Hillary's Vote on the War

T

TahoeHorn

1,000+ Posts
Do you buy her explanation? Do you think anybody does?

I followed that situation very carefully. In fact like many of you I posted about it here quite often as it went down. There wasn't the slightest bit of doubt in my mind that if Saddam didn't comply he was gone. And I guessed he wouldn't comply mostly because I thought he believed he had more room for brinksmanship than he did. I also believed that every politician knew that the "smart money" was on a yes vote by the Senate. The no votes in authorizing the first Gulf war had ruined Presidential chances. Hillary, smart calculating ***** that she is, knew that the country was pissed about 9/11 and was not likely to trust anybody with the Presidency who was soft on terrorism. All the smart money believed the war would be quick and we would find WMD. I think she looked at the polls as she always does and made the vote which ensured her political viability. This argument that she thought it was a vote to use diplomacy is *********. She can talk about GWB all she wants but her argument suggests that diplomacy with Saddam was an option - that it could have worked. The only options were war or ignore him.
 
No, I don't buy it. When does an authorization to use force not get used? This is why I completely buy into Ron Paul's argument about declarations of war.
Obama, in hindsight, was right and we (myself and Hillary included) were wrong.
 
Pickles,

What would have been the diplomatic solution? Are you suggesting Saddam would give in?

Second, was there the slightest bit of doubt in your mind about what was going to happen?
 
I think she voted to authorize force because she felt as a Democrat and a woman she needed to look tough on defense. Ever since she won her Senate seat she has been scheming for the long term, picking prominent committee seats that would help balance her ultra-liberal reputation. Armed forces? Based on her history she should be chairing something on health care or women's rights (both excellent issues) but to be President requires some military gravitas.
 
Of course it is BS - she was a hawk when hawks were in, and now she is a dove. This irks me, because, whereas politicians can be wishy washy about most things (they represent the people after all), IMO we should have clear ideas how our leaders intend to use the greatest military power in history. If 100s of thousands of innocent people will die, on top of our troops and our actual enemies, someone voting for it should truly believe it is necessary (it almost never is) and just apologize sincerely if they were wrong (not much else you can do, besides authorizing aid, which is being done).

Claiming you gave someone the authority to cause that many innocent deaths without regard for the magnitude of such power, then standing by in silence while it is used is probably the worst excuse I can imagine. Lot's of people are guilty of this, including me on the standing by in silence part. But it amazes me that such an excuse is actually deemed politically acceptable. Maybe its just because the electorate is almost as guilty. Off my soapbox.
 
Paul f'ing Begala this morning on the today show stated that HRC is insulting D's intelligence by trying to say her vote was not for war but so that we'd use diplomacy. This is one of BJC's biggest advisors/supporters who is saying it. I agree it is an insult to our intelligence and she needs to try as hard as she can to look forward and stop talking about the past, it is a loser for her.
 
So Saddam didn't believe we'd invade?
but somehow diplomacy would have worked?
When a huge number of our troops had been deployed to the area can anyone say with a straight face Saddam STILL didn't believe we'd invade?

When Bush gave Saddam 48 hours to give up before we came in does anyonje think Saddam didn't believe it ?
got plenty of serious warning
I do believe Hillary when she said she did her own due diligence. She has said she used her own sources and what she said last night is what she has said all along
I give her that much
 
Most politicians lie so I find myself forced to grade on the curve. Clinton still flunks. Romney gets a "D" which is why I didn't support him. Sometime the ******** is just too much.
 
I was against the way Bush took us to war, but I was not necessarily against invading Iraq. I buy Hillary's rationale, but I still think she should have voted against the resolution. I think the resolution should have been voted against because the Bush administration was trying to politicize the vote by bringing it before the midterms when Bush had very high approval ratings. Contrast this with 1990, when his father waited until after the midterms to bring the resolution in 1991.

Now, Congress may have have had to pass the exact same bill after the midterms in order to show that we meant business, so putting it off may not have made that much difference. Of course, putting it off could have forced Bush to build a real coalition, talk straight to the American people, and try work out a deal with all the parties involved. Also, maybe Congress could have crafted a bill that was not a blank check, once again, I realize this might have been impossible if our goal was to prove to Saddam we were going to use force. However, Bush's politicization of the resolution created a weak foundation upon which to take the nation to war, and members of Congress deserve blame for not standing up to it (although over 150 voted against the resolution).

So, if I were making up a scorecard I would subtract points from Hillary, and she definitely does not deserve to make the pages of "Profiles in Courage" with her vote, because being a member of the Senate means that sometimes a senator has to cast a vote that might cost them his/her job, because they should have the courage to do what is right regardless of the consequences.

If I were making up a scorecard for Obama I would neither add nor subtract points for his initial opposition to the war. He gave a speech that not many people heard and had little impact, and he was not part of an anti-war movement or anything on a national level. Also, the Congressman he ran against in 2000 voted against the resolution, so clearly the community he represented opposed the war. So he did not really take a courageous stand, because it was not going to cost him anything to oppose the war. So even though he made the right decision and I believe it was a sincere decision--what he did is not a profile in courage (I realize JFK's book profiled actions taken by sitting US senators and Sam Houston as a senator and governor).
 
We didn't even need diplomacy. All we had to do was let the UN inspections finish their job and we would have known there were no wmds. Of course that's exactly why we couldn't wait for them to finish as it would destroy the "reason" for the war.
 
When you have Wolf Blitzer suggest that she was naive and Paul (removed as a pundit from CNN because he supports HRC) state that her explanation is BS, then I think you have your answer.

What is worse however is that Guilianni told us in the Florida debate how McCain will use her vote. He said that Hillary voted for the war when it had a 70% approval rating and then flip flopped against the war when the polls showed a 60% disapproval rating.

Contrast HRC with McCain who stood by his convictions (even if misguided). As between Hillary and McCain, McCain could actually make Iraq a liability for HRC even though a vast majority of Americans believe the war was a mistake.

Obama, on the other hand, can contrast with McCain on judgment. Obama spoke against the war and warned that putting the country back together again if we invaded would be a monumental task because of the sectarian and tribal conflicts. In sharp contrast, McCain still argues that invading Iraq was a good decision even with the knowledge that Iraq did not pose an imminent or even a non-imminent threat to the U.S. He argues that it was sufficient that Saddam was a bad guy, had killed his own people, and someday was hoping to produce WMDs, mainly because he was scared of Iran.

The Bush policy of pre-emptive war was a radical change from past U.S. foreign policy. McCain still supports such radical change. If you believe the polls, the public does not!

Looking forward, Obama can ask the American people if they can trust McCain to make the right decision on whether or not to go to war when he still believes that invading Iraq was the right decision. HRC cannot make the same case because McCain will simply suggest that she will take a poll to decide whether or not to invade a country.

HRC's vote not only showed bad judgment, it severely affects her electabilty against the presumptive Reub candidate.
 
I think HC is a less than genuine person, but don't forget, Obama was not a Senator at that time. He was basing his decision on a lack of information just like all of us. He did not have any of the information that was viewed behind closed doors. So essentially, it was a guess, and a guess that had no real life consequences for American lives or American issues. Hindsight is 20/20, but HC was part of a Congressional discussion reviewing classified information. The support was bipartisan and overwhelming and the Congressional decision was a real decision, not an opportunity to criticize from the sideline. The two "decisions" cannot be compared. Although, I will say, HC's motivations for her decisions are fair game.
 
Bush wanted war... the Congress wanted to use the threat of war.....

Bush of course tols the congress and the American people that starting a war with Iraq would be a "last resort" but clearly the timing of the Push to war with Iraq was more related to domestic political stratagies than any other single variable. The Congress was still at that time dumb enough to trust the President at his word. Pretty much nobody is that dumb anymore.
 
I don't know that Congress was dumb, per se, but Bush still had overwhelming support of the American people. At that point, he was on a course to be one of the most popular presidents ever. With that popularity, even democrats were afraid to oppose his wishes. Then Iraq happened.
 
The Democrats could actually lose this presidential election. This is some of the most staggering incompetence that I have ever seen in politics, but I am still young.
 
With 70% support for the war, any politician who publicly spoke out against the war was putting their political future at risk, especially if they had any dreams of a national office.

And not only did Obama oppose the war, he had the foresight to predict what would happen in the aftermath of the war, something our current President did not adequately consider or plan for.

I do not disagree that it was a harder decision for a Senator, but if the Senator wants to be president, it is fair to look at how she performs on the difficult decisions.

What bothers me the most is that she did not stand up when it became clear that Bush would not allow the inspectors to finish their job especially when they were not finding anything.

Finally, from a purely political perspective, McCain whether fair or not, will suggest that her decisions were driven by the polls so that she was for the war when it was popular and against the war when it wasn't.
 
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