Letters to the Editor
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@LJWalker53
"...If we think the American people were under pressure to conform to Bush's worldview and were intimidated, just imagine the pressure in Congress to conform. Obviously, it worked!
Finally, Sen. Clinton's record since that authorization vote has been consistent and true. She never took that vote as a "game," as some seem to imply in these threads. She has actually worked to address the problems, from the get-go, even before the authorization was imminent...."
But, here is the dilemma for Clinton: How does she convincingly say that she voted for the authorisation without having been coerced by a post 9/11 zeitgeist or having calculating that, despite the very real possibility [considering the nature of the person sitting in the Oval Office] that massive human suffering and material destruction could result from a blank check given to the administration, a "yea" vote could help her win the Presidency?
Again, if she says she was coerced, then she raises the question of whether she's suited enough, ie., strong enough, to lead and if she backs away from that particular horn of the dilemma, she's right back to the question of whether, as a progressive Democratic national figure, she ignored the likely outcome of giving a war vote to George W. Bush and did the expedient thing for the advancement of her career [which, of course, once again raises the old bugaboo about the Clintons and their tried and true tactic of triangulation]? From the perspective of the 2008 Democratic electorate, she's been firmly on the horns of a dilemma since that 2002 vote, and they see no way in which she's gotten free of them.
Hence, the rise of Obama and her present electoral predicament.