I believe this explains Hillary Clinton's IWR vote --->>>

[Stephanie]

Great article about Clinton and Obama, highly recommended. Remember it was understood from her first run for the Senate in 2000 that she was positioning herself for the 2008 presidential race.

http://nymag.com/news/features/43341/

The Test
Inside the Clinton and Obama war rooms, they’ve spent months preparing for Super Tuesday by shaping and reshaping two candidates with similar politics — but very different worldviews.
By John Heilemann


---snip---

Penn defends himself as a champion of the middle class and argues that, as he put it to me, “small policies can sometimes lead to big changes and promote big ideas.” Having helped engineer Bill Clinton’s reelection in 1996 and both of Hillary’s Senate conquests, he enjoys the abiding trust of both Clintons—an unusual position. And for much of 2007, the campaign that he devised for HRC appeared to be working like a charm. Its fundamental premise was her inevitability. Its tactical aims were focused on presenting Clinton as the Democrat readiest to be president “on day one.” Its strategic goal was to neutralize the question that the campaign regarded as her Achilles’ heel: her gender. As Clinton admitted to me, “I really believed I had to prove in this race from the very beginning that a woman could be president and a woman could be commander-in-chief. I thought that was my primary mission.”

But in the weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Clinton began to realize she’d made “a fundamental miscalculation,” she said. “I frankly made a wrong assumption about how to present myself to the country.” Thus her late-stage bid to convince the voters of Iowa that she was human after all, an effort embodied in all its absurdity and desperation by her now-infamous “likability tour”—a tour that kicked off just a matter of days after she’d first gone negative on Obama, announcing, “Now the fun part starts.”

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Meh.

She thought she'd be painted as an America-hater and a terrorist lover, and besides, the war would be over for Christmas, so she decided to go ahead and vote for the thing for the sake of making herself look better.

[dflprincess]

2. She thought she had to prove that a woman was quite willing to send

other people's children off to be maimed or killed in a war of choice? Wow, I'm impressed. :sarcasm:

[Stephanie]

18. She was hedging her bets.

She thought an anti-war vote would alienate the cross-over voters in 2008. She was wrong.

[1corona4u]

3. Didn't you post this last night too??

Someone did...

[Stephanie]

4. Wasn't me

It's a great read, tho. Check out the whole piece.

[sandnsea]

13. It needs to be posted hourly

until every person on this board gets it through their head who this woman really is.

[Stephanie]

14. no kidding

Penn's been managing her since 2000. He began positioning her then for this race. This was their strategy. It backfired.

[LisaM]

5. We're just going to have to move past this vote.

Although I fundamentally disagree with it and the war, I have to say that I have numerous friends and acquaintances, normally clear-headed, who were in an absolute tizzy after 9-11, and who had thoughts and feelings that they've since regretted. I remember being told, in all sincerity, that Bush's post 9-11 speech was great, that we had to support him, that France was a terrible country for not joining in, etc., etc. (you still hear people making the French jokes - EVEN NOW). I lost at least one friend during this time, and alienated a few others.

They have since come to understand that I was right - I've been told so by several people - and I have forgiven them and we are friends and are moving forward.

I don't know if Hillary believed Bush's evidence, if she was just representing the thoughts and emotions of those she represents, or what. But I have to move past this (and both Hillary and Obama's votes on funding) because it's too important not to.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. So, either it was a crass political calculation or she, like much of the

country, was in a tizzy.

I don't know that either of those speaks well of her.

[havocmom]

6. All about triangulation, image, position.

Not too much concern with oversight of an administration hell bent on war profiteering.

Too bad about all the dead people... do I look presidential yet?

Used to respect HRC. She has been a disappointment.

[Stephanie]

8. She has a sincerity problem.

That's always been her Achilles heel. She's just not believable when she tries to explain her IWR vote, because she can't give the real answer, she was positioning herself for 2008.

[City Lights]

10. "She was positioning herself for 2008"

That's it in a nutshell.

[Stephanie]

11. And she miscalculated.

She threw her lot in with the neocons and lost the bet.

[Warpy]

7. Well, at least dawn broke over Marblehead

I was right when I said Edwards's second place win in Iowa shook her up.

I think she's been rethinking quite a few of her DLC positions and finding them wanting.

Yes, she has to project a tough and hawklike persona to get the respect of the military junkies in this country. However, she can do that while admitting that giving a madman the go ahead to invade a country that was no threat to us or anyone else was a huge mistake that needs to be corrected ASAP in order to preserve what military we have left.

[vi5]

9. This is why I won't vote for her..

I'm not against politicians voting their conscience even when that puts them at odds with me on issues. I'm really not.

But when it's painfully obvious that those votes are less their conscience and more about positioning ones self politically then I have no tolerance or patience for that and can not trust that person.

And yes, every politician does this. I'm not stupid. But it just seems to be too common an occurrence with Clinton, and on this issue and with the narrowly averted (and still possible) rush to war with Iran it has cost the country too much in terms of lives, money, stature, and moral capital for me to just accept "Well she would have been perceived as weak if she didn't vote for it."

[Stephanie]

17. This vote was a moral test.

And she chose to go with what she thought would benefit her career, instead of what was the right thing to do.

[vi5]

19. Exactly (n/t)

[sandnsea]

12. That's exactly right

The Clintons have always been the biggest problem for Democrats who want to get out of Iraq, all so she could play tough to be the President.

There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm’s way, that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm. And I have absolutely no belief that he will. I have to say that this is something I’ve followed for more than a decade. If he were serious about disarming, he would have been much more forthcoming. . . . I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information, intelligence that I had available, talking with people whose opinions I trusted, trying to discount the political or other factors that I didn’t believe should be in any way part of this decision.
Hillary addresses Code Pink, March 7, 2003.

Tonight, the President gave Saddam Hussein one last chance to avoid war, and the world hopes that Saddam Hussein will finally hear this ultimatum, understand the severity of those words, and act accordingly. While we wish there were more international support for the effort to disarm Saddam Hussein, at this critical juncture it is important for all of us to come together in support of our troops and pray that, if war does occur, this mission is accomplished swiftly and decisively with minimum loss of life and civilian casualties.
March 17 2003 (Invasion)
We are in a two-front war. We are offense in Iraq and we have to finish the job
March 19 2003

“We must stay the course” in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked for more troops to finish the job.
“We have to exert all of our efforts militarily”
November 29, 2003 Hilary visits the troops In Iraq and Afghanistan

I am both a little optimistic and a little pessimistic, but what I'm trying to do is be realistic about where we are and what we need to be successful. We have no option but to stay involved and committed.
Dec 15, 2003 Speech to CFR

"The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration," she said. "It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared.
"But I think that in the case of the administration, they really believed it. They really thought they were right, but they didn't let enough sunlight into their thinking process to really have the kind of debate that needs to take place when a serious decision occurs like that." (They believed it, but her people didn't??)
April 2004 Larry King

It's regrettable that the security needs have increased so much. On the other hand, I think you can look at the country as a whole and see that there are many parts of Iraq that are functioning quite well," Clinton said.
It is time for the President to stop serving up platitudes and present us with a plan for finishing this war with success and honor – not a rigid timetable that terrorists can exploit, but a public plan for winning and concluding the war.
Nov 2005 Letter To Constituents

nor do I think it is smart strategy to set a date certain.
June 2006 TBA

"Now it's time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days or the Congress will revoke authorization for this war,"
Feb 2007

[Fovea]

15. There is no doubt in my mind

that Hillary Clinton is a brilliant woman.

But her nature, that eternally calculating engine, mewed up in the halls of power for a two decades, does not have a reliable PoV
on the real world.

It is pretty much too late, even if she had this epiphany tomorrow. Like GWB, Ms. Clinton is in a bubble.
She, like the entire elite of the pre-raptured rich, sees the world exactly the way it was when the bubble of power, fame, and security wrapped around them.
In HRC's case, back when Fleetwood Mac was hip. How can anyone on the street of anno domini 2007 think of setting up an insurance executive's wet dream and calling it healthcare?

She must have been in Davos for the whole Enron thing.

Barak Obama has only been in the bubble for two years or so.
Ergo, he is almost certainly not as psychotic-- but the slight echo effect seems at times
to put an element of doubt into his voice.

I trust that doubt.

[ErnestoG]

20. Pres. Hillary will be either just as dumb, or just as warmongering, as her WH predecessor

when it comes to this country and foreign/military policy.

Oh BOY that just fills me with confidence.

[Stephanie]

28. Who knows what she will be.

She doesn't vote on principle, she votes on what's best for Hillary. No doubt that's how she'll govern too.

[crawfish]

21. Even if true,

It only shows that she's willing to sacrifice her ethics for political clout. Why does anybody think that would end with the election?

[Stephanie]

22. it wouldn't

she would continue to sell us out

[Individualist]

23. K&R

[rodeodance]

24. AND YET ANOTHER HILLARY DID SAY I AM SORRY THREAD!!

[Stephanie]

25. um...

What?

[rodeodance]

26. so so many threads want Hillary to say sorry for vote.

[Stephanie]

27. Not asking her to aplogize.

Asking her to be honest about it.