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Hillary pulls out the retrospectoscope.
Topic Started: Dec 18 2006, 06:05 PM (264 Views)
George K
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Finally
....in the interest of political expediency....

Hillary Would Not Have Voted For The War

December 18, 2006 4:02 PM

ABC News' David Chalian Reports: As Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to assess a possible presidential candidacy and the contours of a Democratic nomination fight, she has taken another step away from her 2002 vote authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq by saying that she "wouldn't have voted that way" if she knew everything she knows now.

Clinton has often been asked if she regrets her vote authorizing military action and she usually answers that question with an artful dodge, saying that she accepts responsibility for the vote and suggesting that if the Senate had all the information it has today (no WMD, troubled post-war military planning, etc. . .), there would never have been a vote on the Senate floor.

However, she has never gone as far as some of her potential rivals for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination -- who also voted for the war -- and called her vote a mistake or declared that she would have cast her vote differently with all the facts presently available to her -- until now.

This morning on NBC's "Today" show, Sen. Clinton was asked about her 2002 vote and offered a slightly evolved answer. "Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn't have been a vote," she said in her usual refrain before adding, "and I certainly wouldn't have voted that way."

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) have both publicly declared regret for their votes for the war and have become advocates for withdrawing American troops from Iraq sooner rather than later.

Sen. Barack Obama, the freshman Senator from Illinois who is considering a presidential run and who may pose the single biggest threat to Clinton's bid for the nomination, wasn't in the Senate in 2002, but declared his opposition to the war at that time as a Senate candidate.

Sen. Clinton has long been viewed as potentially vulnerable on her left flank with regards to the war in a Democratic nomination fight where primary voters and caucus-goers tend to represent the more liberal wing of the party. Clinton has made strides over the last year in speeches, committee hearings, letters to her constituents, and television appearances to criticize the Bush administration's general handling of the war and specifically calling for former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation.

The Senator's comments on "Today" seem to continue a pattern of further distancing herself from her 2002 vote and an attempt to shore up that potentially vulnerable left flank on the issue that is likely to dominate the 2008 race for the White House as it did in 2004 and 2006.

In a statement to ABC News, Sen. Clinton's press secretary Philippe Reines didn't specifically address Clinton's remarks that she wouldn't have voted for the war, but instead referred to the Senator's previous comments about what would have been the likely overall congressional rejection of the war.

"As she has long and often said, Senator Clinton believes that if we knew then what we know now, Congress never would have been asked to give the President authority to use force against Iraq, and if the President still asked Congress despite a lack of evidence, the Congress would not have agreed," said Reines.

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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Dance, little ssssister, dance.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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George K
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Finally
(for Quirt)

Posted Image

(I know, it's going forward....)
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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apple
one of the angels
perhaps she will be known for her hind sight
it behooves me to behold
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
read the title too quickly, thought she pulled this out...

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"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
I thought the same thing, though I didn't know what they looked like.

I am assuming that those are not Buck Roger's laser guns -- but rather some other sort of rogering gun.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Moonbat
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Pisa-Carp
Do you guys think that politicians should always claim their decisions were right? Even if, following new information that they didn't have at the time, they now think they were wrong?

Politicians are a reflection of us, they're lieing decieitfull ****wits because we make them that way.

Give me a politician who says "on the basis of the available information we made X decision, in reterospect it was mistake but we couldn't have known that at the time, we'll learn from this mistake" The problem is that changing ones mind on a big decision (or indeed a small one) appears to be the ultimate sin (WTF?). People need to realise that A) Mistakes are inevitable and B) They are not equivalent to judgement errors - one can make the best possible decision with the data available and it can be completely and utterly wrong in reterospect. That's how the world works.

Of course i recognise that in this particular case the context is of the politican struggle, of falling in line with the views most likely to get maximum support etc. so perhaps it's entirely unrelated to an honest change in view point. It's just I see this idea that politicians should never change their mind all the time and it's always struck me as nuts. - As long as they can put up a rigorous defence of their initial decision and why they changed their mind, what is the problem? I don't understand what more we could possibly want? Magic politicans who know everything advance?
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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ny1911
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Senior Carp
The question, Moonbat, is what new evidence has surfaced since she accepted responsibility that has caused her to change her position?

I would applaud politicians that are able to admit their mistakes when even when doing so detracts from their ratings. I am always suspicious when they elect to do so at a time that results in an increase in popularity, because...well...they're politicians.
So live your life and live it well.
There's not much left of me to tell.
I just got back up each time I fell.
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Quote:
 
The question, Moonbat, is what new evidence has surfaced since she accepted responsibility that has caused her to change her position?


No WMDs found. That should be sufficient for just about anybody.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
This whole question is a little pointless. If I'd known then what I know now I'd be living on my own island after having mysteriously won millions on every major horse race in the last 5 years.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Ah, John, but nobody thinks you have judgment anyway. :P

Hilary's trying to convince people that she has good judgment, and she has to explain why her judgment is good even if she reached the wrong decision at the time.

Better a U-turn than a stubborn pedal-to-the-floor, over-the-cliff-we-go approach.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
Quote:
 
Better a U-turn than a stubborn pedal-to-the-floor, over-the-cliff-we-go approach.


You mean, like the U-turn you refuse to allow Bush to make over the WMD issue?
Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Bush isn't taking a U-turn on the WMD issue. He's too busy lying his ass off.

Yeah, he says we got it wrong on WMD. But he says we would have gone to Iraq anyway.

Bull****. He'd never have gotten the country to buy in without playing the WMD card.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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