Frank Rich: Bring Back the Politics of Personal Destruction

[flpoljunkie]

Closing paragraphs...

The issue is not that Mrs. Clinton voted for the war authorization in 2002 or that she refuses to call it a mistake in 2007. Those are footnotes. The larger issue is judgment, then and now. Take her most persistent current formulation on Iraq: “Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn’t have been a vote and I certainly wouldn’t have voted that way.” It’s fair to ask: Knew what then? Not everyone was so easily misled by the White House’s manipulated intelligence and propaganda campaign. Some of her fellow leaders in Washington — not just Mr. Obama out in Illinois, not just Al Gore out of power — knew plenty in the fall of 2002. Why didn’t she?

Bob Graham, then Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, was publicly and privately questioning the W.M.D. intelligence. So was Nancy Pelosi. Chuck Hagel warned that the war was understaffed, that an Iraq distraction might cause Afghanistan “to go down again” and that the toppling of Saddam could be followed by chaos. Joe Biden convened hearings to warn of the perils of an ill-planned post-Saddam Iraq.

Some of these politicians ended up voting to authorize war exactly as Mrs. Clinton did (Senators Hagel and Biden). Some didn’t. But all of them — and there were others as well — asked tougher questions and exerted more leadership. John Edwards, by the way, did not: he was as trigger-happy about speeding up the war authorization then (“The time has come for decisive action”) as he is gung-ho about withdrawal now, despite being an Intelligence Committee member when Mr. Graham sounded alarms about the Bush administration’s W.M.D. claims.

Another fair question is what Mrs. Clinton learned once the war began. Even in the summer of 2003 — after the insurgency had started, after the W.M.D. had failed to materialize, after the White House had retracted the president’s 16 words about “uranium from Africa,” more than two months after “Mission Accomplished” had failed to end major combat operations — she phoned a reporter at The Daily News, James Gordon Meek, to reiterate that she still had no second thoughts about the war. (Mr. Meek first wrote about this July 14, 2003, conversation in December 2005.) Was that what this smart woman really believed then, or political calculation?

Either way, she made a judgment, and she will not be able to spend month after month explaining it away to voters with glib, lawyerly statements. The politics of personal destruction, should they actually visit the Clintons once more, will not take America’s mind off the politics of mass destruction in Iraq.

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/03/frank-rich-bring-back-politics-of.html

[papau]

1. Freshman Senator w/2 yrs -like Obama - required to accomplish via

questions or whatever it was that Bidden/Hagel - who voted yes on the IWR - were accomplishing in their much wise wiser display of wisdom -

at least that is the line per Frank Rich (who is usually great but today is just another person trying to dump on Hillary).

[Uben]

2. Why she voted that way

Maybe its because she had the inside on the intel that her husband was getting in the late nineties. Although it was bad intel, it was all they had. Bill Clinton was convinced Sadaam had WMDs, so I am sure Hillary was too, thus her vote. I am not a big Hillary fan, but I understand what she is saying. Those that voted against the IWR were right, but they were only guessing. Their decision was based on gut feeling, intuition, or whatever, but they had no intel to the contrary.

Of course, it's a pretty good bet to vote against anything that Bush is for, since he has never made a good decision in his life!

[karynnj]

6. I agree to some extent - the more damning thing is that

she was for the the war in the late spring 2003. This and her vote against the Durbin amendment - that limited the reason to WMD, make her current explanation troublesome.

She was not among the people speaking out before the war when the inspectors did not find evidence of of WMD. She needs to explain why she didn't - maybe because she thought it futile - who knows, but she needs to explain this. Edwards was also very pro-war at that time. He has taken the route of asmitting he was wrong.

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. The bottom line is that she had to run in an election and..........

she, along with all the others, would rather go along with what they had to know (Hell, we all new it and we certainly are not geniuses) was complete bullshit than risk being labeled "soft on terror". That is the choice they had and decided to put their careers over the risk their vote would jeopardize the nation and the world.
Certainly not Profiles in Courage.
Al Gore and Obama did not have to face those restraints.

[Uben]

4. How would they have to know

... it was BS? The vote was for authorization to take action if necessary, not to go to war.
Do you think they knew, at that poimt, that Bush/Cheney were going to invade and occupy? Bush's daddy showed restraint in going into Iraq. He knew it would be disastrous. One had to believe the POTUS was more intelligent than that. Of course, we know now that there is not an intelligent cell in his body.

[Bonhomme Richard]

5. How is it we knew? Or Al Gore, or Obama, or Dennis Kucinich?

We knew because we read and listen. We read all the conflicting reports that leaked out of the CIA and Pentagon before they went down the rabbit hole. We listened to testimony from the likes of Scott Ritter. We knew because, for whatever reason, we are able to keep our eyes on the ball. In our hearts we knew that what they were selling did not make sense, at least for the reasons they stated.
How is it they didn't know with a hell of a lot more resources than we have?
Benefit of doubt....maybe they thought shrub and cheney were honest men and that they could be contained, of course we knew different.
Either way they took the the expedient way out and crossed their fingers hoping.

[Uben]

8. Well.....

... I have been against the war from the beginning. I thought their vote for the IWR was wrong then, as well, but given the situation in congress, I can understand why they voted that way. It was the safe bet! That water has run under the bridge now.

We need to focus on who will be our best chance for a win in 08. We all have our favorites, and they all have strong and weak points. I don't think any republican has a chance, personally, but people may not want to see another major political party control both the congress and the WH. I want out of Iraq, tighter purse strings in congress, a balanced budget, and regulations against all the damned lobbyists. This living in the present is killing our kids future!

[durrrty libby]

9. "The vote was for authorization to take action if necessary, not to go to war."

This truth is ALWAYS lost among the masses

The pundits utter the lie, then the people, repeat the lie as gospel

(Yes ..even people here are guilty )

Stop the lies in their tracks! It is the only way to make honest progress

[Forkboy]

7. When has it left?

[Peace Patriot]

10. With the Bush Junta, you really have to ask, what SHOULD be happening in a democratic

country, with our Constitution? --not how crafty, cowardly or ambitious Democrats were trapped by a brutal fascist coup. What SHOULD have happened when George Bush--the least trustworthy of presidents--asked for war powers? The Senate SHOULD have said, 'take it to the UN, and if at least the Security Council agrees, COME BACK TO US with a war resolution.' If that had happened--those crucial fact-finding and public discussion and coalition-building steps--there would have been time to examine the WMD claim more closely and to consider what the UN weapons inspectors and major allies were saying--that the Iraq threat was being handled and was NOT worth a war. What the Senate in fact did was unconstitutional, and every Senator who voted for it violated their oath of office that day--they GAVE their SOLE Constitutional duty and right to declare war TO George Bush.

To me, THIS is the crucial issue--not the Bush Junta's stovepiping and cherrypicking of intelligence, and what Senators did or didn't know (always fudge-able, in hindsight, by opportunists)--but WHO DECIDES to invade another country. WHO decides who we are at war with. The Constitution says Congress and CONGRESS ALONE makes that decision.

What did these Senators EXPECT to happen, after they GAVE AWAY their Constitutional duty and sole right to declare war? Bush/Cheney of course told a 100% pack of lies to the UN, major allies and the rest of the world DISAGREED that invading Iraq was necessary, and, with this unconstitutional open "writ of war"--the Iraq War Resolution--in hand, Bush/Cheney invaded Iraq ANYWAY--because that was their goal all along: to invade Iraq, not for WMDs, but for oil, war profiteering and power.

Yes, there was plenty of information around, in late 2002/early 2003, about Iraq and about Bush/Cheney, to conclude that Bush/Cheney's case for war was bogus. 56% of the American people had concluded that war was unnecessary--before the invasion, Feb. '03, and in fact before Powell's pack of lies was fully exposed. 56%! That would be a landslide in a presidential election. Half of that 56% opposed the war outright. The other half would only agree to war if it were a UN peacekeeping mission--i.e., international consensus that something must be done. No such consensus ever emerged. The UN and most of our major allies refused to participate.

So a UN peacekeeping mission was the critical issue among Americans. And when that did not occur, THAT is when George Bush should have had to COME BACK to the Congress for further discussion. But he and Cheney didn't have to do that. Congress had given that right, duty and CRUCIAL "check and balance" away. Why?

Some were getting envelopes of anthrax. One important anti-Iraq war Senator had had his state-of-the-art plane, with two top pilots aboard, fall out of the air, for no good reason, with no public hearing about it and no cause ever established. The war profiteering corporate news monopolies, controlled by 5 rightwing billionaire CEOs, were all gungho war. Another inexplicable Congressional vote was occurring on the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" almost simultaneously. Soon voting results would be in the hands of two rightwing Bushite electronic voting corporations, who would be using 'TRADE SECRET,' proprietary programming code to count 80% of the votes in 2004.

Although 156 members of Congress voted against the Iraq War Resolution (25 in the Senate)--a great advance over the mere 2 who had voted against escalating the Vietnam War in 1964--and these 156 deserve medals of honor--the rest of Congress were too scared (personally or politically) or too hogtied to the "military industrial complex" to resist.

I tend to feel compassion for their situation. Dick Cheney was one scary dude back then. Did you know that he met with Gary Condit on the day that Chandra Levy disappeared--and was in fact Condit's only alibi during the critical hours, and no one--not the FBI, not the DC police, not any news organization--ever asked Cheney or his staff about that meeting, even just to verify that it occurred? (See Newsweek 08/01.) (Three days later, Condit was one of only 10 Democratic votes in favor of the Junta's first tax cut for the rich--a very close vote.) (I'm surprised that the current crowd of rightwing Democrats in Congress are calling themselves "Blue Dog Democrats"--cuz that's what Condit called himself--a man with at least three secret mistresses, who proposed a bill to place the Ten Commandments in all public buildings.)

It's easy enough for an ordinary citizen to call for courage in that toxic atmosphere. Our Constitution was long gone, at that point--only we didn't know it yet. Maybe they had no choice. Maybe they figured: 'If I'm going to survive and live to fight another day, I have to vote for this.' I could forgive them if they would fess up now, and explain to us what really happened--and expose these bastards and impeach them. And I could forgive them if they would simply acknowledge the Constitutional issue, and act to RESTORE the critical "balance of powers." But the coup is still in power, although with vastly reduced credibility, no allies left in the world, and an American people so incensed that they outvoted a 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" in the Bushite voting machines, in an effort to get themselves a real Congress (but could get only a half-decent one--not yet fully representative).

I guess fear, ambition and war profiteering are still very much at work--when it comes to presidential candidates. (Kucinich, who has the least APPEARANCE of strength, is actually the steely one. He has been uncompromising from the beginning.) We have to inch our way back to democracy and lawful government, in very difficult circumstances. We have an absolutely out-of-control "military-industrial complex," and Bushite corporations counting all our votes with secret code. Where to put our time and energy? In the latter, I think--transparent vote counting. While we can rightfully ask presidential candidates and Congress critters, 'What on earth did you EXPECT, giving your war powers away to George Bush?," we should also ask ourselves, 'What on earth should WE expect, from Bushites counting all our votes under a veil of corporate secrecy?' And, since we can't yet make Congress act in the interests of the American people on Bush's heinous, unjust war--or on any other Bush Junta crime--we had better work on what we CAN do, restore transparent vote counting. Congress isn't going to help much, if at all. We need to do it at the state/local level.