Hillary Clinton's sorry nonapology.

[Demeter]

http://www.slate.com/id/2160238/


frame game
The War on Error
Hillary Clinton's sorry nonapology.
By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2007, at 6:35 PM ET



Five years ago, Hillary Clinton supported a Senate resolution authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq. So did I. It took me four years to admit this was a mistake. I've been wondering when Clinton would admit it. Now, from campaign insiders quoted in the New York Times, comes the answer: never. As she told voters a few days ago: "If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from."

This is an amazingly stupid and arrogant position. If she sticks to it, it will probably kill her candidacy. And it should.

According to Clinton's advisers, she has taken this position for several reasons. She believes in "responsibility" and would want congressional deference if she's president. She wants to look "firm," because that's what voters want. She thinks an apology would look like a gimmick and a flip-flop, repeating the mistakes of Al Gore and John Kerry. That's the "box" she's trying to avoid.

This is a misreading of history, politics, character, and common sense. Let's take the arguments one at a time.....


How odd. Voters just repudiated a president who thinks that stubbornness is responsibility and that admitting mistakes is groveling. The way to act responsibly is not to act like him. It also happens to be the way to get elected. And if you don't understand the former, you don't deserve the latter.

William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

[YOY]

1. I never supported it

and am still awaiting a reason to vote for a hawk other than a (D) behind her name.

Time to cut the legacy. They don't work. They are not what this country is about.

[Oleladylib]

2. Ah, get over it...Hillary is absolutely correct in her assessment. (n/t)

[DURHAM D]

3. The article and conclusions suck.

Why have you posted it here ? Oh let me guess . . .

[lancdem]

5. lol

[lancdem]

4. What's arrogant about saying there are others to choose from?

Seriously. What's the point of mimicking Edwards? She would be accused of flip-flopping and pandering anyway because people keep bugging her about it. And if her position does kill her candidacy, then she didn't deserve to win. It's not rocket science.

[Captain Hilts]

6. If people read her statement she made when casting her vote, they'd see no apology needed.

She's not a "hawk."

[Infinite Hope]

7. She's standing on principle that knowing what she did, she and others voted correctly.

I believe the war was wrong, but the blame game gets us nowhere. Whether the candidates suck up to voters by apologizing or not, they all learned the same lesson. This from an Edwards supporter.

[Captain Hilts]

9. I'm for Clark and/or Richardson and I think she's getting a bum rap on this. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. "If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has

said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from."

I have no idea what that means.

If the most important thing is (1) 'choosing someone who did not cast that vote', or (2) 'choosing someone who has said it was a mistake', where, exactly does (3) 'others to choose from' fit into those parameters?

Is she saying that the vote was correct? Or that she stands by her mistakes? Obviously, to those who either (1) or (2) is "most important", (3) is not an option, as it flies in the face of "most important".

Did she simply get lost in mid-sentence and forget what she was saying by the time she finished talking?

Maybe she meant "To many of you the most important thing is choosing someone who did not cast that vote, or someone who said it was a mistake; I suggest there are others to choose from." That is still wrong, but at least it makes sense, grammatically.