The Sideshow: Why Did Anyone Support the Invasion of Iraq?
This posting from The Sideshow sums up exactly what my mental state was back in early 2003, as the Iraq War was lumbering into motion despite all the emerging evidence that the justification for it was nonexistent: Why did anyone support the invasion of Iraq?
As long as we’re on the subject, why did Hillary support the invasion, and more to the point, what makes her think I’ll be excited about supporting her candidacy for the presidency in light of that support?
Thanks to Jonathon Schwarz, the conscience of the blogosphere, for both links.
January 24th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Hillary Clinton supported the war because it was a politically strong move. Remember, Congress didn’t say that we were going to war. The wording was careful, and congress authorized the president to use military force. Congress left the executive branch holding the hot potato, and it’s this administration that will be judged by history, not the Congress.
Hillary Clinton plays the political game — sometimes to good ends, and sometimes to not-so-good ends. For example, when the game Bully was announced (I think that it was Bully, but it could have been some other game that she had never seen beyond a press release), she joined Chuck Schumer in speaking out against it and trying to push legislation (which she knew would never pass) preventing it from hitting the shelves. It was a logically stupid move, because the game hadn’t even been written yet. The opposition was due to a longstanding dispute, and this was just more fuel for the fire…but obviously, no informed judgment could have been made in this case because the product hadn’t even been developed yet. She wasn’t trying to actually do anything beyond making a political statement…and being a geek who enjoys video games, I found it despicable.
I guess the next question to ask is if and why we should hold Senator Clinton to a different standard than everyone else in the political arena. Everyone else plays the same game, and in the end, voters tend to have a good idea where a candidate really stands. One intangible metric that many people find valuable in a president (or candidate) is predictability. Do we have a good idea for where they stand, and is that going to unexpectedly change in the middle of their presidency? For example, we thought that we knew where John McCain stood on things like torture…until his little deal with the Bush administration. Do we really want that kind of unpredictability in the oval office? I can’t answer for you, but that kind of thing is a little unsettling to me – much moreso than making a political move that a safe congressional majority fell in line with.
It’s a tough call — what are your thoughts, JBC?