Slick Hillary: Covering Up the Trail [View All]

[Al122]

Abraham Lincoln was reputed to have once said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time." And that certainly seems to have been Senator Hillary Clinton's intention with her scripted, stage managed dressing down of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week.

Well Mrs. Clinton, Lincoln also said that "you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert points out today Mrs. Clinton is, yet again, trying to have it both ways. According to Herbert, a couple of months ago she told a Washington gathering:

"I do not think it is a smart strategy either for the president to continue with his open ended committment which I think does not put enough pressure on the new Iraqi government,"

and then added:

"Nor do I think it is a smart strategy to set a date certain."

Come again? Can you tell us Mrs. C what you think a smart strategy in Iraq would be or is the real strategy just to save your own political posterior as 2008 approaches?

Today, Bob Herbert reminds us that "Mrs. Clinton is one of the many supporters of the war who should have known better from the beginning." In the fall of 2002, then Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Bob Graham was shocked to find out that there was no National Intelligence Estimate on the threat posed to the U.S. by Iraq (see John Walsh, What Did the Democrats Know and When Did They Know It? The Lies of John Edwards at http://www.counterpunch.org/...). Graham ordered CIA Director George Tenet to produce a classified NIE which was so full of holes that Graham and four other Democrats on the Intel Committee (Sens Durbin, Levin, Mikulski and Wyden) all voted against the use of force resolution. There were 23 Senate votes against the war including the five from Intel Committee Democrats. If the five other Dems on that committee (Bayh, Daschle, Edwards, Feinstein and Rockefeller)had voted "No" that would have brought the total to 28. It would have taken only five more votes to sustain a veto against the war. Senator Clinton could easily have been one of those votes. She could have helped to spared us from the humiliating, costly and unecessary disaster that Iraq has become.

It is this weakness on the part of Mrs. Clinton, at a moment when her country needed her most, that is one big reason why 40,000 New York Democrats signed a petition to get Jonathan Tasini on the ballot and why according to the most recent Marist poll, 13% of us intend to vote for him on September 12.

Here's what Jonathan Tasini had to say about Mrs. Clinton's recent statements:

"My opponent is getting much attention for her criticism of Donald Rumsfeld yesterday. But it's just more bluster from Sen. Clinton. If you're a Senator who voted to authorize the invasion, who has continually supported the war and occupation, has continually voted for war funding, has continually undercut fellow Congressional Democrats (like John Murtha) when they move to extricate our country from the Iraq disaster, then she should not be allowed to get away with pointing fingers at others.

If there was and is an efficient way to prosecute this war, Clinton owes it to the American public to spell that out. If she could have prosecuted the war effectively, why didn't she lay out her plan all these years? Until she gets specific, citizens should view yesterday's confrontation with Mr. Rumsfeld as little more than politics on Sen. Clinton's part."

Let's face it: Most Americans view the war that Sen. Clinton supported and supports as a mistake. It isn't about how effective the war was prosecuted. It is entirely about this having been an illegal and immoral war that has cost our country dearly--and Sen. Clinton is trying to obscure her record by shifting the focus to Rumsfeld. Most people want a timetable for withdrawal. She does not and has repeatedly voted for prolonging the war, and the many deaths the war continues to cause. All the verbal acrobatics about Rumsfeld's failures should not obscure the fact that Sen. Clinton has been wrong on the war all along, especially in her undermining of fellow Democrats who want to reverse course. She remains wrong today, despite her theatrics yesterday."

Well there you have it. The distinctions between Clinton and Tasini's approach to this key issue, as well as on many others, couldn't be clearer. Statistically significant numbers of New Yorkers have chosen to support Jonathan Tasini. There couldn't be a better argument for a primary in New York.

Oh, and it would also be nice if NY1, which gets its cable franchise from the people of New York, would rescind its recently imposed $500,000 contribution level criteria and let Jonathan join its upcoming "Town Hall" debate too. If you haven't done so already contact Robert Hardt, NY1's political director at 212-379-3330 or [e-mail] and let him know how you feel about this blatant attempt to muzzle Tasini's message.

Al Ronzoni, Jr.