If you only count what I say between two specific dates, then when I change my mind later I can make it look as if I am on whatever side I want you to think I am.
That seems to be Hillary Clinton’s strategy for defending against an assertion by Barack Obama that just won’t go away. In discussing their records on Iraq, Obama has said he’ll put his judgement up against Clinton’s experience any day. Obama opposed the war from Day One while Clinton voted to authorize Bush to invade.
But Clinton now wants to only count what happened from 2005, when Obama took office in the U.S. Senate, and wipe out all his prior years of resistance in the Illinois state senate. ABC’s Jake Tapper deconstructed Clinton’s argument and found that even using the selective time frame, it was still lacking.
In Eugene, Ore., Saturday. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., attempted to change the measure by which anyone might assess who criticized the Iraq war first, her or Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., by saying those keeping records should start in January 2005, when Obama joined the Senate. (A measure that conveniently avoids her October 2002 vote to authorize use of force against Iraq at a time that Obama was speaking out against the war.) She claimed that using that measure she criticized the war in Iraq before Obama did.
But Clinton’s claim was false.
…It’s an odd way to measure opposition to the war — comparing who gave the first criticism of the war in Iraq starting in January 2005, ignoring Obama’s opposition to the war throughout 2003 and 2004.
But even if one were to employ this “Start Counting in January 2005″ measurement, Clinton did not criticize the war in Iraq first.
The Clinton campaign, Tapper says, cites the senator’s criticism of the state of things in Iraq when she voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state. Instead of voicing her concerns to Rice during the confirmation hearings, her office addressed them in a paper statement to constituents explaining her vote.
“The Administration and Defense Department’s Iraq policy has been, by any reasonable measure, riddled with errors, misstatements and misjudgments,” the January 2005 Clinton statement said. “From the beginning of the Iraqi war, we were inadequately prepared for the aftermath of the invasion with too few troops and an inadequate plan to stabilize Iraq.”
But Obama offered criticisms of the war in Iraq eight days before that, directly to Rice, in his very first meeting as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 18.
Obama pushed Rice on her answers to previous questioners regarding the effectiveness of Iraqi troops, and he criticized the administration for conveying a never-ending commitment to a US troop presence in Iraq.
When she visited Iraq the month after approving Rice, Clinton mouthed all the Republican talking points.
Upon returning she argued that setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops would aid the enemy.
“I don’t think it’s useful to set a deadline because I think it sends a signal to the terrorists and the insurgents that they just have to wait us out,” she said.
Describing her trip to Iraq, she said, “It’s regrettable that the security needs have increased so much. On the other hand, I think you can look at the country as a whole and see that there are many parts of Iraq that are functioning quite well.”
She also interpreted a series of suicide bomb attacks as an indication that the insurgency was failing.
This type of gamesmanship on Clinton’s part might explain why so many of those recently polled called her a “phony.” Does what you tell me, Hillary, mean anything? If we just let enough time pass, and if it looks more expedient to take a different position, will your “beliefs” change again?
