1 Boring Old Man

How Clinton Could Defuse Her Weakness on Iraq

Earlier today, I noticed for the first time that a clear anti-Hillary narrative – weakness on the war – had taken hold. It’s a very damaging narrative for her, because it’s an effective criticism that is not personality-based and won’t raise an instinct that Democratic primary voters have to rally around those attacked by the right. It suggests character flaws – stubbornness, weakness, caution, triangulation, arrogance – but it’s a substantive criticism, not a Fox News-ified hysteria-induced creepy insult.

There is one possible response that Clinton could use to effectively defuse this narrative. She can’t at this point admit fault on the war, because that would be a craven concession to primary voters, a pander that would be tough to trust. She also can’t triangulate and argue that her vote suggests she is strong on national security, because that’s no longer the world we’re living in. No, the only way to turn this around would be to take a really public and aggressive leadership role in beating back Bush’s plan to invade Iran.

Matt Stoller, author of this piece, is one of the blogsphere pundits, deservedly. It’s not him I disagree with. It’s the idea that’s in this post. Hillary Clinton can’t neutralize her vote on Iraq, and it does suggest character flaws – though different ones than Matt suggests. A lot of Democrats voted for the Iraq War:

There’s no way to spin out of that vote. There are some really important people on that list. Some voted for the war because they believed President Bush. Some voted for it because they were afraid not to – it was politically correct. I’m afraid Hillary is one of them. Some people voted for the war because they were afraid they wouldn’t get re-elected otherwise.

But all of them were wrong – dead wrong.

What I don’t like about Hillary is that she’s too political. She measures what she does based on how she think it might effect her chances of being President. That’s the character flaw that bothers me. It’s true that of all the people on that list, she was in the position to know what Bush was up to. Bill Clinton knew. I don’t hold that against her. She’s done a good job of being her own person.

But "neutralizing" her vote for the Iraq War is Rove-Think. I’d rather see her say, "I made a mistake. I’m sorry." and leave it at that. If she wants to lead the fight to keep Bush from doing it again in Iran, more power to her. What I’m afraid of is that she won’t do that either, for the same reason…

So let’s give credit to the brave ones. They weren’t running for President. They were just doing their jobs:

I expect most of us sort of understand why people followed Bush and Cheney back then. September 11th worked. It made us all crazy. Who knew that our Administration was going to use how we felt after 911 to send us off on a war of conquest for oil? I feel good about opposing this war from the start – now. But back then, I felt confused, like some kind of a traitor. I had no conviction that I was right. It was a National Failure, the Iraq War. What we now know is that the National failure was to elect George W. Bush and Richard Cheney to the White House in the first place. Hillary didn’t do that!

If she’s a Presidential possibility, she needs to show us that she has the integrity to do the job. We’ve had enough of "last name" Presidents…