Yesterday I wrote a detailed diary discussing the Clinton campaign's misrepresentation of Barack Obama's opposition to Iraq. Today, Bill Clinton appeared on Al Shapton's radio show and continued the historical revisionism... from TPM:
Instead, Bill said, the "fairy tale" is the idea that Obama has always opposed the war. "We went through 15 debates and the Obama campaign has made the argument that his relative lack of service in the Senate was not relevant because he had better judgment than the other Democrats on the Iraq War..." Bill said. "And I pointed out that he'd never been asked about his statements in 2004 that he didn't know how he'd have voted on the Iraq War, and that there was no significant difference between his position as President Bush's."
Bill then speculated on what Obama might have meant at the time — perhaps he only disagreed with the conduct of the war, or how best to deal with it now. "The point is, it disproves the argument that he was always against it, everyone else was wrong and he was right..." Bill said. "I said, that story is a fairy tale, and that doesn't have anything to do with my respect for him as a person or as a political figure in this campaign."
The most obvious problem with this statement is the selective quotation. The Clintons have an unfortunate tendency to clip the second sentence:
''But, I'm not privy to the Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''
New York Times
I would consider it far more troubling if Obama had stated he could not have been dissuaded from his position regardless of the contents of intelligence reports he could not access. His case against war was delivered against the case that was presented to the nation. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton has no defense that the case was made any more effectively to those in the Senate. Moreover, the second sentence demonstrates that Obama was, in the 2004 interview, still representing his position as pro-war (oops, edit: "anti-war").
"And I pointed out that he'd never been asked about his statements in 2004 that he didn't know how he'd have voted on the Iraq War, and that there was no significant difference between his position as President Bush's."
There is and always has been a vast difference between Obama and Bush (and between Obama and Clinton) on the question of whether to invade Iraq, which Obama has always opposed. In 2004, with the country's infrastructure and political integrity destroyed, an immediate departure would not have been a humane option...
and, of course, Clinton once again has removed the context.
'On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the
Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a
year ago,' Obama said during a luncheon meeting with editors and reporters
of Tribune newspapers. "There's not that much difference between my position
and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is
who's in a position to execute.'
snip
The problem, Obama said, is the low regard for Bush in the international
community. 'How do you stabilize a country that is made up of three
different religious and in some cases ethnic groups, with minimal loss of
life and minimum burden to the taxpayers?' Obama said. 'I am skeptical that
the Bush administration, given baggage from the past three years, not just
on Iraq. . . . I don't see them having the credibility to be able to
execute. I mean, you have to have a new administration to execute what the
Bush administration acknowledges has to happen.'"
Sun Times
As I said yesterday, I feel there is a more important question at stake than Iraq... that question is the next Iraq, the next situation that comes along where a politically expedient and advantageous foreign policy leads to self-destruction, and demonstrating the ability to discern those events. Clinton got lured into voting for authorization while Obama was speaking out against it, and he has continued to do so.
However, this also represents a broader trend of political distortion out of the Clinton camp. One CANNOT argue that Clinton's statements on Obama's war record are in any way an accurate representation of that record's meaning... the quotes have been butchered specifically in order to change their meaning... in order to tear down the anti-war credentials of our only remaining, viable, consistent anti-war candidate. Those credentials would be handy in a general election, and they are rather essential even at present in distinguishing the Democrats from the Republicans in this election.
Stop distorting the record.