the fact of the matter is that all the people in the house and senate were lied to by the bush administration. 911 had just happened I think almost anyone would of voted for the Iraq war at that time. I personally can’t blame them.
Im not into the benghazi style kangaroo crap.
I think that Wellesley “prediction” has been a burden for Hillary, motivating her to take positions foreign to her natural instincts. I still remember the First Lady on a foreign tour who warmly embraced Mrs. Arafat, for example.
Sometimes, even in our political system, there are repercussions for a wrong decision. Clinton made the wrong decision on Iraq, and she probably lost the 2008 nomination as a result. Too bad many other responsible parties didn’t have to pay their dues.
Good for him. He’ll be 61 in 2024. He could run then, and maybe some of us will have heard of him by then.
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Except that anybody with half a brain could see that it was all a pack of lies and a prescription for disaster, and I am sure that she did, too. Her “mistake” was in believing that none of us would figure it out. But she made a political calculation that cost her a chunk of her credibility, which lost her the candidacy in 2008, because too many of us in her party had way more than half a brain. .Is she going to keep making mistakes like that? I need to know,
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9-11 happened 1&1/2 years earlier than we attacked Iraq. The truth that no Iraqis had anything to do with 9-11 was long and well-known to Congress, as was the knowledge that UN weapons inspectors found no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program.
The war-for-Iraq frenzy whipped up by the Bush administration, which did eventually deceive 60% of the general public, shouldn’t have deceived Senator Clinton.
Many of Hillary’s influential political backers wanted an Iraq invasion. The junior NY Senator voted accordingly in 2002-3 and held to that position through re-election in 2006. Most of the Democrats who publicly changed their minds about their own war votes, were not running for President in 2007-8.
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That would have been true for me had she beaten Obama in 2008, but I’m not so sure she’ll be as “centrist” as Bill was. I don’t really see anyone who’s in the mix right now that I prefer.
Would I support Warren? Hell, yes. But I don’t see her running.
I reserve the right to change my mind if Hillary lets Mark Penn within a mile of her campaign, but right now I see her as a good choice.
Which is what Ike Jr. has given us. Foreign affairs and civil rights have been strengths of this administration, but economics has been anything but.
Just because you’re bad at math or unclear in your rant doesn’t equal me defenfing Hillary. Grow up.
All these years, I’ve wrongly assumed she really didn’t believe her vote mistaken. I believed then and now that a yes vote on the war was perfectly defensible on the grounds that a sitting Senator has to trust the President’s good faith and honesty when he stands before the nation and declares an enemy to be threatening the US with WMD.
The fact that George W. Bush proved himself unworthy of that trust should’ve been all the reason John Kerry needed to throw his sorry butt out of the White House in 2004, but Kerry opted instead for his all-war-hero, all-the-time campaign, which neither excited liberals, nor converted conservatives, nor impressed moderates, while allowing Bush/Cheney to debut the monstrosity of “swift boating” as a verb.
Maybe Kerry too, had a more nuanced opinion than he was willing to play politics with. Maybe it also cost him the election.
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Sounds like a textbook example of succumbing to the fallacy of sunk costs only in this case its currency is of people’s lives. Doesn’t speak well about her judgment.
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Cheap shot DJ. Try reading a bit more carefully next time.
I certainly agree that Hillary is embarrassing! She’s still trying to find a reason for her vote that will neutralize this potential problem. Now I’m reading that she thinks we should have left military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. This woman is a hawk and we all need to acknowledge that.
Elizabeth Warren is looking better and better.
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Hillary just raised my concern level with her hawkishness–because that is exactly what it is, “can’t withdraw my support while anyone in the military is in harm’s way”. I detest that argument as self-serving mishmash. You make the decision that is best for the damned country because it will ultimately be the best for the military folks. That statement is circular–as long as troops are fighting, the war is supported. That’s called entanglements.
I have said in the past that I would support Hillary for the exact reason you gave–my best hope for a female President. But my nose is being pinched too tight with this sort of drivel that raises all sorts of concerns about her bias for action first and thinking after.
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You’re exactly right. I read an interview she did with someone recently who asked what her favorite book was. She said … wait for it … The Bible.
Are you fucking kidding me??? It’s the most panderish thing a politician can say - unless you’re a Republican and then you say one of Reagan’s biographies.
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Okay.
Yeah, except that a significant number of Dems in both the House and the Senate did not. Bob Graham was urging people to read the intelligence reports available to them, because they showed the case was a lie, and Hillary chose not to do so.
She was a coward then, and she is a hawkish panderer now.
You have got to be kidding. He steered the country away from a second depression by using pure Keynesian economics. He has repeatedly pushed for tax increases on higher earners, although with limited success thanks to the Republicans going all in for the 1%. He has pressed to restore some of the regulation that was stripped out of the financial sector under previous administrations, although again rather hamstrung by what can get through Congress.
Sure, Obama believes in capitalism. But that is not the same thing as neoliberalism. Sure, he did not go after the bankers as I would have liked. But that is not economic policy.
So no, Obama is not a neoliberal on economic policy. But Bill Clinton was, and Hillary shows every sign of taking things straight back in that direction.
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the past tense of “lead” (rhymes with “bead”) is “led.” not “lead.” “lead” (rhymes with “bed”) is a soft, toxic metal.
sorry to be a grammar nazi, but i swear that this misuse is becoming an epidemic – I see it everywhere … and especially in places that I shouldn’t, such TPM.
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No, you’d much rather break faith with the law, with mercy for those we slaughtered for no reason to create a breeding ground for terrorism, and with the American people…because you’re a tool of the military-industrial complex, among other pillars of Third Way neoliberal disaster capitalism.