A New York Times story that appeared in May 2007 marked the beginning of my movement away from Hillary Clinton, and I have recently been reminded of it. It's funny -- even I myself have forgotten so much about the war that I feel awkward brining it up again, wonder if it' just not a hot topic right now. Everyone knows she voted for it... but this story reminded me of the details behind her support, the eerie similarities to Bush, that I was reminded poignantly why it had made my stomach turn in a mixture of amazement and nausea.
To those of you in North Carolina who still have undecided friends and relatives, I urge you to send them a link to this article, or a PDF to this article. Even if you know that Hillary supported the war, you don't really know how much she did until you read this compelling narrative written by Pulitzer-prizewinners.
Everyone remember that New York Times article, Hillary's War? I recently re-read it slowly, and it reminded me of all the fundamental reasons why I found Hillary inappropriate for the presidency. Here are the most poignant excerpts:
Insecurity, a running theme...
...According to aides and strategists, her insecurity about her public image and her nascent national-security credentials made it difficult, if not impossible, for her to vote no [on the Iraq war].
(After Bosniagate, I remember watching Shrum and someone else on MSNBC wondering why Hillary felt so much insecurity about her experience that she constantly felt the need to make herself look tougher, hence the sniper fire embellishments. This came to my mind once I saw the word insecurity.)
A decision informed by experience
As she explained her vote on the Senate floor, Clinton noted, ''Perhaps my decision is influenced by my eight years of experience on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, in the White House, watching my husband deal with serious challenges to our nation.''
The Intelligence Reports that Were Never Read
The question of whether Clinton took the time to read the N.I.E. report is critically important. Indeed, one of Clinton's Democratic colleagues, Bob Graham, the Florida senator who was then the chairman of the intelligence committee, said he voted against the resolution on the war, in part, because he had read the complete N.I.E. report. Graham said he found that it did not persuade him that Iraq possessed W.M.D. As a result, he listened to Bush's claims more skeptically. ''I was able to apply caveat emptor,'' Graham, who has since left the Senate, observed in 2005. He added regretfully, ''Most of my colleagues could not.''
The Republican talking points, and Divergence with Fellow Dems
Clinton's linking of Iraq's leader and Al Qaeda, however, was unsupported by the conclusions of the N.I.E. and other secret intelligence reports that were available to senators before the vote...In fact, the classified reports available to all senators at the time found that Iraq was not allied with Al Qaeda, and that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden harbored feelings of deep mistrust and enmity for each other.
...on the sensitive issue of collaboration between Al Qaeda and Iraq, Senator Clinton found herself adopting the same argument that was being aggressively pushed by the administration. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials had repeated their claim frequently, and by early October 2002, two out of three Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was connected to the Sept. 11 attacks. By contrast, most of the other Senate Democrats, even those who voted for the war authorization, did not make the Qaeda connection in their remarks on the Senate floor. One Democratic senator who voted for the war resolution and praised President Bush for his course of ''moderation and deliberation,'' Joe Biden of Delaware, actively assailed the reports of Al Qaeda in Iraq, calling them ''much exaggerated.''
The Democratic senator who came closest to echoing Clinton's remarks about Hussein's supposed assistance to Al Qaeda was Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Yet even Lieberman noted that ''the relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam's regime is a subject of intense debate within the intelligence community.''
On claims that it had been about "diplomacy"
... Clinton voted against an amendment to the war resolution that would have required the diplomatic emphasis that Clinton had gone on record as supporting -- and that she now says she had favored all along.
The Eerie Echo of Bush
... She called for a ''tough-minded, muscular foreign and defense policy.'' She urged ''patience'' and worried about the political will ''to stay the course.'' ''Failure is not an option'' in Iraq and Afghanistan, she declared. ''We have no option but to stay involved and committed'' in Iraq, she said, calling her decision to authorize the President to invade Iraq ''the right vote,'' one ''I stand by.''
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P.S. There is another article,an opinion piece called "Obama, Clinton, and the War" that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in January, which was striking in that it pointed out that she not only voted for the war, her advisors were pushing it with other senators as well.
Sandy Berger, a key Clinton adviser, played a major role in convincing Kennedy's congressman son, Patrick, to vote for the war authorization against what he said was the advice of his father and his own better instincts. According to a Knight Ridder report at the time, "Patrick Kennedy said the most persuasive arguments for attacking Iraq came from members of the Clinton White House," including former Secretary of State Madeline Albright , who is often described as the foreign policy expert closest to Hillary. Patrick J. Kennedy refuses to be burned twice and now supports Obama....
...Hillary Clinton has made "experience" key to her claim to the presidency and tells us she will do the right thing from "day one." .... Her political career begins with the Senate and she hit the ground running but, as her craven support for Bush after 9/11 shows, it was in the wrong direction.
P.S. Digg the article. I want it to become popular once again, because people have forgotten. Unfortunately the person didn't put a very attractive description up there but oh well, once someone diggs before you do, what can you do?