I can understand Edwards saying he made a mistake on the Iraq vote. But I can't understand why anyone in their right mind would believe anything from Hillary Clinton after her explanations about her Iraq war authorization vote.
At the time, Clinton's vote on Iraq showed terrible judgement and lack of intellectual ability and experience, but her explanations afterwards have indicated more than just dissembling; she has shown nothing but outright dishonesty.
If experience is worth anything, it is that experience means you know what things mean. You know what "taking responsibility" means beyond the lip service. You know that "taking responsibility" means you admit you were wrong and you say you are sorry for being wrong. If you don't know that, then you don't have the basic life experience needed to be an adult, much less the president.
First Clinton dishonestly tried to say she didn't vote to authoritze war, only to authorize a threat of war. Here's a synopsis of the bill.
Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq: Passage of the joint resolution that would authorize President Bush to use the US military as he deems necessary and appropriate to defend U.S. national security against Iraq and enforce UN Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq. It would be required that the president report to Congress, no later than 48 hours after using force, his determination that diplomatic options or other peaceful means would not guarantee US national security against Iraq or allow enforcement of UN resolutions and that using force is consistent with anti-terrorism efforts. The resolution would also give specific statutory authorization under the War Powers Resolution. Every 60 days the president would also be required to report to Congress on actions related to the resolution.
Reference: Bill sponsored by Hastert,R-IL; Bill HJRes114; vote number 2002-455on Oct 10, 2002
Q: You've been critical of Pres. Bush's handling of the war. But you have not apologized for your vote to authorize that action.
CLINTON: I regret the way the president used the authority that Congress gave him. I thought it made sense to get inspector back into Iraq, and backing it up with coercive diplomacy. I was worried that there were residual WMD, and that Saddam could have done something quite irrational. We know now that this administration never intended to let the inspectors do their job and contain Saddam. I take responsibility for my vote. I regret that we've had strategic blunders and misjudgments. But if we knew then what we know now, there never would have been a vote, and there never would have been a war. This president chose that war and unfortunately, was ill-prepared for what was needed to be done to be successful.
Q: Do you regret voting that way at the time?
CLINTON: I regret the way he used it. I don't believe in do-overs in life. I made the best judgment at the time.
Source: NY 2006 Senate Debate, moderated by Bill Ritter Oct 22, 2006
She claims to "take responsibility" but does she really? If a person takes responsibility for their actions, then the usual thing to do is to say "I'm sorry." That's whas Edwards did. Why doesn't Hillary Clinton say "I'm sorry"? The only conclusion is that she doesn't take responsibility. She is lying when she says she does. When asked if she regretted her vote she says she regrets who Bush used her vote. That is not taking responsibility.
Also she says she regrets "the way the president used the authority that Congress gave him." Again, read the bill above. The president used the authority that Congress gave him in exactly the way that Congress gave it. For Clinton to deny that, she is either lying today or she doesn't have the experience to know what she voted on then and she doesn't have the experience to know what it said even today.
And here's another question and answer this time from the April 2007 South Carolina Debate.
Q [to Edwards]: You made a high-profile apology for your vote in favor of the Iraq war resolution. You have said, "We need a leader who will be open and honest, who will tell the truth when they made a mistake." Was that not a direct shot at your opponent, Senator Clinton?
EDWARDS: No, I think that's a question for the conscience of anybody who voted for this war. Senator Clinton and anyone else who voted for this war has to search themselves and decide whether they believe they've voted the right way. If so, they can support their vote.
CLINTON: I take responsibility for my vote. Obviously, I did as good a job I could at the time. It was a sincere vote based on the information available to me. If I knew then what I now know, I would not have voted that way. But I think that the real question before us is: What do we do now? How do we try to persuade or require this president to change course? He is stubbornly refusing to listen to the will of the American people.
KUCINICH: I don't think that it's sufficient to say that if we had the information at the beginning that we would have voted differently. That information was available to everyone. And, if you made the wrong choice, we're auditioning here for president of the United States. People have to see who had the judgment and the wisdom not to go to war in the first place, and I made the choice not to go to war.
Source: 2007 South Carolina Democratic primary debate, on MSNBC Apr 26, 2007
So she said,
It was a sincere vote based on the information available to me. If I knew then what I now know, I would not have voted that way.
Since she has never explained or even tried to offer an explanation why she didn't know, this statement amounts to either a bold faced lie or an admission of complete lack of experience. WHICH IS IT MS. CLINTON?
If she really didn't know then she is admitting the lack of expeience about how to find out the facts when a president asks for such a vote. Why? Becuase as Kucinich said, "That information was available to everyone. Kucinich even wrote a paper analyzing the information and shared it with other congresspeople.
KUCINICH: It must be really tough for candidates for president to claim that they were tricked, deceived, misled by George Bush. Well, here's one person who wasn't. Now think about the consequences when you're tricked, deceived or misled by George Bush -- because this becomes serious -- because we have 3,100 of our brave men and women who have died in this war. Over 650,000 innocent Iraqis have perished. Hundreds of billions of dollars spent on this war.
When someone wants to be president, they have to have the clarity of vision to be able to make the right decisions on life and death matters. I saw the same information that all these other candidates saw. I studied the same reports that they studied. I came to a different conclusion because everything I saw was there was no proof that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 or had weapons of mass destruction. People are looking for a president who has the ability to do the right thing when it matters the most, and I've demonstrated that.
Source: 2007 AFSCME Democratic primary debate in Carson City Nevada Feb 21, 2007
If she didn't want to listen to a lowly Representative in the House like Kucinich, why then didn't she listen to Edward Kennedy? Here's a story on Kennedy's position against the authorization for war from September 2002, two weeks before the vote in October 2002.
Kennedy counters Bush on Iraq
Says al Qaeda bigger threat than Saddam
Friday, September 27, 2002 Posted: 12:13 PM EDT (1613 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) --Joining what appears to be a growing Democratic chorus, Sen. Edward Kennedy Friday challenged President Bush's request to use military force against Iraq.
The Senate's preeminent liberal said the Bush administration had failed to make a convincing case that war against Iraq was the only way to deal with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, whom the U.S. and British governments accuse of developing weapons of mass destruction in violation of U.N. resolutions.
"I have come here today to express my view that America should not go to war against Iraq unless and until other reasonable alternatives are exhausted," Kennedy said in a speech before the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the top goal of U.S. policy toward Iraq should be to get weapons inspectors back on the job without conditions. And he said the country should work closely with the United Nations to force Saddam to comply with resolutions on disarmament that came at the close of the Persian Gulf War.
Kennedy hinted at recent Democratic complaints that the Bush administration has politicized the issue of national security and has impugned Democrats who try to engage the administration in debate about what course of action to take.
"It is possible to love America while concluding that it is not now wise to go to war," Kennedy said. "The standard that should guide us is especially clear when lives are on the line. We must ask what is right for our country and not party."
Lott: U.S. will get 'international support'
Talking to reporters during Kennedy's speech, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott rejected the criticism that the Bush administration was embarking on a risky, unilateral approach to Iraq.
"We are going to get international support," Lott, R-Mississippi, said. "It is not just going to be the United States and Great Britain. There will be a lot of other who will be involved. But also we are not going to, the United States is not going to just stand still, stand mute and allow this issue to continue to fester and become a greater and greater threat to all of us."
Kennedy conceded that Saddam is dangerous, but said al Qaeda terrorists are a more imminent threat than Iraq.
Striking at Iraq, Kennedy said, could undermine the international cooperation in sharing intelligence information and apprehending terrorists.
"To succeed in our global war against Al Qaeda and terrorism, the United States depends on military, law enforcement, and intelligence support from many other nations ... It is far from clear that these essential relationships will be able to survive the strain of a war with Iraq that comes before the alternatives are tried or without the support of an international coalition," Kennedy said.
Kennedy's speech follows one Wednesday by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who blasted the Bush administration for what he described as its efforts to exploit the war for political gain. Monday, former Vice President Al Gore also challenged Bush on his Iraq policy.
Gore's speech appeared to have energized some Democrats who have privately been voicing concerns about the Bush approach.
Kennedy warned that a war with Iraq could trigger Baghdad's use of weapons of mass destruction, and possibly start a wider, destabilizing conflict in the Middle East.
At the same time, Kennedy said the use of force may prove inevitable, should weapons inspections fail. But he repeatedly stressed his belief that other options, including stronger diplomatic efforts, must be explored first.
"Resorting to war is not America's only or best course at this juncture," Kennedy said. "There are realistic alternatives between doing nothing and declaring unilateral or immediate war. War should be a last resort, not the first response."
He ended the speech by recounting the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. The senator said his brother won international support before initiating a blockade around the communist island nation, which had been accepting missiles from what was then the Soviet Union.
-- CNN Congressional Correspondent Kate Snow contributed to this report.
CNN archives
Then there was the Levin Amendment that attempted to slow down the call for war. It wasn't radical, it didn't say leave Iraq alone. The Levin Amendment basically placed the objections raised by Kennedy in the article above before the Senate saying that UN weapons inspection must be completed first and invasion would only be appropriate if the UN agreed after the final report of the UN inspectors. The Levin Amendment only opposed unilateral action. Now if Clinton really believed in 2002 what she said in 2006 that she "thought it made sense to get inspector back into Iraq, and backing it up with coercive diplomacy" then she would have voted for the Levin Amendment. McCain argued against the Levin Amendment saying that the US was attacked and our going to war with Iraq was "self defense." Clinton voted with McCain for unilateral action, and against Levin, Kennedy, & Boxer calling for UN inspections and a UN mandate for intervention.
Here's Barbara Boxer's statement in the Congressional Record about the Levin Amendment. Wasn't Clinton listening? Boxer
Mrs. Boxer: Mr. President, I thank Senator Carl Levin for his amendment. I thank the State of Michigan for sending Senator Levin to the Senate. His independence, his courage, his clear thinking, his love of country are evident in the work he has put behind this important amendment. I believe his answer to Iraq's challenge is, indeed, the right course for this country.
To me, the issue of Iraq should be approached in the following way. Iraq must be held to its word that it will submit to thorough inspections and dismantlement of weapons of mass destruction. Let me repeat that: Iraq must be held to its word that it will submit to thorough inspections and dismantlement of weapons of mass destruction.
The United Nations should pass an updated resolution ensuring unfettered inspections and disarmament, and that should take place or there will be dire consequences for Iraq. The weapons they have are a threat to the world. The world must respond. If we handle this matter correctly, the way Senator Levin is suggesting, I believe the world will respond. If we handle it wrong--and I think the underlying resolution is the wrong approach--if our allies believe we have not made the case, they believe somehow this is a grudge match, or if they believe they are being manipulated for domestic political reasons, that is going to hurt our Nation and that is going to isolate us.
Indeed, this rush to pass unilateral authority--I have never seen anything quite like what has happened in the Senate. The rush to pass unilateral authority, the rush to say to the President, go it alone, don't worry about anybody else, is hurting this debate, and this debate looks political. It looks political.
If there are those in the administration who believe this debate could hurt Democrats, they may be surprised. Democrats do not walk in lockstep. We are independent thinking. I believe the people want that.
Remember, this administration started out thumbing its nose at the Constitution and the role of Congress in terms of war and peace. This administration did not want to bring the debate on this war to Congress. We have many quotes I have already put in the Record on that subject. They did not want the President to go to the United Nations. Indeed, they said he did not have to go there; he did not have to come here; he did not have to do anything. Also, as The Presiding Officer knows, they wanted a resolution that gave the authority far beyond Iraq. They wanted to give the President authority to go anywhere in the world.
Now that idea is gone from the underlying Lieberman resolution. So checks and balances do work. I think what we ought to do is continue those checks and balances by passing the Levin amendment.
The Levin amendment puts America front and center in a way that will win over the civilized world. This is what it does.
No. 1, it urges the U.N. Security Council to quickly adopt a resolution for inspections of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the dismantlement of those weapons.
No. 2, this new U.N. Security Council resolution urges that we will back up the resolution with the use of force, including the United States. And the President gets that authority in Senator Levin's resolution.
No. 3, it reaffirms that, under international law and the United Nations Charter, the United States has the inherent right to self- defense. So anybody who says, my God, we are giving everything over to the U.N., has not read the resolution.
Last, it states the Congress will not adjourn sine die so that in a moment's notice we can return if the President believes we need to go it alone.
Some have said that the Levin amendment, again, gives veto power to the U.N. Security Council. That is not true. Again, under the Levin amendment, if the President cannot secure a new U.N. resolution that will ensure disarmament of Iraq, he can come back, he can lay out the case and answer the questions that have not been answered.
I have looked back through history. I never have seen a situation where the President of the United States asked for the ability to go to war alone and yet has not told the American people what that would mean. How many troops would be involved? How many casualties might there be? Would the U.S. have to foot the entire cost of using force against Iraq? If not, which nations are ready to provide financial support? Troop support? What will the cost be to rebuild Iraq? How long would our troops have to stay there? What if our troops become a target for terrorists?
We have seen in Kuwait, a very secure place for our people; we have had terrorist incidents already against our young people there.
Will weapons of mass destruction be launched against our troops? Against Israel? If you read the CIA declassified report--declassified report--they are telling us that the chance that he will use them is greater if he feels his back is up against the wall. Everybody knows the underlying resolution implies regime change. It implies regime change. What I think is important about the Levin resolution is that it goes to the heart, the core of the matter, which is dismantlement of the weapons of mass destruction.
If Saddam knows his back is against the wall, he will use these.
The Presiding Officer: The Senator has 1 minute remaining.
Mrs. Boxer: I thank the President.
So let's be careful. Why not take the conservative approach, the two- step approach of the Levin resolution, when it comes to the life and death of our people? There are more questions that have not been answered, and I have put them in the Record. Yet the President wants the authority to go it alone and he has not answered even one of those questions to Members of this Senate, let alone to the American people.
I cannot vote for a blank check for unilateral action. I cannot vote for a go-it-alone approach before any of these fundamental questions have been answered. Twice in the past 4 years I voted to use force: once against Milosevic, once after September 11. So it is not that this Senator will never vote for force, but in this case, when the President is proposing to go it alone, I think we have the right on behalf of the people we represent to have the questions answered.
In closing, the Levin resolution gives us that two-step approach. It says to this President: If you want to go as part of a world force and make sure that we get the dismantlement of these weapons, we give you the authority and the blessing. If not, come back and ask us and we will debate then and we will vote then. I hope we will vote for the Levin resolution.
I yield the floor.
If Clinton wanted to vote for inspections she would have joined Kennedy, Boxer, Levin, and others to support the Levin Amendment, but Clinton voted against it. So her later statements that she voted for the war authorization because she was for inspections is just a plain lie.
Frankly, I just don't see any argument that justifies Clinton's vote on the war, but even more importantly I don't see how anyone can believe her statements today about that vote.
The irony is that she is basing her campaign on "experience" when her lies about her Iraq vote shows she didn't have experience then and doesn't have the experience today. She didn't have the experience to read and understand the information when it was given to her. She doesn't have the experience today to understand what she did then. She doesn't have the experience today to say she was wrong then and she is sorry today. She doesn't have the experience to know what "taking responsibilty" even means.