Iraq Vote Dogs Clinton (Again) - “It seems like a pattern, that’s my concern..."

[jefferson_dem]

December 16, 2007, 7:57 am
Iraq Vote Dogs Clinton (Again)
By Patrick Healy

PLAISTOW, N.H. – After weeks of political discussion about domestic issues like health care, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was confronted Saturday afternoon with one of the issues that dogged her as a new candidate last winter: Her voting record on issues of war.

While critics of Mrs. Clinton used to denounce her for voting to authorize the Iraq war in 2002, today the challenge came from an otherwise enthusiastic supporter of Mrs. Clinton, Barbara Dennett, a math teacher and field hockey coach.

At a town hall meeting in a middle school gym here, Ms. Dennett first hailed Mrs. Clinton’s health care reform effort in 1993-94, then said “I also completely trust you on the social issues, women and children and family.”
“My concern is your voting record on war,” Ms. Dennett said. “The friends I talk to, to get them on board, they don’t trust you because of your voting issue on war.” She added that she and her friends did not want Mrs. Clinton to be “a war president.”

Saying she was “very glad you asked that,” Mrs. Clinton began her answer by trying to narrow the daylight between her record and those of her Democratic rivals. She noted that the other Democrats who are running for president, and who were in the Senate in 2002 – all voted for the war. Barack Obama, another contender and a vociferous critic of the war from the start, entered the Senate in 2005.

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Mrs. Clinton said her 2002 vote was intended to increase pressure on Iraq to accept continued weapons inspections, not to go to war. Referring to herself and other Democratic candidates, she added, “we’ve each said in our own way that we regret the way President Bush used that authority” – an answer that fuzzed over Mrs. Clinton’s refusal to call her 2002 vote a mistake, as Mr. Edwards has and as some Democratic primary voters pressed her to admit when she started running last winter.

Ms. Dennett eventually piped up and mentioned Iran – a reference to Mrs. Clinton’s vote this year to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, which Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards criticized with the suggestion that it could embolden President Bush to go to war.

“It seems like a pattern, that’s my concern,” Ms. Dennett said.

“I don’t think it’s a pattern, I just have a fundamental disagreement with my colleagues who are running,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I think the facts are indisputable – they support Hezbollah, they support Hamas.”

“I do not favor war,” she added. “I also believe that we have to get tough in a diplomatic, pressured way with Iran, and I think that helped them do it.”

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http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/war-vote-dogs-clinton-again/

[BeyondGeography]

1. It's definitely hurting her with many women voters

They fear overcompensation syndrome is at work with her. The fact that Obama spoke out against the war at the beginning and she supported it let's him get his foot in the door with a lot of women voters.

[Windy]

2. here we go again with Kyl/Lieberman being a diplomatic move...incredible

Bottom line, its a judgment issue.

[regnaD kciN]

3. It doesn't just "seem" like a pattern...

...after Kyl-Lieberman, it is a pattern.

If anyone supports Hillary, and doesn't believe that an HRC administration will continue to push the PNAC agenda of subjecting the people of Middle East to U.S. corporate and military interests, they're fooling no one but themselves.

[jenmito]

4. She has this habit of trying to lump herself in with other Dems. to blur differences.

I've heard her say, more than once, "We ALL think (x) was a bad idea, (or good idea, or serious problem, etc.)" :eyes:

[Donna Zen]

5. It is a pattern

Look at her top foreign policy advisers: Michael O'Hanlon and Lee Feinstein. She hasn't changed a thing.

This morning I watched Senator Bayh, someone who is stumping for Clinton and widely touted as a possible vp pick, slammed the NIE report about Iran and then agreed with Kitt Bond on everything damn thing.

[seasat]

6. self delete

[L0oniX]

7. You can bet that her Iraq vote will be plastered all over repeatedly...

in the general election. We will lose!