If Hillary is going to run to Obama's right on foreign policy, and it seems she will...

[Drunken Irishman]

She's lost my support.

I've been fairly defensive of Hillary here on DU the last couple years because I felt she could get the job done well enough. But I also thought she would had softened her foreign policy rhetoric after having her ass handed to her in 2008 for the Iraq War vote and being around the supposedly 'too cautious' Obama administration.

That appears to not be the case. If she's going to campaign on a hawkish policy, then I certainly can't support her in the primaries. It's but one vote, however, if this is what she truly believes, I'm not sure I even want her to run.

[leftstreet]

1. It's just for 4 years. Toughen up!

[Karma13612]

16. how do you figure?

Aren't we talking 8 years for president? Sorry, not following you.

[tblue37]

17. At her age, perhaps not. At this point I suspect that if she does run, it might be

more because being the first woman president is on her bucket list rather than because she really wants the job. (Also because Bill would really like to get back into the center of things and would not mind becoming another "first"--the first first husband.)

Hillary just might decide that 4 years is quite enough time to spend in such an exhausting, thankless job (it is exhausting and thankless if one does it properly, which W did not). Once she has won the prize that she has chased for so long, she might decide to spend the rest of her time enjoying herself. (Of course, she seems to be pretty much a Type A, so maybe she can't really enjoy a quieter life.)

[VanillaRhapsody]

26. is this also what you thought

Obama would do as the first Black President? That it was just on his bucket list? Misogyny much?

[tblue37]

33. No, because he was so young. But I am 64 next week. Like Hillary, I have

always been a high-achieving dynamo. But after a certain point, you get tired and besides, your priorities change.

As Secretary of State, Hillary traveled endlessly and worked herself into exhaustion--and into the hospital. Any person who accepts one of those jobs--president, SoS, etc.--and who takes the responsibility seriously (unlike W, for whom it was just a vacation and an ego trip) wears herself/himself to the bone. It is like the workers in Silicon Valley--the hours and the expectations are insane.

I think Hillary has always meant to be a force in politics and even in history. Quite possibly she has long wanted to be president--like since she was quite young. She certainly has more intelligence, talent, and drive than most men who get into high office. But I also think that by the time she left the SoS office, she was exhausted and also absolutely frustrated with the sheer intransigent stupidity of a lot of the people and groups she had to deal with. If she had been forced to decide right then, with no wiggle room for changing her mind later, about whether to run for the presidency, I bet she would have said no.

But now she is rested, and she left office with astronomical approval ratings. She hears so many people, high and low, clamoring for her to run for the office. Her dream, which has probably been there for a very long time, seems to be possible after all. She is undoubtedly enjoying her civilian life--just as Bill undoubtedly is--but like Bill, she has that "fire in the belly," and she is rested enough now to be thinking that way again (and I am sure Bill is pushing the idea--because he would want to get back into the WH, too). Furthermore, she has a strong commitment to service. That is why she worked herself into the ground as SOS.

But a presidential campaign is no fun at all. Her approval ratings have already fallen just because she might run again. The RW is already viciously attacking her. If her health and energy hold up, I think she will run, and I think she has a decent chance of winning if she does.

But I also think that once in office she will work herself into exhaustion, because that is how she rolls, and because she is so committed to her work and her legacy. And after 4 years of that thankless job, subjected to vicious attacks from all sides, both from the right and from the left, I think she might decide that she's had just about enough of this crap.

I don't think her only goal was ever to be the *first* woman president. I think that she is also determined to shatter the glass ceiling for other women.

I have more to say, but I am on a mobile device. I will post this as is and then go to my desktop to finish this as an edit.

ON EDIT:

[font color ="blue"]Here I am, back to finish my lengthy explanation.[/font]

Anyone who has followed Hillary’s career knows that a large part of what drives her is her passionate commitment to women’s rights and well-being. She knows that she has now, as she had in 2008, the best chance of becoming president of any possible woman candidate. If she runs, she could win, and if she wins, then it is just possible that like more advanced and civilized countries, the US might be able to pull itself out of the Middle Ages where that issue is concerned. Just like with Jackie Robinson, the first one to break through the barrier of long held prejudices always has it the hardest: hardest to get past the barrier at all, hardest to deal with the inevitable bull caca that the gibbering a**holes will throw at them. We have certainly seen that with the shameful treatment of Obama by the Neanderthals on the right.

I think Hillary is brave enough and committed enough to “take one for the team,” and that now that she is rested, she kind of “wants” the job again (though perhaps not as fiercely as she once did). But once she is in the job and dealing with the crap, I think she might well decide that one term is quite enough, thank you.

Remember what Ma Joad says in The Grapes of Wrath about the difference between men and women:

Woman can change better’n a man. Man lives in jerks–baby born, or somebody dies, that’s a jerk–gets a farm, or loses one, an’ that’s a jerk. With a woman it’s all one flow, like a 
stream, little eddies, little waterfalls, but the river it goes right on. Woman looks at it like that.

In general, I do believe that women, even driven women, are less exclusively focused on the work world and the public sphere than men are. High-achieving men seem to derive pretty nearly all of their sense of self and their sense of value from their work and from their status in the public sphere. But women function a bit differently in the world. Our commitment to and our role in our families and our focus on other aspects of our lives tend to balance out the kind of insane, hyper focused workaholism that seems to characterize equally high-achieving men.

So, yes, I think that if her health holds up she will run, and if she runs, she has a decent chance of winning. And maybe I am wrong. Maybe if she wins, she will want a second term. But I suspect that she would decide that one term is enough. She would have broken through the barrier that blocks women from the presidency, she would have fulfilled her long-term dream, and she would have satisfied her sense of responsibility and service to women and to her country. She is smart enough to realize that a president’s power is actually rather limited, and to realize that as a private citizen she might actually have more influence and be able do more good for the causes she cares about.

[VanillaRhapsody]

34. so womens issues means she is just self serving

But Obama wasn't?

Marlarkey ...

[Faux pas]

2. Amen! +1000

that is all.

[sabrina 1]

3. Well, many of us knew she wasn't going to 'soften' her position on war. She has neither done

nor said nothing since 2004 to make anyone believe that. She was even an apologist for torture back when she was running in 2008. I stopped supporting her after her pro-Bush/War vote in 2004 and won't be supporting her ever again. We have Republicans if we want to vote for forever war, what we need is an opposition candidate.

[Scootaloo]

4. Those of us who refused to vote for her in 2008 didn't forget why we refused.

it's a shame so many other people seem to have forgotten.

[AtomicKitten]

7. Yep. Exactly right.

[DRoseDARs]

9. It's not that they forgot, many just didn't know...

It's easy to dismiss from a political wonk's perspective, but think of the wider voting public. We spend a lot of time debating minutia here, but the wider campaign appeals to the less-involved audience.

I participated in the Nevada caucus and there was no way in hell I was going to vote for her in the primary. General election is another matter, but thankfully I didn't have to choose at that time.

[thesquanderer]

14. Some didn't "refuse" to vote for her, they just preferred someone else

Heck, I wasn't the biggest fan of either HC or Obama. But by the time the primaries got to my state, that was essentially the choice. I went with Obama, but I always saw them as more alike than different.

[Skidmore]

23. Yes, indeed.

I have not forgotten.

[tea and oranges]

5. She's a Hawk. Always has been. No surprise!

[Beacool]

6. Meh, do whatever you want.

[Omaha Steve]

8. She is no friend of working men and women

Some unions endorsed her because of the BIG DOG. The BIG DOG gave jobs to China with HIS favored trading status. And SHE was on the Wal-mart board. How many union jobs do they have? NONE!

[LiberalArkie]

12. Both Bill & Hillary during their time in Arkansas were always the darlings

of big business and big banks and were never the friend of the poor or working stiff unless it was a photo op. Sure I voted for Bill every time because "he was the lesser of 2 evils"

[littlemissmartypants]

13. And he f*cked up health care with BBA. nt

[happynewyear]

28. +1,000

n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. Hillary Clinton joins critics of Obama's response to ISIS in Iraq/CSM

All that's missing is the smirk and cowboy boots.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0810/Hillary-Clinton-joins-critics-of-Obama-s-response-to-ISIS-in-Iraq

President Obama's latest moves in Iraq – a combination of air strikes and air drops of humanitarian aid – were roundly criticized by Republicans Sunday. And, Hillary Clinton sounded remarkably like a Republican this week, distancing herself from the current administration.

That comment about Syria sounds very similar to one made this week by Hillary Clinton, Obama's former Secretary of State and possible 2016 presidential candidate.

“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Mrs. Clinton told The Atlantic.

"One of the reasons why I worry about what’s happening in the Middle East right now is because of the breakout capacity of jihadist groups that can affect Europe, can affect the United States,” she said. “Jihadist groups are governing territory. They will never stay there, though. They are driven to expand. Their raison d’etre is to be against the West, against the Crusaders, against the fill-in-the-blank—and we all fit into one of these categories. How do we try to contain that? I’m thinking a lot about containment, deterrence, and defeat.”

[conservaphobe]

11. You took the words out of my mouth. nt

[Douglas Carpenter]

15. she probably thinks that this is a good political strategy too - now that the President is being

attacked in the liberal media for "appearing weak' and "not showing leadership" in foreign policy. I suspect the tone of her campaign will be that she will essentially carry on the same social policies and economic policies but she will be very "strong on defense" with a "muscular" foreign policy.

[DonCoquixote]

25. Translated

' I suspect the tone of her campaign will be that she will essentially carry on the same social policies and economic policies but she will be very "strong on defense" with a "muscular" foreign policy. "

I agree, but I humbly offer the following paraphrase:

"she will spend a lot of time offering to kill, hurt and/or beglect brown skinned people because she thinks it will get her the suburban Reagan democrat vote that the party has been chasing for 30 years!"

[bullwinkle428]

29. Bingo - this has been my biggest fear all along regarding her candidacy.

[yellowwoodII]

18. I already don't like her

Because she voted to attack Iraq.
If she is the candidate, I may just stay home from the poll.
Unless she is running against somebody worse.
But I'll hold my nose.

[DeSwiss]

19. K&R!

[flamingdem]

20. If she has a shot as a female running she'll have to prove

she can be Commander in Chief.

Let's not have a double standard of judging her more harshly than a man where she has to prove herself. Not right out of the gate.

[Martin Eden]

22. Then let her prove it by having a sane foreign policy

You are applying a double standard by suggesting she needs to be a hawk because she's a woman.

[Martin Eden]

21. In a Dem primary I will NEVER vote for anyone who voted for the IWR

If Hillary hasn't learned the lesson of Iraq and runs as a hawk, I will seriously consider voting Green in the general election.

[joshcryer]

24. She won't.

She just has to distance herself from perceptions of Obama's failings.

[bigwillq]

27. She lost my support a long time ago.

I will never vote for her.

[CherokeeDem]

30. I'm Having Second Thoughts...

While I prefer Joe Biden or Martin O'Malley as the nominee, I have a lot of respect for Hillary, and was willing to support her, because I think she has the best chance to win. The fact is, no matter the candidate, we need a Democrat in the White House.

I felt she did an excellent job as SOS. However, as a former SOS, for her to choose now to criticize the President's policies for political reasons, doesn't represent a her concern for the country but a concern for herself. I have no issue with her disagreeing with the President's policy, but in the heat of the moment, when this is an on-going situation, I feel more appropriate for Hillary to remain quiet and support the administration. There will be time to challenge Obama's policies later.

[joeybee12]

31. I think at this point it's pretty much all talk..

People like their leaders to sound tough, Obama does not, and a lot of people don't like that...she's tapping into that.

What you can be sure of about her talk is that she is definitely running.

[TheKentuckian]

32. That is why faith based politics are dangerously worthless.

Your assumptions had no plausible basis and plenty of reason to come to the opposite conclusion but you wanted to believe until she gored your ox and hit Obama otherwise the denial and expressions of faith would continue right on track.

This is all of our lives and futures, if you need to express faith then look into religious services in your area, I'm sure you will have many options and if you want to cheer on your team no matter what please look into sports but keep in mind even there the other fans will get boisterous about sucking and call ownership, the GM, the coach, the quarterback/point guard/catcher and anyone on the team out for losing.
Perhaps the soft ass Tee Ball leagues will be better, some of them don't keep score so you can just clap and cheer all season.