Over at First Read, NBC's news fairly robust and often updated politics blog, Mark Murray asks an interesting question: "Is Hillary Getting a Free Pass on Iraq?"
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton -- who was for the Iraq war before she was against it -- has been getting mostly a free pass as she's morphed into an antiwar candidate. Just check out today's Des Moines Register's coverage of her speech yesterday on Iraq. There's a picture of Hillary standing behind a lectern that says "The Plan to End the War." Then there's her quote: "Our message to the president is clear. It is time to begin ending this war -- not next year, not next month, but today." Yet the article doesn't mention that just a year ago, she said that setting a "date certain" for withdrawal was a mistake, which produced boos from the liberal audience that heard the speech. It also barely mentioned (in just one sentence) her 2002 vote to authorize the war.And it's just not this Des Moines Register piece. When Clinton was asked at CNN's debate last month about her new antiwar views, she simply changed the subject. On her last-minute vote against the compromise war-funding bill, Clinton answered: "The differences among us are minor. The differences between us and the Republicans are major. And I don't want anybody in America to be confused." And when asked why she voted for every previous war-spending bill until that one, she responded: "Unfortunately, we don't have a president who is willing to change course. And I think it was time to say enough is enough... Everybody on this stage, we are all united... We all believe that we need to try to end this war."
[...]
Her campaign, in fact, deserves plenty of kudos in making Clinton sound like Dennis Kucinich when it comes to Iraq. As of now, they have turned a major weakness into a strength -- which comes at the same time as Clinton has increased her lead in the polls. And if she goes on to win the Democratic nomination, it will be one of the big reasons for her success.
My feelings tend to align with the last paragraph quoted above -- all the better for her campaign for being able to somehow spin a position that is at least somewhat to the right of that of much of the rest of the Democratic field into one that looks about the same as that of much of the rest of Democratic field. A campaign that is that politically and strategically deft is one that can win a primary election and one that can win a general election.
But I think the largest knock on Clinton is not that she is not an immensely talented candidate or that her campaign is not run with less flaws than most others. Instead, folks are concerned that her positions aren't the right ones and that she has taken stances in the past that, however politically popular at the time, did not pan out. Clinton's initial support for the Iraq War was an important one. So, too, was her opposition, until last year, to setting a hard timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq. So, too, (though perhaps slightly less so) is her seeming support for residual forces in Iraq.
To this end, I think it is important to hash out these differences. For certain the debate format used thus far has been atrocious and has done a lot to help obscure differences between candidates. Far better was the format used at last month's AFSCME presidential forum in which the moderator had 12 minutes to ask each candidate in attendence questions -- giving the moderator the opportunity to ask the same question to different candidates without having a hand-raising exercise and the candidate the opportunity to answer questions at greater length, if necessary.
But it probably wouldn't hurt for the media to take a more serious look at the differences in the candidates' stances -- even if their rhetoric is roughly the same. In this vein, perhaps NBC should, in addition to publishing a blog post that will be read by a few thousand people, run the same story and others like it on its evening news, which is viewed by a few million people. Such a move would probably negate the need for such questions and headlines in the first place.
|
|
|
Permalink :: 107 Comments :: Post a Comment
|
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account right here. It's quick and free.
