Hillary Clinton Crafts Centrist Stance on War

[rodeodance]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/11/AR2005121100846.html?referrer=email


Hillary Clinton Crafts Centrist Stance on War

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 12, 2005; Page A01


At a time when politicians in both parties have eagerly sought public forums to debate the war in Iraq, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has kept in the shadows.

Clinton has stayed steadfastly on a centrist path, criticizing President Bush but refusing to embrace the early troop withdrawal options that are gaining rapid favor in her party. This careful balance is drawing increasing scorn from liberal activists, frustrated that one of the party's leading lights has shown little appetite to challenge Bush's policy more directly and embrace a plan to set a timetable for bringing U.S. forces home.

Clinton is confronting the Democratic Party's long-standing dilemma on national defense, with those harboring national ambitions caught between the passions of the antiwar left and political concerns that they remain vulnerable to charges of weakness from the Republicans if they embrace the party's base. But some Democrats say, the left not withstanding, her refusal to advocate a speedy exit from Iraq may reflect a more accurate reading of public anxiety about the choices now facing the country.

When Senate Democrats called on President Bush last month to explain the conditions and establish a schedule for withdrawing U.S. forces, Clinton offered backroom advice on the language but let others take the lead on the Senate floor. When Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) called for removing all U.S. troops from Iraq over the next six months, the New York senator told reporters she was opposed. When her advisers were later asked whether she supports a two-year phased withdrawal advocated by a liberal think tank and embraced by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, they demurred.....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. What gets me

is that Hillary is not really coming up with any plan, and so she appears to be supporting Bush in Iraq. I don't understand why the media dubs her as a centrist (this assumes that the 54% who want us to leave Iraq are to be discounted) nor why people like Cokie Roberts on NPR say she's going to be the nominee for President in '08. If she is truly ambitious to become President, she needs to come up with concrete plans, and I just haven't seen any.

[LincolnMcGrath]

2. It's called leadership people!

DLC-Triangulation-Governfromthecenter-Don'toffendanyone-acknowledgetheattacksfromtherightbybotheringtoanswerboguscharges...etc DLC Style

[roguevalley]

3. crafts. what crap. since when should one 'craft' one's principles?

Oh, sorry. When one wants to advance oneself. crafts. principles. SIGH.

[bemildred]

4. Yeah, standing on principle is more what I'd like to see.

Instead we get this tortuous devotion to expediency.

[Briar]

5. Hear! Hear!

I am sick of everything being crafted to the centre. The centre is where the cowardly and selfish hide from anything resembling principles on the grounds that they are dangerous, destabilising and might alienate the right.