Advance copies of Hillary Clinton’s new book have been distributed and the book has already created a buzz over her statements about the Iraq War, Bergdahl, and other subjects. In a statement that will be viewed as many as “too little and too late,” Clinton now says that her support for the Iraq war (and vote for the war as a Senator) was a mistake. At the time of the Iraq war, many of us opposed the vote and called on Clinton and her colleagues to hold real, substantive hearings on the war. With the exception of Russ Feingold, the members refused and eagerly jumped on the band wagon for war. After all, the war was popular and the polls were with Clinton. Then the war became unpopular, the reasons for the war exposed as untrue, and Clinton’s position began to change. She tried to offer a nuanced answer while running for President in 2008, but avoided an admission of fault or mistake on her part (as opposed to others). Now, she is coming out and offering a type of “oops, my bad.” At the same time, she has moved to separate herself from the backlash over the Bergdahl trade. With some 44 percent of Americans opposed to the trade (and only around 29 percent supporting the trade), Clinton wants no part of the scandal and insists that she was steadfastly opposed to any trade for Taliban. At the same time, Clinton has publicly stated that she and Bill also faced hard times after leaving office. It seems that when they were “dead broke” while living in the large home in New York and worried (like so many families) of how to cover tuition costs and the mortgage.
The logic on Capitol Hill has long been that votes for wars like Iraq are the safe choice for politicians since the costs of appearing unpatriotic would have greater costs. Moreover, the view in Washington is that Americans have a short attention span and you can always express regret later or blame the prior administration. While thousands of Americans are dead or severely wounded, the war can be treated as something in the past when we need to look to the future.
For those families, Clinton’s new admission is unlikely to erase the anger:
“Many senators came to wish they had voted against the resolution. I was one of them. As the war dragged on, with every letter I sent to a family in New York who had lost a son or daughter, a father or mother, my mistake (became) more painful. . . . I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple.”
Of course, it ignores the objections at the time that Clinton and others were unwilling to even listen to objections over the failure to address constitutional problems over another undeclared war. She also ignored demands for substantive hearings that might have revealed that there was no real evidence of weapons of mass destruction. These calls were ignored because the members did not want to hear anything that would make it difficult for them to vote for a popular war. It was at best willful blindness and can only be defined as “good faith” if one ignores the concerted effort to avoid countervailing information in the rush for war.
For those of us who opposed the war, the revision of history by those responsible for it is not short of maddening. In September 2005, Clinton began to re-position herself and blamed the Bush Administration for her vote. That was three years into the war when the polls were falling. She continued this theme in 2008 in her presidential run. She did not however come clean about being mistaken. She however adds “I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong.” That is not exactly the “buck stops here” attitude when it comes over a decade too late and shares blame with others.
Having offered the admission on Iraq, Clinton proceeds to throw Obama under a bus on Bergdahl. She makes clear that she was against the now unpopular trade and that she made clear “that opening the door to negotiations with the Taliban would be hard to swallow for many Americans after so many years of war.” She also said that Obama ignored her call to arm the Syrian rebels and that they might have been able to overthrow the regime. She wanted action and portrays Obama as timid: “[T]he risks of both action and inaction were high. Both choices would bring unintended consequences. The President’s inclination was to stay the present course and not take the significant further step of arming rebels. No one likes to lose a debate, including me. But this was the President’s call and I respected his deliberations and decision.”
So there you have it. She was “wrong” on the war but not alone but do not blame me for Bergdahl or Syria. It is called a political pivot.
If that reinvention is does not take, Hillary also appears to be making a pitch to struggling American families that she knows their pain because she and Bill were “dead broke” after leaving the White House. In an interview with ABC, Hillary details the harrowing reality that followed their departure from the White House: “We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt. We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea’s education. You know, it was not easy.” For a candidate who has had persistent problems with authenticity, this is not going to help.
Of course, unlike most Americans, Bill Clinton immediately started a speaking tour that brought in millions, including some fees from questionable associations. Also the Clintons were able to call upon fundraiser Terry McAuliffe (now, the governor of Virginia) to secure a loan for a $1.7 million home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Hillary Clinton has pulled in the same huge fees after leaving office as we previously discussed. This includes half of a million dollars from Goldman Sachs in less than a week. The weird math that allows the Clintons to claim to be “dead broke” is that they had legal fees from their time in the White House. However, no one seriously expected these Democratic firms to pursue the Clintons for payment and donors quickly worked to pay off that debt. Those bills were entirely paid off by 2004 by donors eager to help the Clintons.
It is not clear if this will remake Clinton into a new image of a struggling mother and peace advocate, but many in Washington believe that American voters have the memory of a golden retriever puppy. They will have to. The Democrats have been pushing Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton to a public that is calling for an end to the duopoly of the two parties and a break from the Washington establishment. It will be interesting to see if the next book paints Biden as an outsider in Washington. In any case, the campaign has clearly begun and, despite even liberals wanting to see Hillary face a primary challenge, the Democratic Party appears to be treating her nomination as a done deal.
Source: Politico
I am a capitalist and no I would not turn it down. But I WOULD NOT SAY IT WAS HARD WORK!
SWM – yes, Hillary is intelligent and well educated. I am curious to see how she will do in debates this time around. Obama was a more charismatic speaker. I am also curious if the media will stop handling her with kid gloves. They already act like most criticism or questions of her are unfair. She gets handled very tenderly in interviews, although this most recent one at least had a few probing questions. Maybe it will be a trend.
I tire of the political status quo – lies, cover ups, fraud, spin. I just want an honest person who knows how to run something, anything. Governors and business men at least know how to manage. Senators know how to show up and vote and make pork deals. But what have they actually run, government or otherwise? I hope our next president has owned a business, so he’ll actually have some idea of what small business owners face.
In our history, it was often farmers, soldiers, and businessmen who ran. Someone who was “one of the people,” who hadn’t lost that connection to what people need and want for prosperity.
nick, i thought you were a capitalist. If someone is willing to pay you large sums of money for a speech, why would you turn it down?
SWM, Come on, all Republicans are stupid, ineloquent, lazy and heartless. Everyone knows that, just as everyone knows Dems are smart, eloquent, hard working, and they care.
Karen, I think the Whitewater fiasco cost them more money.
Queen Hillary said she “worked hard” to get outta debt. Working hard is working 2 full time jobs, waiting tables, cleaning motel rooms, etc. Getting 200k for giving speech in Vegas, NYC, LA, etc. is NOT working hard. I can’t believe the cultists here.
Nick:
The problem she is going to have is that there are still people in the US who can add. Her tax returns during these periods are public record. Later tax returns will need to be released when she runs. Funds like the Clinton Legal Defense Fund are public record.
Paul C, Hillary went to Yale when there were very few women there. One thing she is is smart. Cruz is smart too but far out. So if he becomes the nominee, there will be two excellent debaters.
SWM – given her memory problems before Congressional committees, I am not sure she can survive a debate. And that was before the head injury.
SWM:
She claimed she was broke when she left the WH. That is based on the legal fees for her cheating, lying husband’s sex scandals. But she neglected to mention the $4.6 million in her Clinton Legal Defense Fund. As well their speaking engagements, mansions, etc.
According to her tax returns, she had something like $750,000 in liquid assets at that time.
Now I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I would not open my mouth and claim to be “dead broke” at a time when I lived in a mansion. Now, technically, there was a gap between their last paycheck as First Family, and their first pension check, first check for speaking engagement, book advances, etc. How long was that gap? 2 weeks? 8 days? I’m sure their $750,000 should have been able to cover them during their hardship. And don’t forget, they don’t have to pay for their security detail. That’s free for life.
Her repeated dishonesty really annoys me.
Steve – oh, yes, the $6 billion . . .
I just think it’s hilarious that a seasoned spin doctor, who’s had all this time to prepare, STILL cannot answer the simple question of what she accomplished as SOS.
Karen – when the State Dept was asked what she accomplished as SOS, all they could think of was that she sold some jets to somebody.
mespo, “Dead broke and $12million in debt” in 2001 and worth millions along w/ a $2 million house when she filed campaign Senate campaign papers a year or so later. When did you turn into a trusting slimy politician kinda guy. You’re ideology is showing.
Nick – Hillary will put off declaring for as long as possible. A short race benefits her, while a long race allows time to bring out every fact and skeleton from her crowded closet.
Karen. You don’t need a new script. You are on message.
John:
You mean the Mitt Romney who spent his OWN self-made money? That Mitt? Remember when the media blasted his wife for pampering her show horse? Like it would somehow be better for a fabulously wealthy (non-government) woman to own a grade trail horse and then starve it. They resented her a single equine athlete, they resented her sponsoring Olympic riders. They resented her clothes. Oh, and remember all the dumb things we did decades ago that would no longer be considered acceptable now? The Romneys put their dog’s carrier on the roof of their car in a well meaning but oblivious move, while Obama ATE dog meat in Indonesia. Guess who got the pass?
Argh! Media bias!
Meanwhile. FLOTUS lives the high life on our dime, breaking records for vacations in office (compared to the Bush’s humble working vacations at his own ranch that did NOT shut down entire cities), wearing couture, etc.
Personally, I have no problem with people spending their own money. It’s when people spend MY money that I have an opinion!
And all this drivel, “If Hillary runs.” This is not a book she just published. She had 3 real writers do the work. This was 500 pages of a political roll out. Unless she is diagnosed w/ stage 4 cancer, she is running. Quit the BS.
Paul,
No way! That would be illegal.
We all know the Clintons are moral bunch that would never lie, cheat or steal!
(FYI, on different note, it would appear the Lovely Lois Lerner illegally turned over 1.1 million IRS records to the FBI before the 2012 election. And the hits just keep on coming!)
Let’s see. Hillary claimed it was a “vast right-wing conspiracy” that her husband sexually harassed women, cheated, and lied about it. Knowing the entire time that it was all true.
And now it’s another “right-wing conspiracy” to expose her incompetence, lies, and cover up in Benghazi.
She should get a new script.
mespo, “I take her @ her word.” So, you’re the one.
And don’t look to Scott Walker to be the Republican candidate. If he could even get so far, Hillary and Warren would tear him to shreds. He is still under a John Doe investigation, plus he doesn’t have a college degree. Why in the world he couldn’t finish at least his bachelor’s is a mystery…or not. The latest polling in the Gubernatorial race in 2014 show him and the Democratic candidate Mary Burke neck to neck.
Annie – Bill Gates is a college dropout.
Oh, and let’s not forget Hillary’s war against Jennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky, attacking their character. When she KNEW their allegations were completely true the entire time.
Now THAT’S who I want standing up for women in the workplace!