I got email from Tom Vilsack today entitled, "Why Hillary is my choice". Then I was talking with a couple of colleagues at lunch, and one asked if I was supporting Hillary's presidential bid. Setting aside that it's far too early to be obsessing over the 2008 presidential race, I want to have my reasons for opposing Hillary clearly laid out somewhere, and this seems like as good a place as any. Follow me below the fold for a list of seven reasons, none of which, I think, will be new to regular readers of Daily Kos.
1) Hillary voted for our illegal attack on Iraq.
She - and her fellow senators - certainly had enough information at the time to know that the WMD and Al Qaeda connections were fabrications; she - and they - abdicated their constitutional responsibility by turning the decision for war over to the Executive branch. This has been a long time coming, and Hillary is by no means alone in this, but it is to my mind a very strong mark against her.
2) She continues to support our illegal occupation of Iraq.
Worse still, Hillary has not yet acknowledged her error nor apologized for it. No woman or man who continues to support our presence in Iraq should be given a position of leadership - much less the presidency! - in our country. Such support demonstrates appalling lack of judgement.
2) She has not apologized for that support.
She's acknowledged that the Bush administration has made errors - but not her own error in voting for the Use of Force resolution. We need our leaders to be able to own up to their errors.
3) Hillary is a corporatist.
Her voting record as senator demonstrates that she supports corporations over people. Ours is, and should be, a nation of, by, and for the people; our elected representatives are elected to represent us. Those who serve corporate interests over those of we the people (and of course Hillary is again no exception in this) do not deserve positions of authority.
4) Her most notable national undertaking was fundamentally flawed.
When Bill was president, Hillary was the champion of a new health care policy. Rather than addressing the real issues of our health care crisis, rather than promoting single-payer, universal health care (the only tenable solution to our health care crisis), Hillary promoted a plan that served the interests of insurance companies. And failed, even at that.
5) Her electability is highly questionable.
Her negatives may not be quite as high as George W Bush's - but they're damned high. A great many people in this country hate her and would never consider voting for her - many for the wrong reasons, but I'm just talking electability here. I don't believe any other Democratic candidate has negatives that compare with Hillary's.
6) Hillary sponsored an amendment to the Constitution supported legislation banning flag burning.
The Constitution is fundamental, important, and in many ways great. The flag is just a symbol. One of the things that makes our Constitution great is the freedom it gives us to express our opinions, as strongly as we feel, using diverse means. Burning an American flag is very strong speech - it is speech that offends a lot of people. Our value of free speech is rightly stronger than our respect for the symbol that is our flag. Part of what that flag stands for is the freedom to burn it. Supporting - worse, sponsoring an amendment to ban flag burning is wrong and the worst kind of pandering to the worst kind of people. It's not serious, and it's not something I admire in a candidate. My apologies, and my thanks for the - ahem - gentle corrections of tigercourse and LarryInNYC in comments. It's a much lesser offense - but still offensive - in my book to support legislation opposing the free speech of flag burning. I'm sorry for propagating the misinformation.
7) Dynasty is contrary to American values.
The Bush dynasty has of course been particularly bad, but even granting that Bill Clinton was a much better president than either Bush ("the best Republican president ever" according to Michael Moore, and I agree), it is harmful to our nation to so reduce the pool of potential leaders. It's a shame that name recognition plays such a big part in electability. We should be choosing the best people to lead us, and there's not much reason - in this nation where we hold as given That all men (and women) are created equal - to think that one good leader's wife (or son, or cousin, etc.) will necessarily be a good leader her- or himself.