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• Monday, March 12, 2007 11:46 PM

  Some Guy Misses the Point

  If you want specific evidence of pandering, look at her vote on the Iraq war, and her response since then. Your characterization tells the story. "Hillary has repeated that she would not have voted to authorize force knowing what she knows now. Why isn't that good enough?"

  It isn't good enough because it doesn't answer the question. What exactly is it that she knows now that she didn't know then? As far as I can see the only possible answers either paint her competence in a bad light, or they reveal her to be pandering.

  Senator Clinton knew, or she ought to have known, that Saddam and Iraq were not active threats to the United States. She knew, or she ought to have known, that there was no relationship between al Queda and Iraq. She knew, or she ought to have known, that there was no basis in international law for a preemptive strike on Iraq. So either Senator Clinton has no ability to judge facts and evidence and is thereby not qualified to be president, or there was really something that she didn't know then.

  What could it have been that she didn't know? She has asserted her prerogative not to answer this question so we are left to speculate. The only answer I can come up with was that she didn't know that the war was going to be such a colossal cock up. (As a member of the Senate Armed Services committee, she ought to have known that as well.) She thought that the war would come off like Desert Storm and would be over in a month. There would be no fallout and there would be no negative repercussions of her vote. Her calculation was that the negative fallout would be on those who acted with some honesty and integrity and voted not to authorize force.

  She was willing to play fast and loose with the truth about the danger to the US and go along with a scheme that permitted the US to play fast and loose with international law because she was pandering to those who needed a strong response to 9/11 and those who would not vote for a presidential candidate who hadn't voted for the war. Given the stakes, I'd say that this is a particularly nasty and repellent form of pandering.

  So there's your choice, fool or panderer without a conscience. Either way, I'm not likely to be supporting her.

  This narrative has jack all to do with the polls, the news media or with what Republican's say about her.

  —yesteray Read yesteray's other letters
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