| Hillary Clinton has a problem. She's a woman,
and she wants to be President. Men are generally perceived to be tougher
on military issues and in a post 9/11 world strength is important as is
Support for our military. The majority of Democrats voted in favor of the
Iraqi resolution, this includes Hillary. Voting for the war was not in so
much a national security decision as it was political decision. The
country had rallied together and support for removing a dangerous dictator
was at it's highest. Even if the Democrats had evidence contrary to the
presidents they still would have voted for the resolution. To them votes
are everything. Two years on the support for the war began to wane and the Democrats sensed an opportunity. They distanced themselves from the vote by claiming Bush mislead them even though they were privy to the same intelligence reports. Thus Hillary's problem. She needs to appear strong so she stands by her vote. this angers her Democratic colleagues so to appease them and her Democratic base she joins in on the "Bush lied" bandwagon and as we have seen that did not work. While the Democrats march on and ratchet up the anti war rhetoric Hillary purposely stays two steps behind. To adopt the cut and run plan would make her appear weak and that was her original problem so she says we must remain in Iraq until we succeed. That is a good positive message for Mrs. Clinton until you put it in context with her other statements. She is trying to play the middle ground on this issue, however all she has accomplished is to muddy her position. She stands by her vote but insists she voted because she was mislead. She would not have voted yes otherwise. She supports the troops but does not believe the war is going well. In other words The troops are not winning. She supports the troops remaining in Iraq and does not support a timetable for their withdraw, but supports removing troops as we reach certain goals which in my book means timetable. She wants to have all her bases covered but has only succeeded in looking like john Kerry. A muddied position results in a muddied message. What she has done is open the door for another possible opponent. Odds are in favor a Gore like challenger will appear very soon. An opposition to the war in total will not be a popular position but that is the Democratic stance and it will cause Hillary hell in the primaries. -Bert |