Hillary's Sincerity Problem --->

[Stephanie]

She's not believable when she tries to explain her IWR vote because she can't give the real answer:
she was positioning herself for 2008.

http://nymag.com/news/features/43341 /

The Test
Inside the Clinton and Obama war rooms, they’ve spent months preparing for Super Tuesday by shaping and reshaping two candidates with similar politics — but very different worldviews.
By John Heilemann


---snip---

Penn defends himself as a champion of the middle class and argues that, as he put it to me, “small policies can sometimes lead to big changes and promote big ideas.” Having helped engineer Bill Clinton’s reelection in 1996 and both of Hillary’s Senate conquests, he enjoys the abiding trust of both Clintons—an unusual position. And for much of 2007, the campaign that he devised for HRC appeared to be working like a charm. Its fundamental premise was her inevitability. Its tactical aims were focused on presenting Clinton as the Democrat readiest to be president “on day one.” Its strategic goal was to neutralize the question that the campaign regarded as her Achilles’ heel: her gender. As Clinton admitted to me, “I really believed I had to prove in this race from the very beginning that a woman could be president and a woman could be commander-in-chief. I thought that was my primary mission.”

But in the weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Clinton began to realize she’d made “a fundamental miscalculation,” she said. “I frankly made a wrong assumption about how to present myself to the country.” Thus her late-stage bid to convince the voters of Iowa that she was human after all, an effort embodied in all its absurdity and desperation by her now-infamous “likability tour”—a tour that kicked off just a matter of days after she’d first gone negative on Obama, announcing, “Now the fun part starts.”

[Evergreen Emerald]

1. I disagree with you. I believe her when she talked about the vote

and her reasoning behind it. I think to simply denounce it and blame Clinton for Bush's war is "intellectually lazy" as another DU'er wrote.

I also think it is superficial and lazy to take Obama at his word, rather than his actions (he has a pattern of his words not matching his actions).

[KennedyGuy]

3. absolutly..we need a leader who stands behind what they say.

She has said a thousand times, that had she known what Chimpy would do with the authorization, she would have voted different.
I prefer this to pandering to the "apology" crowd..of worse..the cowardly habit of voting present when confronted with difficult issues.

[neutron]

22. Obama is a nothing candidate, He can only run on attacks

[fenriswolf]

24. AUTHORIZATION TO USE MILITARY FORCE

sounds like she new exactly what bush was planning.

[polpilot]

60. Depends on what he meant by 'military force'?

couldn't help it.

[Avalux]

4. OK......

so what was that crap about megalomaniac Saddam not wanting to complete with Osama? Those words came out of your girl's mouth during the debate and it was complete and utter bullshit. She didn't have a clue what she was saying and it's further evidence she did not exhibit good sound judgement then and still doesn't. Hillary has a pattern of lying.

[Evergreen Emerald]

5. well, if you are concerned with a pattern of lying

Obama cannot be your man.

People just don't get it. (shakes head).

[Avalux]

7. Thanks for avoiding my question.

Typical.

[Evergreen Emerald]

10. typical? Of who? Of what? Of not answering obvious questions?

Saddam LOVED attention. He got it anyway he could. Is that what you are talking about?

[KennedyGuy]

13. megalomaniac ..its a big word..ask for help

[ErnestoG]

43. Megalomaniac = Her Majesty Hillary

[MannyGoldstein]

31. Most Democrats In Congress Voted Against The War

The single most important vote in decades - she got it wrong, most Democrats got it right.

And some people want to give her more responsibility? Incredible.

[Stephanie]

47. Exactly. This was a moral test and she failed.

She voted for her OWN self-interest, she did not give a thought to what was right and what was wrong. Hillary is for Hillary.

[papau]

37. I agree that Hillary is a truth teller while Obama seems to have a problem with "details" - but DU

will not accept that - and no posting of links will be enough to change things around here.

[niceypoo]

59. Obama's sincerity problem

He is running ads here claiming that republicans will join him in his health care plan, which he, and anyone who has watched the republicans for the last 30 years, know is pure kool-aid. They don't do unity and Obama knows this all too well.

[aquart]

2. I always thought so. Lately I've seen other good reasons.

But Obama would NOT have? Even he said he didn't know.

Sorry. He wasn't there. He didn't vote a principled opposition. He simply wasn't a part of it. His supporters can claim that means he is without IWR sin and that is the most important thing. And it is for them. Fine.

The rest of us are NOT thinking in black and white. We understand that this government is run in the grays.

[Stephanie]

6. Barack Obama's 2002 Speech Against the Iraq War

Delivered on 2 October 2002 at an anti-war rally in Chicago by Barack Obama, Illinois Senator.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama/'s_Iraq_Speech

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.

The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.

I don’t oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not – we will not – travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

[livetohike]

8. Thanks Stephanie!

:thumbsup: This deserves to be on the Greatest Page.

[Evergreen Emerald]

9. well, you have to include all of his statements...and don't forget his actions

or lack there of.

--took the speech off his website when he thought it would politically hurt him
--agreed that he did not know how he would have voted as he was not there--but judging his actions when he WAS there, he likely would have skipped the vote, or voted along with Clinton, as that has been his pattern
--stated that he is with Bush and agrees with him about the war.

And of course, if you are picking and choosing statements, don't forget Clinton's against the war speech as well as her consistent statements since.

[Stephanie]

11. "stated that he is with Bush and agrees with him about the war"

Back that up or take it back. He stated no such thing.

[Evergreen Emerald]

12. here you go...apology accepted.

In 2004, Sen. Obama also said there was little difference between his position and George Bush’s position on Iraq:

In a meeting with Chicago Tribune reporters at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said, “On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago. <…> There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage.”

[Levgreee]

14. That was with how the war was being ran, funded, logistically, etc.

that is NOT the same as the position that the Iraq war was good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, etc.

[Evergreen Emerald]

17. What? I see, so you are willing to dissect a statement from Obama

and glean the most positive meaning possible. But, if Clinton makes a statement--she is EVIL.

DAng, I have to get these ruLes down.

[Levgreee]

21. What the hell do you mean "on paper" means? Your interpretation is absurd

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801140002

Summary: On Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz claimed that in a 2004 Chicago Tribune article, Sen. Barack Obama "said there wasn't much difference between his position and George Bush's position on the war." But Kurtz left out three key words from Obama's quote in the Tribune -- "at this stage" -- as well as the context of the remarks, both of which indicate that Obama was discussing how best to stabilize Iraq from mid-2004 onward, not claiming agreement with Bush on the war itself.


"On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago," Obama said during a luncheon meeting with editors and reporters of Tribune newspapers. "There's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute."

[Levgreee]

16. Also, you have no proof for this statement "--took the speech off his website when he thought it...

would politically hurt him"

How the hell would that politically hurt him? They took it off because it was no longer as relevant, had been on there for over a year.

[Evergreen Emerald]

19. riggghhht...see there you go again. Giving him the most positive

excuses. And yet, you will not do the same for Clinton.

Double standard.

[Levgreee]

23. When have I misinterpreted Clinton's statement as saying something she did not mean?

YOU said that Obama took that off for political reasons.

WHY SHOULD we believe that? Tell me your reasoning. You just state it as truth.

Here's how it works for you.

Hillary camp says something: Now this is the truth, the fact that has to be disputed.d

Yet, no reasoning for why that is the fact, the truth. You don't go to Obama first, you go to the Clinton camp. You LET Clinton speak for Obama, and YET you think that the claims aren't going to be disputed? Ignorance...

[Evergreen Emerald]

25. I will tell you what: Read her speech, dissect it like you do Obama's

giving her the benefit of the doubt and the most positive interpretation, and then get back to me.

[Levgreee]

29. I think Hillary had a reasonable, intelligent position on the war, her speech shows this

The error in her reasoning I believe, was on the BUSH issue, not the war issue.

The fact that she gave Bush permission to start the war, shows either she wasn't careful enough about Bush, or she didn't care enough keeping the invasion from beginning.

Millions of Americans, and Millions of people world-wide, knew that it was not the right decision to give Bush permission to use military force.

26 other senators did so also, so I don't extremely fault Hillary, or blame her for the deaths. But I don't think it was a good choice. I would still consider voting for her, but I think it hurts her election chances, and our global reputation would be increased with a president who never voted to authorize force.

[maddiejoan]

33. Here's my comparison of the Two speeches

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4350789&mesg_id=4350789

[Evergreen Emerald]

35. That is great!

Thank you.

[maddiejoan]

38. If you read Obama's speech

in no fashion do you get the sense that his position differed from Hillary's at that point --and there is no reason to think from his speech that he would have voted NO on IWR.

Why?

IWR was not a vote for preemptive War.

Bush broke the trust implicit in the resolution.

Hillary's 'mistake' was in trusting Bush, but she's not alone in having had that trust.

[Stephanie]

48. Are you serious?

Obama's speech is posted above. Please read it.

[Levgreee]

18. --agreed that he did not know how he would have voted as he was not there-- that comment was made

to not throw Kerry under the bus. If he had disagreed with Kerry on this issue, in quotes, he would have undermined the election.

He did say in the next sentence, What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''





He opposed the war in Iraq, and spoke against it during a rally in Chicago in the fall of 2002. He said then that he saw no evidence that Iraq had unconventional weapons that posed a threat, or of any link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.

''But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''

But Mr. Obama said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its case for war. ''What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this,'' he said.

[Evergreen Emerald]

20. When it mattered. When he could actually DO something more than give

perrrtty speeches--HE SUPPORTED THE WAR. EVERY VOTE HE SUPPORTED THE WAR. NEVER DID HE BRING ANY RESOLUTION TO END THE WAR TO THE FLOOR. HE DID NOTHING when it mattered.

[Levgreee]

27. You don't understand his position on the war... read this

1.He was ALWAYS against the war, he always thought it was the wrong choice to go in. He thought it was wrong in 2002, in 2004, and in 2007.

2.He was NOT ALWAYS against supporting the war. Once the invasion had occurred and couldn't be undone, he was for funding the troops, and he was for keeping peace and giving time for the Iraqis to sort things out.

2. is not contradictory with 1..

Here is a quote...

"Us rushing headlong into a war unilaterally was a mistake and may still be a mistake...
IF it has happened, then at that point what the debate's really gonna be about is what is our long term commitment is there. How much is is it going to cost, what does it mean for us to rebuild Iraq, how do we stabilize and make sure that this country doesn't splinter into factions between the Shi'as, and the Kurds, and the Sunnis." - Barack Obama

This quote clearly explains his view. Rushing into the war was wrong. HOWEVER, once we were there, we had a responsibility to help rebuild the country, which means funding the war. So Obama was always against the war occurring, but considered it a poor choice to pull funding/pull out, for some time, after we invaded. After we had gave them time, Barack supported a phase withdrawal.


Same stance as Dean, same stance as Biden also I believe.


The people that think there is only a YES or NO option, for one issue, are silly.

[Evergreen Emerald]

28. No. I understand perfectly. I just am offended at his political lies as he

attempts to make his stance any different than Clintons.


And, frankly, I do not believe Obama when he speaks. He has proven time and again that his actions speak louder than his words. And I will not vote for someone with his actions (or lack there of).

[Donna Zen]

51. He marched with us in 2003 before the war

Obama marched in an anti-war rally before the war in March of 2003 when damn few politicians were willing to do that. Where was Senator Clinton? Where is Senator Clinton's speech against going to war? Why did someone with access whenever she asked not make a round of the talk shows to speak out? I don't turn my back on those who stood with us when times were hard. And I don't understand the crass behavior of those who now attack them with partisan blather.

Ask Stephanie...she can vouch for me. We had a thread on different forum. The thread was called "The Forever War." Our group used that thread to collect everything related to the coming war. Every article foreign and domestic and every bio of every player was documented in our collection. Now here's the kicker: we started collecting evidence in the spring of 2002, because we knew then what was going to happen. Going to war in Iraq was the worst kept secret in US history. My connection to great affairs of state is by dialup from the middle of the woods, and I certainly knew. PNAC didn't write to my husband. I wasn't privy to the chatter about the open meetings being held by Chalabi and the Iraq Reconstruction Group. In an new book Lincoln Chaffee writes about seeing bush's so-called proof and walking away in horror.

If you wish to support Senator Clinton that is your right. You do not have the right to call people liars when they are telling the truth. Senator Obama's 2002 speech called this damn war exactly. I suspect that his close association with Samantha Powers who is close to General Clark is reflected in his thinking. To my ears, these words are both familiar and true.

Again, I respect those who stood against this war, and my respect is not dependent on agreeing with their every idea. It required judgment and leadership to do the right thing. Today we pay for this war economically, morally, and in a terrible loss of world approval. We will continue to pay that price for many years to come. If more brave souls had joined us, we might have avoided this ill fated journey. Senator Clinton would have been a great boost to our effort. Unfortunately that was not the choice she made.

Just as you are willing to exercise your own thinking when considering your candidate, you must also use your own mind to understand the hard reality of history. Until these myths are unwound, how can we make the necessary corrections in America? That acceptance does not rule out your support for Senator Clinton, in fact, it may strengthen it. I don't know.

[Stephanie]

55. So happy to see you, Donna!

:hi: :hi: :hi:

Here is a later incarnation of that old thread. The earlier DU one was lost when DU had an upgrade. The one Donna is describing predated even that. WE knew, why didn't HRC? Oh, that's right, she DID know. She just chose to act in her own self interest rather than the nation's.


PNAC Links Archive

[Donna Zen]

56. Thanks for the thread link

I wondered if the collection still existed, and I guess it does.

But you are right, the old TAPPA thread pre-dated even that. We did some fine work!

One other memory sometimes rises to the surface: Before the inauguration of 2001, someone at Table Talk/White House started a thread to register our opinions as to where bush would start his first war. Many people believed that it would be Iraq; not me. I thought that since he was a bush, he'd start a war in Central America. I also remember that on that thread a republican commented that we were "morbid." Ha! Little did we all know that our futures held the very definition of morbid.

Ah yes, if I knew then what I know now. Wait a minute....I did know then what I know now.

Thanks again my dear Stephanie. I always check DU to see what pictures you've found to lighten our burdens.

[Stephanie]

57. We have to meet up.

Call me if you ever come to NYC!

[maddiejoan]

32. Compare the speeches.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4350789&mesg_id=4350789

[never_get_over_it]

39. Which he removed from his website

when he was running for Senate and the "invasion" was still popular....

[jillan]

40. You do know that he wants to go back into Afghanistan and into Pakistan - right??????

He has said that numerous times.

[ErnestoG]

15. HA!! Tom Tomorrow ALWAYS nails it!

Just fucking hilarious. And true.

[EFerrari]

26. Clinton has a projection problem. We'll never know who she is

because she doesn't project herself well at all.

When I was acting, I had a friend go to the back of the theater for a sound check. If he could hear me, then I knew I would get across.

Clinton is someone who seems to never have done a sound check, let alone, a reality check.

[Stephanie]

45. Because she doesn't want you to know.

Her default position is to obfuscate.

[EFerrari]

61. She's so busy reframing that she doesn't notice that even the front row

isn't getting a consistent image.

[Radical Activist]

30. The cartoon paints a clear picture.

Its what I've been saying for the past year. Hillary is a sure loser.

[Guaranteed]

42. And the clarity of it makes me wonder why we even have as many Clinton

supporters on DU as we do. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

[Stephanie]

46. Many of them are recent arrivals.

[moondust]

34. Yup.

"she was positioning herself for 2008"

Her self-serving politics helped get an awful lot of people killed and maimed.

[Stephanie]

54. 'Nuff said.

That's reason enough to vote against her, IMO.

[rodeodance]

36. its not a problem--just a little giblet in your imagination.

[Stephanie]

58. A giblet?

Hokey doke. The IWR is emblematic of her refusal to take a stand, her attempts to have it both ways on every issue, and her fundamental insincerity. It's the old style of politics. Its time is OVER.

[Guaranteed]

41. Nominating Clinton does not get summed up much better than that. nt

[Stephanie]

44. Thanks.

I think that's the bottom line on Clinton. Clinton is out for Clinton. Period.

[NC_Nurse]

49. Tom Tomorrow always nails it.

How could anyone believe she didn't know what the IWR meant?
The rest of us did!

[Stephanie]

50. He does indeed.

She is quite unconvincing on this question and it does not become her.

[scheming daemons]

52. k/r.... Tom Tomorrow always gets it right....

....

[Stephanie]

53. thanks

He certainly does. He's got HRC exactly right.