Hillary Clinton seems to have found a way to get people from moving beyond her disastrous “dead broke” claims, but not in a way that is likely to please those voters tired of wars and military interventions. Clinton used an interview this week to criticize the “failure” of President Obama’s policies in Syria and to insist that she wanted a more interventionist military approach. President Obama was quoted responding to such criticism by calling it “horseshit.” It seemed a return to the 2008 election where Clinton campaigned on her hawk credentials in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — a mistake for many Democratic and independent voters. Recently, she changed her mind and said that the Iraq War was a mistake despite her refusal to listen to a chorus of critics of the war at the time when it was a popular political move. Despite that change, Clinton is suggesting that she would have armed the Syrian rebels and acted more aggressively to stop the Islamic State.
In the interview with prominent foreign affairs writer Jeffrey Goldberg, Clinton attacked Obama’s decision not to quickly and strongly support the Syrian rebels and said that the West Wing’s foreign policy mantra — “Don’t do stupid stuff”— is “not an organizing principle.” She seemed to brush over the fact that that the same course that led us into repeated costly military campaigns or that many of the rebels at the time were found to be committing atrocities like the regime. Then there is the fact that many of our weapons have already ended up in the hands of the Islamic State in places like Iraq — as we saw in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda.
The statements were a replay of Clinton’s much maligned campaign against Obama in 2008 that she was the one who could handle the “3 a.m. phone call.” As someone who supported both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, many insisted that they did not want any more such calls.
The change in strategy and message may not be coincidental. A major poll this month by NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing Obama’s approval rating at an “all-time low.” The interview was widely viewed as designed to separate Clinton from the declining fortunes of both Obama and the Democratic Congress.
Putting aside the timing, Clinton has repeatedly shown herself to be closer to George W. Bush than Obama on military interventions. She used the interview to reaffirm her absolute support for Israel and her credentials in committing U.S. military resources in foreign conflicts.
Nevertheless, while criticizing Clinton on the attack against Obama and interventionist drumbeat, liberal writers like Joan Walsh at Salon.com are still cited in the article below as still expecting to support Clinton for the next president. It is part of a continuing rift on the left of our political spectrum. It is not clear what are the dominant values of the Democratic Party going into this election. Civil liberties and war issues used to be a rallying point for liberals. However, those issues have been seriously undermined by the Obama Administration and the Clinton campaigns in 2008 and 2014. Clearly, some agree with Clinton’s hawkish views and others are drawn to the chance of electing a female, even one with opposing views. However, there remains a remarkably fluidity in the defining values for the party going into the election beyond the dominant blue state/red state rhetoric that the Republicans are simply worse. That narrative is clearly not working but seems to be the only theme upon which the party is advancing consistently. There is the immigration issue but that has proven extremely risky and does not appear to have paid off politically. Indeed, some black leaders and voters have publicly opposed the effort by Democratic members to push for legalizing the status of millions of undocumented individuals. We are, as the Chinese curse says, living in interesting times.
Source: Politico
Why is the first answer for the US to international crisis as always throwing more military at a problem… a problem exacerbated by US militarism?
When at a fire, throw gasoline on it?
Speaking of gasoline…
“Never waste a good crisis” – Hillary Clinton
I’m pleased to see the President uses both Tom Hanks and my favorite word, “horseshit.” It is a great word on many levels. It evokes emotion from both the cerebral and olfactory regions of the brain. And, it is therapeutic. Just saying, horseshit, helps one release their negative feelings. Writing horseshit isn’t as therapeutic, but still effective.
Up next: Hillary blames Obama for her 2003 Iraq vote.
Mission accomplished–Attention has been successfully taken away from Obama’s current insane, murderous war mongering into the future insane, murderous policy that American’s first woman president will bring on!
We are even discussing who will win the election!
Instead, USA voters need to pull our sh*t together and address the current insane, murderous war mongering of this president, the result of demands by his war contractor, financial puppet masters.
This story is the essence of propaganda and we should quit buying into that and address the horrifying reality before us.
(and no matter who is the candidate the dems problem has been getting out the base. repubs get their voters out. I do not know why we have more trouble doing that – been posited because they tend to be more split and not just toeing the party line like repubs.)
a former CIA analyst was on the news yesterday saying maybe more should have been done in Syria but it would have made no difference with what is happening with ISIS
I am disappointed in Sec’t. Clinton
(and think it was SWM who wrote re Bernie Sanders. I think he is terrific but doubt he could win.)
Jill,
We agree that the wars for profits and to control the oils needs to end now…. It’s another excuse for American Imperalism….
Foon, That is correct. That is one reason why it is madness as Obama’s current foreign policy. We the people need to protest this insanity now!
Did she bother to ask who made up a large number of the original anti-Assad rebels? Here’s a clue, it was the same fundamentalists who now are a part of ISIS. So by giving them arms, we would just be arming the ISIS rebels.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10311007/Syria-nearly-half-rebel-fighters-are-jihadists-or-hardline-Islamists-says-IHS-Janes-report.html
She blames Obama for HER “service” as SoS.
Why did she give him bad advice to follow concerning Syria?
And to think, no one in the US Corporate Media will even ask…
… As “serving” SoS, weren’t you involved in the Syrian policy?
Me doth think she not only protest too much…
… She projects, well.
What is horsesh*t is the idea that Obama isn’t a war mongering, war hawk, civilian killing president. I see Clinton’s statement as serving 2 propagandistic purposes.
1. it is the sincere but crazed belief that Obama is a peace president. He has started 7 wars (kinetic actions). He has just now put even more troops in Iraq. He wanted to attack Syria but was stopped. He wants to put more troops into the Ukraine and this may be stopped but there is no guarantee of that.
The way that Obama and Bush differ is that Obama has engaged in more wars and killed more civilians by drones.
In order to cover over the blood lust of Obama, Clinton is pretending to be more hawkish.
2. Clinton is speaking to her donor base-war contractors and financial industry players who want more war because it is profitable. She also understands that her base is ready for that first woman president. Her base is like Obama’s –they won’t care what she stands for. They won’t think about the fact Clinton, while being a women is not someone you should want to be president.
It’s so cynical. We the people must stop buying the crap we are fed. Until we do this nation will spiral further into lawlessness here and around the rest of the world. Everyone will suffer for the stupidity of American voters.
Like Robin Williams, she’s way old beyond her years. She’d be in failing health after one year of stress in the White House, then probably the first POTUS to commit suicide, maybe take our nation with her.
For those who want a president who will end wars–NEWS FLASH–there will always be wars. The question is which one’s are worth fighting. I say any war that threatens our economic stability, our American freedoms, and that freedom of our allies is a war that should be fought. We can reason with diplomacy, but in the end, there are wars that call for our intervention.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knows this and why she is positioning herself as a hawk.
The war in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East is feudal. We know that now. As long as there are Islamic terrorist, Shiites and Sunni’s, there will always be a war, a war that will never be won.
However, when our allies in the Middle East are threatened i.e.Israel and Jordan, we owe them our help. And when innocent people are displaced, we owe them our help to get them to safe havens.
They say opposites attract, but I have never believed it. Hillary would be a sell-out as President just like her “I feel your pain” husband. He and his supporters in the party damaged the party such that neither the party nor the country will recover for the foreseeable future, perhaps never. And Obama, his appointments and supporters have placed their imprimatur on that damage and have damaged the country even more. Deliberately lost are the common good, democracy, economic and social justice, and a sane foreign policy, which are the sine qua nons of democracy,not to mention the hideous decisions on the environment (Obama is rhetorically committed to moving against global warming and safeguarding the environment but his actual decisions give the lie to that commitment: GMO foods, oil/gas leases, FDA policies, and more). None of Hillary Clinton’s statements and decisions while at the State Department quality her for the presidency in the sense that decisions and actions of a presidential candidate should be shown to have been humane and just, not to mentioned informed by reality. I am a little old fashioned on that score. We will have no real choice in voting and not for the first time. For all their supposed differences, the powerful in each party share common oligarchic economic beliefs and devotion to so-called American exceptionalism (a nonsense word except in the sense of criminally entitled to do anything the leaders are pleased to do, no matter how stupid, self-defeating (in the end), and cruel) and a deceitful and murderous foreign policy and, more and more, the same goes for domestic policy. Not wanting to leave the Republicans unscathed, the present day Republicans are comprised of religious and economic fundamentalists/predators, know nothings, and the eternally biased against people they believe less worthy than themselves (races other than whites, human beings other than males, and all those with even a modicum of tolerance and empathy). Both parties practice hypocrisy on a grand scale. It simply cannot be ignored any longer. so many of our leaders are cowards who go along to get along, others commit actions that can be defined as wicked, still others as evil.
squeeky, Thought so….. I did see a poll where she was only down eight points. Oh well, with this election, Texas moves even further to the right.
Out of the mouth of babes….
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-gambles-iraq-posture “When Obama announced plans last Thursday for a limited mission in Iraq, the president went out of his way to acknowledge the public’s weariness for war. “I know that many of you are rightly concerned about any American military action in Iraq, even limited strikes like these. I understand that,” he said. “I ran for this office in part to end our war in Iraq and welcome our troops home, and that’s what we’ve done. As Commander-in-Chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq.”
Republicans, oddly enough, are saying largely the opposite. They’re surely aware of polls showing the limited public appetite for military intervention abroad, but the GOP is nevertheless positioning itself as overeager hawks: the Iraq war never should have ended, a variety of Republicans are now insisting, and it’s time to use even more force in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.
Ed Kilgore added yesterday, “Anyone who makes the ‘shoulda never withdrawn’ argument must believe it, because it’s really dumb politically…. Yes, there are a significant number (although a minority even there) of Republican voters who think we should still be fighting the Iraq War Bush began, just as there are almost certainly a decent number of Republicans of a certain age who think we unnecessarily ‘surrendered’ in Vietnam. But it doesn’t play well in a general election.” “
Swm
Nope. Wendy is a lost cause. I ‘m not voting for her ever unless she has a real come to Jesus moment.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
It isn’t just Hillary who misunderstands Europe’s thinking at this time (NATO: Nanny America Turns Oily).
Squeeky, Do you think Wendy has a chance? I think it is mainly men that hate Hillary, and that she will attract some moderate republican women voters..