Mindful of Past, Clinton Cultivates the Military

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/us/politics/27brass.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Mindful of Past, Clinton Cultivates the Military

By PATRICK HEALY
Published: March 27, 2007

Of all the early problems Bill Clinton faced as president, few stand out to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as more frustrating and avoidable than his rocky relationship with the military, her advisers say.

During his 1992 campaign, Mr. Clinton was attacked for avoiding the Vietnam draft and organizing antiwar marches in the 1960s. After taking office, his early focus on gay men and lesbians in the military drew sharp criticism from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin L. Powell, and other officers. Even his ability to salute properly was called into question.

Mrs. Clinton, to use a phrase, has been practicing her salute. As a senator and now as a presidential candidate, she has cultivated relationships with generals and admirals, prepped herself on wartime needs and strategy, and traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I think eight years in the White House, traveling the world and seeing the United States military doing the nation’s business, and now her time in the Senate, has given her a significant appreciation of the military that maybe her husband didn’t have before the White House,” said Jack Keane, the retired general and former Army vice chief of staff who has become close to the senator.

For Mrs. Clinton, exhibiting a command of military matters is not just about learning from her husband’s experience. It could be vital to her, as a woman seeking to become a wartime commander in chief, to show the public that she is comfortable with military policy and culture — and with the weight of responsibility that accompanies life-and-death decisions.

It is also part of an effort to shed the image some voters hold of her as an antimilitary liberal, defined by her opposition to the Vietnam War and, now, by her criticism of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war in Iraq.

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the bogus war on terror is over and the military will be used properly and for defense of the country.

it will be important for whoever our Commander in Chief is to have something of a relationship with and understanding of the military. The relationship with the people who know it as their life's work will aid in getting the Troops what they truly need and an understanding of it, to me, indicates a respect for it ... unlike bush who seems to think everything and everyone in the military is made of plastic and moves where he wants it to move and is put away at the end of the day in a big box under his bed.

I hope the other candidates take her lead and build the necessary understanding with the military as well.

where she stayed closer to Bush on military strategy than to her party's 2004 nominee.

She also refused to back up Dems like Wes Clark and again her party's nominee John Kerry calling for Rumsfeld to go in 2003 and 2004.

Earlier she refused to back up Kerry's attack on Bush's military decisions at Tora Bora, the point where the US had the BEST opportunity to crush Bin Laden AND Al Qaeda at a time and in a way acceptable to the world.

She stayed quiet and would NOT side with the truth about Tora Bora or Rumsfeld's incompetence, even after Abu Ghraib.

She can vote with Republicans and vote pro-military all she wants- the Military cant stand her and will never support her-I'm sure they all think she is a Liberal or something. She just cant win when it comes to those votes, no matter what she does.

It's really not fair, to be honest- but since I dont like her, I could care less.

ESPECIALLY when she and everyone else in DC know well that Kerry has worked his ENTIRE ADULT LIFE to support the troops and the military in the most substantive ways a public servant can.

There is a serious FLAW in Hillary's character to join Bush and McCain in their lying attack against John Kerry.