Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush may currently be at odds with one another with regards to whether we stay in Iraq, but there is one thing the two of them have in common: employing a revisionist view of history in order to justify their decisions in 2002-2003.

You argue that Hillary Clinton “has since explained why she voted to give Bush authorization.” However, the truth of the matter is that Hillary Clinton continues to mislead the American people about her position in 2002-2003. The way she tells it now, she agreed in 2002 with granting George W. Bush the power of waving the big stick in order to get Saddam Hussein to comply with weapons inspections, and that she didn’t actually support Bush invading Iraq without the support from the international community.

However, as recently as March 6, 2003 (a mere two weeks before the invasion of Iraq), Hillary Clinton stated to Code Pink (a left-wing organization) that she whole-heartedly supported the invasion of Iraq and that having the backing of the international community was not necessary. The entire conversation was caught on video and was the subject of one of my earlier posts.

Hillary Clinton, like George W. Bush, is being dishonest about her reasons for supporting the 2002 Iraq War resolution and conveniently revising her 2002-2003 views. That alone, is a reason for opposing her candidacy for presidents.

In terms of honesty and standing up for the courage of their convictions, Democrats could surely do better than Ms. Clinton.

So I can forgive Hillary, She has since explained why she voted to give Bush authorization. I think it was a calculation on her part… I’m still not happy that she supported it, but what’s more important is where she stands today. I think HIllary’s evolution on the war follows that of the general American public (most Americans were for the war, too). So the Dems, I think, understand her yes vote against her. War is horrible and we have gone through a lot these last five years (Bush started his push for the war in 2002). The American public has gone through a long reckoning process and so has Hillary. They can relate to her on that point. I could see how many people who were for the war back then but are now against it would support Hillary over an anti-war candidate.

Giuliani has the best chance to defeat Clinton, and has actual charisma and national security cred. Thompson is mainly running because Tennessee Republicans Howard Baker and Bill Frist recruited him, not because he has any great vision for the country.

He will only get the votes of registered Republicans. Given the study which came out earlier in the week stating that fewer voters are identifying themselves as Republican, that would not be enough. It may be important to Republicans that a conservative run, but it should not be all they care about, either.

Clinton, Obama or even Edwards could easily defeat Thompson.

So I think the other component is which candidate is inspirational (or energizing) enough to get new blocks of people out to vote? If Obama is energizing enough to get the Echo Generation out to vote then he could win. My Mom (who falls into the “Elder” category- the category most likely to vote- and she has voted in every election since the Revolutionary War…) is talking about sitting this election out because she is fed up with the way the country is. So perhaps those youngest people, who traditionally don’t vote will be energized by this race and vote for a change.

I believe a lot of African Americans won’t vote for Obama because they feel that he could never win because he’s black….

As far as Thompson being ahead of Giuliani- well isn’t that special…. The Republicans need a leader and each of the current candidates leave something a large part of the Republican base cold.

While it seems that the Dems are pretty happy with their choices and can rally around the person they support, the republicans are wishy-wshy about their candidates and if someone better than the person they are currently supporting comes along, they;ll defect to support that person. Thomson’s enough of a novelty (and unknown) for Republicans who aren’t entirely happy with their current “first choice” to flock to.

But once the general election is here and it’s Dem vs. Rep., then the Rep. candidate will get a lot of support and bash whoever the Dem. We all know that Hillary will fight back as hard as possible against what is sure to be the relentless Rep. smearing of her.

I made a comment on TMV a few days ago that I thought a lot of Thompson’s comments on various issues were so broad and no one could disagree with them. That’s where his support is coming from- people read into his comments whatever they want. He tries to be folksy (like Bush) but there really is no substance to him.