Conservative writer David Brooks wrote a few days back about Hillary that I think is worth sharing. He argues that Hillary has no reason to apologize for her war vote.
Far be it from me to get in the middle of a liberal purge, but would anybody mind if I pointed out that the calls for Hillary Clinton to apologize for her support of the Iraq war are almost entirely bogus?Brooks can be a dope, and at other times he's really quite good. In this piece, it's hard to know whether he's supporting Hillary so that she'll stay the course and self-combust, or what. Read the piece, it's an interesting analysis.
I mean, have the people calling for her apology actually read the speeches she delivered before the war? Have they read her remarks during the war resolution debate, when she specifically rejected a pre-emptive, unilateral attack on Saddam? Did they read the passages in which she called for a longer U.N. inspections regime and declared, “I believe international support and legitimacy are crucial”?
If they went back and read what Senator Clinton was saying before the war, they’d be surprised, as I was, by her approach....
If they went back and read what Senator Clinton was saying before the war, they’d be surprised, as I was, by her approach. And they’d learn something, as I did, about what kind of president she would make.
The Iraq war debate began in earnest in September 2002. At that point Clinton was saying in public what Colin Powell was saying in private: emphasizing the need to work through the U.N. and build a broad coalition to enforce inspections.
She delivered her Senate resolution speech on Oct. 10. It was Clintonian in character. On the one hand, she rejected the Bush policy of pre-emptive war. On the other hand, she also rejected the view that the international community “should only resort to force if and when the United Nations Security Council approves it.” Drawing on the lessons of Bosnia, she said sometimes the world had to act, even if the big powers couldn’t agree.
She sought a third way: more U.N. resolutions, more inspections, more diplomacy, with the threat of force reserved as a last resort. She was triangulating, but the Senate resolution offered her a binary choice. She voted yes in order to give Powell bipartisan leverage at the U.N.
I would just add one more thing. People who assume that Hillary's only problem is with the "anti-war Left" are missing the boat. Not all of us are the anti-war left, and not all of us could give a hoot about an apology, or Hillary's vote at all. I honestly don't care that she voted for the war authorization. What I do care about is feeling like I'm being played. And Hillary's answers in response to the war vote feel scripted, as if she's searching for the perfect soundbite that will please 50.1% of the voters.
I don't want to hear scripting, I want to hear Hillary.
