The more I read and post here, the more I realize Hillary Clinton cannot win the White House. [View All]

[Brotherjohn]

I am sorry to say that and flame away. I think she would make a great president. I think she or Obama SHOULD win the White House. I would place both her and Obama light years ahead of McCain as far as their positions on the war, and anything else.

Keep in mind that most of what I say below is playing Devil's Advocate. But it is exactly what she will face should she come up against McCain.

Her IWR vote damns her. It's that simple. She cannot effectively distinguish herself from John McCain in the most important issue of this election, and the most important issue this nation has faced in many many years. She can equivocate and excuse all she likes, but she voted to give GWB authorization to go to war. She can say until the cows come home that she was misled, but millions of us in less of a position to know were not. At best she was naive, and at worst she voted for a horrible war that has killed untold thousands and risked our very nation for political expediency.

No, she did not come up with the idea. No, she did not start the war herself. Yes, Bush misled and still did not even follow the letter of the resolution, and the war is arguably illegal under U.N. Statutes. But from a political and practical standpoint, she gave GWB the go ahead, as anyone paying attention at the time realized.

It's the one thing that most severely weakened Kerry's run, even though the war was less unpopular then.

Yes, Obama was "under less pressure" to take a stand. Nonetheless, he took one; and not a popular one. And it wasn't as though he was a talk show host or celebrity. He WAS a state politician at the time, with an eye on a run for U.S. Senate. And his words both then and now back up his opposition to the very idea that we should have gone to war. He is not saying "the planning was inadequate" or "the war's operation was bungled". He is saying "This war was WRONG!"

Maybe it's a lot easier for a presidential candidate to say that now. But he is saying it. And I don't hear Sen. Clinton saying it.

Yes, he has voted to continue funding for the war. But Mr. Bush's invasion has left no politician... indeed, no American... in an easy place. A Senator voting for funding is a far cry from voting to authorize the war itself. The IWR vote was the time to stop the war. Whatever her reasons or assumptions, Clinton failed on that count. While not in the same position, Obama did all he could at the time and spoke out against it. To say "things would have been different" were he in the Senate then is all conjecture. That may or may not be, but the record we have indicates otherwise.

Whomever takes the White House will inherit one royal MESS thanks to GWB. It is easy to start a war. It is far harder to stop one. Obama will be in a much stronger moral and political position to stop this one.