Hillary's Hypocrisy

Robert Scheer

How do you triangulate among death, hypocrisy and stupidity? Not at all logically, which is why Hillary Clinton's dissembling on Iraq has become a fatal embarrassment not only for her but for anyone who hopes she can provide progressive leadership for the nation. If she has still not found the courage to reverse course on this disastrous war, why assume that as President she would behave any differently?

It is unconscionable that those who can accurately measure the true cost of the Iraq folly in wasted lives and resources--more than 2,500 Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of billions of dollars--dare prefer her to potential 2008 presidential election rivals John Kerry, Al Gore, Russ Feingold and John Edwards, who have all come to speak honestly of this quagmire and our need to extricate ourselves from it.

If your priority is to support an inspiring female candidate to break America's ultimate glass ceiling, why not draft Barbara Boxer? Not electable? Nonsense: The California senator thrashed her conservative GOP opponent in a reelection campaign that shunned the failed strategy of Democratic hacks and instead emphasized principle over opportunism. She proved her political integrity again this past week by voting alongside Kerry and Feingold to set a date for getting out of Iraq.

Not so Senator Clinton, who seems determined to revive the cold war liberalism that gave us the Vietnam War--which, according to Robert McNamara, the brilliant Democratic war architect who later conceded he himself didn't believe in that enterprise, took more than 3 million lives.

cont'd...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060703/scheer0720