Clinton Is A Politician Not Easily Defined--WaPo

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/29/AR2006052901029.html?referrer=email


Clinton Is A Politician Not Easily Defined
Senator's Platform Remains Unclear

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 30, 2006; A01



Hillary Rodham Clinton has fashioned a political persona that generates intense passions but defies easy characterization. She is viewed as a hawk on Iraq and national security, stamped as a big-government Democrat for her work on health care in the 1990s, and depicted as seeking the middle ground on abortion.

After three decades in public life, New York's junior senator is one of the most recognized women in the world, her every move and utterance interpreted amid the assumption in Democratic circles and her own circle that her reelection campaign this fall will pivot into a run for president in 2008. Yet for all her fame, there are missing pieces to the Clinton puzzle: What does she stand for? And where would she try to take the country if elected?

A selective reading of Clinton's record can produce evidence to prove she is a centrist, a liberal and much in between. But there are clear patterns. On defense, she has consistently supported the use of force abroad, having advocated military intervention in the Balkans during her husband's administration. She differs with Bush administration officials on many aspects of how they have conducted foreign policy, but not on combating terrorism or the imperative of winning in Iraq.

Domestically, she has a more complex profile, a product of life experiences that have shaped and refined her approach to issues. She is an activist who believes in the power of government to solve problems, but those pro-government instincts have been tempered by the health-care debacle of 1993-94 and the nation's budgetary squeeze. On family policy, she has some traditional, even moralistic, instincts that those who know her best say are genuine and deeply felt.

WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS IS A LEADER WHO IS AGAINST USING FORCE ABROAD, SUPPORTS SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, AND THE INVIOLABLE RIGHTS OF AUTONOMY, NOT JUST FOR FERTILE WOMEN, BUT FOR ALL. HILLARY CLINTON ISN'T THAT LEADER.

[BR_Parkway]

1. Very easily defined - more important to pander to all instead of standing

up for anything in particular. Leaders go out on a limb and inspire others to follow that vision. She's no leader.

[mhr]

2. I Live In NY State and Will Not Support War Mongers

She will never get my vote - EVER!

[Selatius]

3. The war in Iraq is FUCKING UNWINNABLE!

That country is HISTORY! And Sunnis and Shi'ites hate our fucking guts, and if they're not too busy slaughtering each other, they're busy killing US troops.

It's over. If Hillary can't see that, then Hillary is a loser on Iraq, and we're tired of leaders who ignore the grim reality.