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How is Hillary different from the other Democrats who voted for the war and now oppose it, or for that matter the majority of the American public’s position, which was once overwhelmingly in support of the war and now opposes it? Yet only her view is controversial. Hillary is freqently singled out for condemnation simply because she is Hillary Clinton. There is no contradiction in changing one’s mind especially when circumstances change over four years time.
I think there is a difference with Hillary for two reasons. One, she was a very vocal supporter of the war at its onset, not just a lukewarm Dem who went along with it and kept quiet so that they’d have more latitude to criticize it later (the “yes, I voted for the authorization but I didn’t actually mean it” defense).
But even more importantly, there’s the problem that she can’t use the “Bush lied” excuse because that would reflect on her husband’s policies (and on the fact that she was probably privy to the same intel that Clinton had been during his presidency.) B.Clinton clearly thought that Saddam was a threat and that we needed to deal with him. So Hillary can’t very well now say that the only reason she voted to authorize use of force was because Bush cooked the intel.
Maybe she should fire her travel office staff…
LOL PatMHV!
How is Hillary different from the other Democrats who voted for the war and now oppose it, or for that matter the majority of the American public’s position, which was once overwhelmingly in support of the war and now opposes it? Yet only her view is controversial. Hillary is freqently singled out for condemnation simply because she is Hillary Clinton. There is no contradiction in changing one’s mind especially when circumstances change over four years time.
I think there is a difference with Hillary for two reasons. One, she was a very vocal supporter of the war at its onset, not just a lukewarm Dem who went along with it and kept quiet so that they’d have more latitude to criticize it later (the “yes, I voted for the authorization but I didn’t actually mean it” defense).
But even more importantly, there’s the problem that she can’t use the “Bush lied” excuse because that would reflect on her husband’s policies (and on the fact that she was probably privy to the same intel that Clinton had been during his presidency.) B.Clinton clearly thought that Saddam was a threat and that we needed to deal with him. So Hillary can’t very well now say that the only reason she voted to authorize use of force was because Bush cooked the intel.