to go to war should never be taken lightly, and given those misgivings I’d argue that hindsight doesn’t even factor in. She obviously had clear foresight about the matter she chose to ignore. On the subject of her not wanting to be labeled a “flip-flopper”, the sources of that information are her own aides.

    Manila Ryce
    02/19/07 at 3:49 pm

  5. One thought for Senator Clinton…”A foolish consistency is the hobgoblion of little minds.” Ralph Walso Emerson

    It is time for EVERYONE in America to own their mistakes and missteps in life. It is the basest form of conceit and deceit to ever seek to avoid acknowledging one’s own mistakes, or worse to always blame them on others.

    I would not vote for Senator Clinton under any circumstance that I can currently envision. I am deeply gratified that she is not my senator.

    Sadly though, I am no better off in being a North Carolinian and having as my state’s senators two of the Republican senators with noses furthest up the butt of George W. Bush. As things stand, I have no representation in the United States Senate.

    My only point of pride at this date in these matters is that John Edwards, former NC Senator from NC, seems to have grasped the elemental truth that admitting your mistakes, rethinking your position and taking a new and informed course of action is a good thing.

    MLRiamapilgrim
    02/19/07 at 10:09 pm

  6. I personally went to Hillary’s office with New Yorkers Say No to War. We presented her staff with a packet of information refuting the positions put forth by the White House. We were told Hillary had already made up her mind.

    We were asking that the two-days push from the White House presentation of the War Powers Act of 2oo2 to its vote be delayed. We were behind Senator Byrd’s filibuster to give more time to “at least read the bill,” the largest he had seen in over 40 years in Congress. He had voted for Bay of Tonkin and rued it. He was hoping that Congress would not repeat. The Dems voted him down to their shame.

    Had the Dems at least agreed to take a little more time, the fatuous reasons for war would have been exposed. Instead Hillary–and Schumer I might add–got swept up in a revenge call for the heartbreaking events of 9/11.

    The US needs a new direction, new leadership.

    The US needs to have someone in office who will not be so easily swayed without doing the proper homework which would have spared the current civil war, the coming regional war and the deaths of so many civilians whose only crime was having been born in Iraq.

    Green4Obama
    02/21/07 at 11:10 am

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