In New Hampshire, Clinton Owns Up to Her Vote on Iraq War

NYT: In New Hampshire, Clinton Owns Up to Her Vote on Iraq War
By PATRICK HEALY
Published: February 11, 2007

CONCORD, N.H., Feb. 10 — Campaigning in New Hampshire for the first time as a presidential candidate, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton came under criticism at two appearances on Saturday for voting in 2002 for military action in Iraq, and even refused one man’s request that she say that her vote was a mistake.

While warmly received overall on this, her first visit to New Hampshire since 1996, Mrs. Clinton also sought to inoculate herself from the occasional Democratic antiwar anger. At a forum with 2,000 people in the state capital here, she first blamed President Bush for misusing her vote to go to war preemptively, and then obliquely questioned the Iraq positions of her two leading rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and John Edwards, former senator of North Carolina.

While she did not refer to either by name, she said she could not solve Iraq by delivering a strong antiwar speech (like Mr. Obama gave on Saturday) or by calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops to end the war (as Mr. Edwards has done)....

***

Mrs. Clinton’s 2002 vote poses political peril for her candidacy; she has not repudiated her vote, as Mr. Edwards has done of his, and she lacks the record of consistent criticism against the war of Mr. Obama, who was not in the Senate in 2002. During one forum early Saturday in the economically struggling city of Berlin in northern New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton used tough language to blame President Bush and his advisers for Iraq, asserting that they came into power in 2001 with an “obsession“ to oust Saddam Hussein and resolve the “unfinished business” of the first Persian Gulf war....

While she tried to keep the audience of 300 people in Berlin focused on Mr. Bush, she was forced at one point to account for her own history on Iraq. One audience member, Roger Tilton of Nashua, asked her “right here, right now, once and for all, without nuance” to call her 2002 vote “a mistake.”

“Until we hear you say that, we’re not going to hear all these other great things you’ve said,” Mr. Tilton said.

In response, Mrs. Clinton repeated her standard talking points that she would never have cast it if she had had the intelligence information that she had now....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/us/politics/11clinton.html

She's blaming everybody else for HER vote, a vote that has come back to haunt her and will keep doing so. Good.

I'm no great fan of hers, but come on.

Feel better?

having Edwards or Hillary spend their entire campaign on the defensive, explaining away their vote is just suicide. I'd prefer Edwards to Hillary.

:shrug:

and said he will not vote for her until she answers the question to his liking

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to ultralefty piranhas.

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Easy for her to appear tough when she doesn't have a personal stake in the war. I don't see Chelsea joining the Army or the Marines.

:crazy:

p.s.Why don't you find out what Chelsea's stance on the war is before you volunteer her services?

Hillary is opposed to Bush's management of the war. Hillary has never addressed herself to the morality and ethics of waging a war of aggression in Iraq. Hillary has failed to lead morally, like the late Pope John Paul II did when he warned Bush and Blair of the moral consequences of going into Iraq.

On a religious note, Hillary spends too much time praying with the fundies of Capitol Hill.

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She did nothing wrong

Those that are "apologizing" now (which they really aren't doing)...are just pandering to the left wing of the party...

Just makes it look like they didn't take their job seriously in 2002...

do you mean helping to extend corporate imperialism and murder? Because that is what happened. Sometimes the truth hurts and they are not going to be able to slither away from their "rah rahing" of genocide now.

Means if you are apologizing now, you were playing politics then...

Were Kerry and Edwards lying in 2002 when they gave their reasons for voting for the IWR...or are they just pandering to the left now?

pandering now. I am sorry that you think the complicity of our elected representatives int he deaths of over half a million Iraqis is worth nothing but a "blah blah".

she is not apologizing now. Sorry.

Boilerplate,left wing, talking points...

There is one man responsible for the deaths in Iraq...his name is George W. Bush...

if you think the entire foreign policy of the US is based on one person. that is like saying " I am not responsible for him ODing on drugs, I just sold them to him." Wake up.

George Bush is responsible for this war...as Harry Truman says "The Buck Stops..." well there...

He handpicked people for his administration that would do his bidding and make sure he only received information that he wanted to hear...he lied to Congress, he lied to the American people, he lied to the U.N., he short circuited the resumption of inspections...and took us to war...

This is George Bush's war...it really is that simple

it really isn't that simple. The senate placed many in his administration where they are. They have access to any info they want in the whole world. Even we here knew the war was based on lies for profit. There is no way in the world the people in the senate and congress didn't know it or couldn't have easily found it out. It just defies all logic.

the war started they kept cheerleading it..blocked investigations on the Downing Street Memo, not a peep about illegal weapons used in Iraq, not a peep about oil being privatized for US companies, and a "yes" vote to every atrocious budget that passed their desk. They provided the means, Bush carried it out.

Did you possess regarding WMD's in Iraq that say...Russ Feingold didn't have?

“With regard to Iraq, I agree, Iraq presents a genuine threat, especially in the form of weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, and potentially nuclear weapons. I agree that Saddam Hussein is exceptionally dangerous and brutal, if not uniquely so, as the President argues. And I support the concept of regime change.” -Russ Feingold

or Barbara Mikulski

Iraq has grim and ghoulish weapons to carry out its evil plans. As part of the Gulf War cease-fire agreement, Saddam Hussein committed to destroying its chemical and biological and nuclear weapons programs…instead, Saddam Hussein is trying to add nuclear weapons to an arsenal that already includes chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles.” -Barbara Mikulski

"I voted to give Bush unadulterated permission to use his brainless head to go to war, but it was an honest mistake. I was drunk at the time of the vote and didn't realize what I was doing."

complicit in a murder. You gave the killer money, weapons, a motive, and directions...but when he does it you blame him for carrying it out.

The Dem senators who voted for the war a pass, then we need to give the Reps who voted for it a pass as well. Their vote was worth the same.

""Mrs. Clinton used tough language to blame President Bush and his advisers for Iraq, asserting that they came into power in 2001 with an “obsession“ to oust Saddam Hussein and resolve the “unfinished business” of the first Persian Gulf war.

“From almost the first day they got into office,” Mrs. Clinton said, “they were trying to figure out how to get rid of Saddam Hussein. I’m not a psychiatrist; I don’t know all of the reasons behind their concern, some might say their obsession.”"

And she is now saying that Bush misused his Congressionsal blank check?
She says that Bush was "obsessed with getting rid of Saddam" since 2001, but "she blamed President Bush for misusing her vote to go to war preemptively."

Was giving an obsessed man authorization for use of military force a mistake? Apparently not.

"One audience member asked her to call her 2002 vote “a mistake.”
In response, Mrs. Clinton repeated her standard talking points..."