Why I don’t trust Hillary Clinton
Last week I attended a panel at The Tank in New York City, where Ari Melber of The Nation, Democratic strategist Scott Shields, and erstwhile John Edwards blogger Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon were giving a talk on progressive politics, netroots political activism, and how to combat the right-wing noise machine. (Majikthise has pictures for the interested – scroll down to March 4.)
The conference was attended by about seventy-five people, and of those, I’d conservatively estimate that 100% had their own blogs. I know this because everyone who asked a question made sure to mention the name of theirs. (Little bit of self-deprecating blog humor there! – although, in my defense, I didn’t ask anything). Really, this shouldn’t be a surprise; if we didn’t think there were others who were interested in what we had to say, we wouldn’t write for our blogs in the first place. The evening ended up being more like a conversation than a question-and-answer session, not that there’s anything wrong with that – although I could have done with a little less of the obligatory Kos-bashing.
In any case, I wanted to write about some thoughts that’ve been brewing in my mind on one of the evening’s themes. Amanda Marcotte in particular, recently retired from the John Edwards campaign after becoming a target of intense harassment and vituperation from bigots like William Donohue, spoke on the silly and pointless cult of apology that’s become one of the favorite tactics of the right-wing noise machine. The general theme is that, whenever a progressive does something that annoys conservatives, they and often everyone around them are subjected to a barrage of demands to “apologize”. This is not so much a request for a heartfelt expression of regret as much as it is a demand that the offender ritually abase themselves before the self-appointed guardians of decency and seek pardon for transgressing what those self-appointed guardians view as the bounds of acceptable discourse. Liberals do this too, but conservatives are particularly enamored of it.
The endless and insincere demands for apologies have grown to become one of the aspects of politics that annoys me the most. As Marcotte pointed out, what it’s really about is flexing political muscle and attempting to humiliate one’s enemies – along the lines of “I made you apologize, so therefore I am strong and you are weak”. The apology, if given, is not viewed as an expression of regret that clears the air, but merely an admission of guilt that can be more readily used to attack the giver in the future.
All of this came up in a discussion of the vote authorizing the Iraq war, which several Democratic presidential candidates voted in favor of – in particular Hillary Clinton. John Edwards, who was also in the Senate at the time, has publicly said “I was wrong” to cast that vote. Clinton, on the other hand, refuses to issue an apology and says that people who want her to admit that should choose another candidate, though she says that “if I knew then what I know now”, she wouldn’t have voted for the war.
As I said, I am no fan of the cult of apology, and I have not yet made up my mind which candidate I intend to support. But I’m very near certain that whichever one it is, it won’t be Hillary Clinton, and her stance on this issue is the reason why. This may seem to be a contradiction with the previous paragraphs, so permit me to explain myself.
Unlike conservatives who glorify a contrived cult of masculinity, I view apologizing not as proof of the giver’s ritual humiliation, but as a way for them to demonstrate what they have learned. It is appropriate in that context, when an opportunity for learning presents itself. To me, Hillary Clinton’s refusal to apologize for her vote authorizing war is evidence that she hasn’t learned anything.
Granted, she has said that she wouldn’t have voted for war if she had known then what she knows now. But what sort of statement is that? If she had known in advance that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, had nothing to do with September 11 and was bound to fall apart in a bloody civil war in the aftermath of invasion, she wouldn’t have voted to invade? I would certainly hope so! But that isn’t a bold declaration of political principle; that is just proof of some minimal connection to reality. That should be the bare minimum required for any candidate who wants to be taken seriously. But it does not go nearly far enough.
In essence, by refusing to apologize, Clinton is asserting that Iraq isn’t her fault. She wants to place all the blame on Bush for feeding misinformation to Congress, and none on herself for being taken in by that misinformation. That is not how our government works. Congress is not a rubber stamp, blindly considering only the information which the president wants them to consider and then obediently voting however the president wants. Congress is a separate and co-equal branch of government, and as such has not just the right but the obligation to exert its own authority by skeptically and critically scrutinizing any action the president wishes to take, and denying him the authority to take that action if the evidence does not hold up. In the runup to the war, unfortunately, Congress was taken in by hysteria and chose to abdicate that responsibility.
Yes, Bush bears the vast majority of the blame for lying and misleading this country into a bloody, disastrous war. But Congress is not free of blame either. Every member of Congress who voted to authorize that action bears a share of the blame as well. They can expiate that guilt in two ways. First, they should immediately introduce legislation to bring American soldiers home as soon as is reasonably possible. Second, at least as importantly, they should apologize forthrightly for their blind recklessness to lead us into war on dubious evidence in the first place. Again, this is not about ritual humiliation: it is about these congresspeople telling us what they have learned. They must prove to us that they now recognize Congress as a co-equal branch of government, one which has the authority and the obligation to act as a brake on the executive, and will not be blindly led into disaster by a warmongering president again. Hillary Clinton’s refusal to apologize, her refusal to shoulder her portion of the blame for the Iraq disaster, suggests to me that she has not learned anything at all from her part in this.
- Hillary Clinton’s honesty problem
- Bill Clinton indicts FOX—on FOX
- Single Issue Anyone?
- Obama more “presidential” says Clinton
- Hillary and Rudy
Category: Culture, Current Events, Iraq, Politics, The Middle East, War
“Well, Germany never attacked us. Why did we go to war with them? Shouldn’t we have focused only on Japan? Or did we have the wisdom to recognize a threat before they instigated hostilities? Sounds kinda pre-emptive.”
You’ve got to be kidding. Has historical knowledge fallen so low? Ebonmuse points out quite rightly that Germany declared war ON US in support of Japan’s delcaration of war. But even before that, in January of 1941 Roosevelt annoucned his lend-lease policy and we began sending supplies to England. American ships were then targeted, attacked, and SUNK by German submarines. That, I would say, is an attack.
“I wouldn’t necessarily consider a WMD development program to be “minding its own business.” And how was Iraq “keeping Al Qaida at bay?” Wasn’t Saddam harboring several well-known terrorists?”
The WMD program had been dead–apparently due to the fact that sanctions had starved Saddam’s ability to fund it. What seems to have been going on–and here one can quibble with foreign policy a bit–was that after Guld War I, we had rendered Iraq vulnerable to attack from other enemies–namely Iran, but certainly Syria could be counted in that, and of course there was the ongoing Kurdish separatist movement. Hussein–and this was acknowledge even by the Clintons–carried on a campaign of deception to pretend to have a WMD program. I recall a few years back even Hillary commented in an interview “well, it certainly looked like he was hiding something.” He bluffed. And lost, ironically because the bluff was so convincing we–or some of us–believed he had a program that, had Blix and company had another month, we would have proved he didn’t.
As for terrorists, not all terrorists are from the same ideology. Hussein loathed Bin Laden and was a staunch enemy of Al Quida. He didn’t make a habit of harboring terrorists because most of them were in one way or another fundamentalist Islamisists, which he couldn’t stand.
“I’m fairly certain that the invasion of Iraq and fall of Saddam were completed around 4 years ago. Could that, perhaps, be the mission to which they were referring? Did people celebrate VJ day? How could they have done that when Japan still needed to be occupied and brought under control? Those crazy kids.”
There is no valid comparison between WWII and this mess. The fall of Hussein was minor compared to the task Bush took on when he pulled this stunt. It was no contest from the outset. But he has so badly mismanaged every other aspect of it–mostly on the advice of Rumsfeld, who rejected sound military advice all along the way–that the fall of Saddam can now be characterized as the only high point in the whole damn thing. We in fact are not “occupying” Iraq in any thing like the way we occupied Japan. We have a military presence in the midst of a civil war. There was no civil war in Japan, and we have a damn sight no troops there, and a very clear mission. These bozos had no clear mission. What they had was a fervant hope that aLL THE Iraqis would be so glad to be rid of Hussein that they would just fall in love with us for getting rid of him.
That’s not a policy.
But before you shoot your mouth off again about how this situation compares with other situations–like post WWII–read some history. No, read a LOT of history.
Underlying your assertions seems to be an implicit idea that Bush is somehow the equal to Roosevelt and Truman. Get over that.
One point to all you who are criticizing Hillary’s campaign tactics…those who actually do say what they believe tend to not make it out of committee–vis a vis Kucinich. I admired him for his forthrightness, but he didn’t get past first base.
Not that I’m defending this kind of politicking, but it is a fact of life in America. They all do it. It’s not fair to pick on one.
Curiosis compares pre-invasion Iraq to a brain tumor and likens Bush’s invasion to brain surgery. Iraq was more like hemorrhoids: a pain in the ass that would flare up from time to time, but which was obviously not life-threatening. Similarly, likening Bush’s invasion to brain surgery is like doing brain surgery to cure your hemorrhoids: sensible only if you have your head up your ass. The facts are these:
1. nobody in pre-invasion Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attack;
2. nobody in pre-invasion Iraq was in a position to launch a WMD attack against America;
3. the Bush Administration knew both of these facts, but lied about them to fabricate an excuse for overthrowing Saddam, a goal that had existed among high-ranking Bush Administration neo-cons since the first Gulf War, long before 9/11;
4. when confronted with these lies, the Bush Administration then fabricated another story that even if Saddam didn’t have WMDs, he “might eventually” get some and then “might” try to use them against America — a maneuver akin to the bait-and-switch that sleazebags use when they are trying to rip you off (“forget about that deal that brought you in here and, instead, take this other deal instead”);
5. the Bush Administration also lied about the cost and time required to invade and occupy Iraq, facts that are obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense because regime change on a national level is obviously a gigantic, costly project;
6. most Americans believed these lies, and many still do;
7. one big reason why many Americans still believe these lies is because the Bush Administration has waged an extensive domestic propaganda war to hide the financial and psychological cost of the war from the everyday lives of most Americans;
8. as a result of the Bush Administration’s lies deceptions and failures, America will ultimately waste more than a trillion dollars and thousands of lives in Iraq and do virtually nothing to reduce the risk of future terrorist attacks against Americans;
9. the Bush Administration has knowingly and deliberately dumped the cost of these lies and failures onto people who could not vote them out of office: Amerca’s future generations.
Presidents are not privileged to set the moral standards of America, so criticism of Hillary over highly devisive issues about homosexuality can be expected to be those which any candidate might shun.
The attempt to use Hillary and her outspoken tendencies to cripple her campaign while leaving the men untouched might be seen as typical male sexism used against women for failing to guide men correctly.
Hillary has no responsibility to set men straight on the issue of homosexuality, and no obligation to do so. The Constitution guides such choices via the courts. Any attempt to make Hillary into the Pope with his duties is unfair as it would be for any candidate. Presidents, nor Presidential candidates make moral policy in America.
Cenk Uygur argues that current criticisms of Hillary Clinton miss an “overwhelming” problem with her.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-real-case-against-hil_b_81248.html
Despite Hillary discovering that Bush’s war was built on lies, she continued to support that war for four long years. BECAUSE OF HER WAR SUPPORT, HOW MANY TROOPS AND IRAQUIS WERE TORTURED, MAIMED OR KILLED? Hillary is a smart , slick expedient politician. SHE WILL SAY OR DO ANYTHING TO WIN. BUT I STILL WANT TO KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE SUFFERED FOR HER DECISION TO SUPPORT AN UNJUST WAR FOR FOUR LONG YEARS!?
Quoting myself:
“[...] she was grossly misinformed on a very serious topic such as war, but then I find it very ironic to run around claiming that you *know* what you are doing.”
Obama had access to information that convinced him that his duty lay in voting against the war, while she with all her political savviness and top staff failed abysmally to see through Bush tactics. Her “experience” does not seem like a good argument to vote for her.
And she should have apologized, I totally agree with Ebonmuse on this one. Personal experience tells me that people who are not able to apologize are usually unwilling to learn from their mistakes and make changes. I also see this as a refual to take responsibility for one’s actions.
And I see, Curiosis, is confirming my belief/prejudice that libertarians are actually right-wingers, most at least.