I don’t know, I heard on the comment section of some blog that a bunch of assholes read that this was a hit-piece. Or something.
3.
Davebo
As Kevin Drum pointed out, if you’re going to headline an article “How Hillary Clinton became a Hawk” you should, at some point in the article, explain how Hillary Clinton became a hawk.
The article makes a decent case that she is a hawk however.
4.
Dr.McCoy
Awakening?
“For most of the Left, Clinton-style “incrementalism” is just a code word to disguise what is effectively a right-wing retrenchment. Nevertheless many self-identified progressives have backed Clinton’s “theory of politics” as the most realistic path to achieve Sanders’s objectives.”
” The article makes a decent case that she is a hawk however. ”
Seems to me a very anecdotal case, with not many anecdotes. I didn’t get much info on a future president HRC’s policies from it.
I’m not sure how much of HRC’s hawkishness is rhetoric versus reality. Consider her discussion of the her proposed no-fly zones in Syria, during the Democratic debates. She is not going to shot any Russian aircraft down on first or even second violation, but use as an excuse to get some talks going, or something.
She won’t start pinpoint targeted saturation bombing of large chunks of the earth on Day One of her administration, so she is better than the alternative GOPer (except maybe Kasich, but he is irrelevant).
7.
Dr.McCoy
@efgoldman: The simple truth is that virtually every significant and lasting progressive achievement of the past hundred years was achieved not by patient, responsible gradualism, but through brief flurries of bold action. The Second New Deal in 1935–36 and Civil Rights and the Great Society in 1964–65 are the outstanding examples, but the more ambiguous victories of the Obama era fit the pattern, too.
“There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth,” declared Lyndon Johnson in 1964. “I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want.”
Compare that to our current Democratic front-runner, whose most impassioned moment on the 2016 campaign trail came when she denounced single-payer health care as an idea “that will never, ever come to pass.”
@efgoldman: Agreed, ef, but I still don’t get your first point. We can still complain/criticize. It sounds like you’re saying there’s no point, (insert Democratic politician here) will never change, we need to focus on beating Republicans instead.
single-payer health care as an idea “that will never, ever come to pass.”
When you have a political opposition that will characterize single payer and “your taxes will go up and the DMV will choose your doctor”, she’s right.
12.
liberal
@jl: the no fly zone talk is just fucking stupid, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
13.
Bob In Portland
This article says in 1968 she questioned Melvin Laird about Vietnam. The way I heard it, she wrote a speech for Laird to deliver in the House of Representatives justifying the bombing of North Vietnam.
And I still haven’t gotten a clear explanation as to why she went to both the Republican and Democratic conventions in ’68.
She’s a hawk, she is deep into militarism and seems to have been for most of her life. But maybe because something something she won’t get us into any more wars.
Seems to me a very anecdotal case, with not many anecdotes.
And most them seemed to be early in the Obama administration; she might have learned something from the President. She certainly seems to as far as running her campaign.
16.
MobiusKlein
When has the NYT ever shied away from a shiv at the Clintons?
@Dr.McCoy: Well that’s just not true. Also it’s polite to include your source when quoting from a source not readily apparent.
These reforms came in a larger political environment characterized by intense popular mobilization — the more intense the mobilization, the more meaningful the reform. And each of them was overseen by an unapologetically liberal president who hawked a sweeping agenda and rode it all the way to a landslide victory against a weakened right-wing opposition.
Yeah, thank God we had that unapologetically liberal guy Eisenhower in 1957 so we could expand voting rights in the immediate post-Brown era. And there certainly hadn’t been decades of grassroots activism up until that point that helped pave the way. Nope, 1957 was definitely a “brief flurry of bold action.”
Oh, did the author mean 1964? My bad.
Seriously, there are holes in that piece big enough for a Brinks truck full of $27 donations.
19.
NR
@efgoldman: Vermont didn’t try to implement a fully single-payer system and it’s simply dishonest to claim they did.
20.
PJ
@jl: It’s not about her policies, per se, but rather her instincts and judgments, which are to go with whatever the “let’s invade!” people from the military-industrial complex suggest, rather than to look at what US policy goals are and whether these are achievable by the means being promoted. She trusts these people (McChrystal, Keane, Petraeus) though their only goal seems to be to keep US troops occupying whatever country for the next 40 years, despite the fact that the evidence indicates that the US occupations were directly responsible for preventing stable states from emerging in Afghanistan and Iraq.
21.
Poopyman
Google is purple tonight for Prince.
22.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Dr.McCoy: I don’t know if you were paying attention to the roll-out of the ACA, but folk were PISSED OFF about ANY changes in the care they were receiving and the price they were paying. Mind you with single payer, those changes are infinitesimal by comparison.
However, the Vermont reform did not contemplate a fully single-payer system. It would have allowed large employers to continue offering private coverage, and the continuation of the FEHBP and Medicare programs. Hence, hospitals, physicians’ offices, and nursing homes would still have had to contend with multiple payers, forcing them to maintain the complex cost-tracking and billing apparatus that drives up providers’ administrative costs. Vermont’s plan proposed continuing to pay hospitals and other institutional providers on a per-patient basis, rather than through global budgets, perpetuating the expensive hospital billing apparatus that siphons funds from care.
26.
Poopyman
Yes, Hillary’s past shows that she’s prone to militaristic responses. Watch and see who she brings in as her advisors as a tell as to whether she wants a check on this or more of a free pass. Right now I honestly can’t tell.
We can complain a lot, but I very much doubt we’ll see realistically see better politicians until we have a better general electorate. There’s a reason we see generalized warmongering and fiats about letting drug addicts die unnecessariy (no matter the ethics of the pharmacists) while other fiats elevate the moral sensitivities of pharmacists that don’t want to disperse medicines and LEOs that don’t get more than the occasional stern nod when they kill people. There’s a market-demand for such such behaviors. Same goes for the cheapest-ass “solutions” available.
28.
david10
She has shown an ability to learn and to change-too much so according to her critics. So perhaps this isn’t where she is now. Certainly the mess in the Islamic world just gets worse with each western-or Russian-intervention.
Still, it is worrisome. She doesn’t, for instance, seem to realize that Russia intervening today is wholly different from the USSR intervening-Russia isn’t out to take over the world.
Climate change is going to rewrite the rules of international engagement and that very soon, but everyone continues to think and act as though everything will continue as it is, just a little warmer. When faced with catastrophe even human beings may grow more sensible.
29.
Weaselone
This isn’t exactly a balanced piece. Its objective is to portray Hillary as a hawk and that is exactly what it does. It starts with a premise and then throws in anything to support it, including asinine stuff about growing up following WW2.
30.
BillinGlendaleCA
@NR: They tried but it failed in the planning stages.
It’s not like they have a 25-year long history of doing it or anything.
But, hey, maybe this time the blind squirrel found a nut with its poorly-sourced story, unlike Travelgate, Whitewater, Wen Ho Lee, Benghazi, Emailgate, etc etc etc. Hope springs eternal.
Didn’t McChrystal and Petraeus both get shit-canned from the Army? I seem to recall a scandal for each of them.
And as I pointed out before, in 2004 the NYT endorsed John Kerry while knowingly suppressing a story about domestic surveillance by the Bush administration. Anyone who thinks the NYT isn’t supporting Republicans is a fool.
34.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
Y’know, I’d join in the fun, but my little girl passed away today and snarking on the internet just doesn’t seem amusing tonight. Sixteen years was a good run for a yorkie-daschaund mix, but I still wish I had more time with her. I miss her so much.
I’m going to go hug her brother for the rest of the evening. Enjoy every sandwich, everyone.
35.
SteveinSC
Well as much as I dislike the lame bitch, her biggest, proximal sin was voting for the authorization to use military force. However, she just had to do that since the earlier adventure in the middle east, Cole’s War, was a disaster for Democrats who voted against it. She really had no choice except go along with Bush’s War, shrub’s most excellent adventure.
Oh, and thank you Jesus for Donald Trump pissing all over the repukes’ latest Bush revisionism and rubbing their faces in it. A loose cannon on your own ship can sometimes do more than your enemies.
“Sanders’s support of the Kosovo War led to the resignation of an adviser; when antiwar activists occupied his office, he had them arrested; and Sanders voted to authorize the war in Afghanistan”
I have said from day one that I didn’t trust her with foreign policy. Nothing has changed.
44.
Greg
I have hopes that her time at State led her to see the other side of some of these questions, but it’s true – this is the area in which I’m least sure of my preferred candidate.
That being said, this particular article doesn’t seem to provide any real evidence either way to inflame or calm my fears.
45.
Stillwater
John Cole,
Well, if perception is reality, then you’re getting pummeled on the facts perceptions.
46.
Amaranthine RBG
Obama is a moderate and Clontom is to the right of him in several important matters
She’s better than a thing that is likely to be followed by an “R” on the ballot, but people shouldn’t do-l themselves about what they are getting
I didn’t think it was possible but the Hilldos have gotten even more dishonest and shrill in the past week. The attacks on Dr. Paul Song misrepresenting what he said are despicable. He was clearly talking about institutional barriers to single payer, not Clontom, when he used the word whore. This is a guy who pioneered gamma knife treatments and has devoted his life to improving public health in this country. No matter, just another scalp for the Hilldos.
Her biggest sin was the combination of voting for the AUMF and then defending that vote after the fact. Until she didn’t.
Oh, and Libya.
48.
Gvg
The article is saying Trump and Cruz are less militaristic. In a way that’s true in that they don’t actually know enough to have a policy but they also think it’s a good idea to respond “firmly” to every dumb little provocation and stand up for America. We have no idea what random event will make them give warish orders but they would start a war without even knowing it themselves and then flounder around without plans making shit up and not able to admit a mistake or fix it. So calling them less hawkish really misses a boatload of disasters.
Yeah she is more hawkish than Obama. Can’t be helped. Most Americans are as clueless and a agressive as Trump or Cruz so we are lucky when we get a wonk
My understanding is that the original VT plan did contemplate doing something about much of the list that followed. Exemptions and waivers for federal laws and regs did not materialize in time. Federal government places quite a few restrictions on what individual state governments can do. I don;t think a real test of individual state single payer can happen unless a state can escape them. Though I need to brush up on how Hawaii coped, since it has a long standing system that is close to single payer.
50.
WarMunchkin
Yup, scares the crap out of me. Though notably Bill isn’t mentioned really.
So sorry. Sixteen years is a hell of a run even for a little girl. My Dad’s dog has maybe a month or two left (kidney failure) and he’s so close to her I worry how he’ll deal with it.
I would also add that this article should probably be a wake up call to Sander’s supporters. Hillary is going to take on the positions that she needs to in order to win the election. If Sanders and his supporters look like they can be made part of her coalition, then she’s likely to adapt pieces of their platform and move in their direction on the issues and try to win the election with a leftward leaning coalition. If on the other hand, she does not think they will come on board in sufficient numbers to win the election, she’s going to have to look for more voters to the right of her current position and that means we’re going to see a lot more of the crap we see in this article, but perhaps for her surrogates and even her, not just in the NY Times.
54.
A Ghost To Most
@Amaranthine RBG:
Yea,and Ben Carson was a great pediatric nuerosurgeon. Doesn’t mean he’s Moses.
Hillary Clinton is more hawkish than I would like, and I think she is far too committed to existing US policy that I think needs rethinking (NATO in Europe, for example). And my personal opinion is that her ambition controls what she says so much that it is difficult to distinguish what she really believes from what she thinks is politically advantageous. But right now, it looks like the alternative is…
Trump Advisor Worried Native Americans Might Get The Bomb And Nuke Montana
” Schmitz’s clients, Montana state Sen. Bob Keenan and former state Sen. Verdell Jackson, wanted to keep the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes from taking over the former Kerr Dam because they feared the government of Turkey would somehow team up with the tribes to obtain nuclear materials for terrorists. ”
But if Dr. Song didn’t realize that you shouldn’t use the word “whores” when referring to a group that includes your favored candidate’s female opponent, perhaps public speaking is not your forte.
And didn’t that candidate’s ex-president husband travel to North Korea to negotiate the release of Song’s sister-in-law?
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: Just remember, she won’t always be there for you, but you were always there for her. Warren approves, as does the Universe.
61.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: The important thing is, if it had been bolder and more costly, it would have totally worked, but because it was more cautious and less expensive, it failed. That’s how NR sees it, because NR believes a lot of extremely stupid things.
You could make the same claims about the narrow expertise of Ben Carson. Doesn’t mean he knows shit about the reality of politics or much of anything else.
63.
Marc
@geg6: I’d like to think we’re better than Republicans, refusing to even bother to address anything that they don’t like in the “liberal media”. Apparently not, when it’s something that we don’t want to hear about Clinton.
64.
Technocrat
Nothing in that article is a surprise? I’m actually glad to hear commanders respect her (an unpopular opinion, no doubt).
On the bright side, there’s this:
Neither Trump nor Cruz favors major new deployments of American soldiers to Iraq and Syria (nor, for that matter, does Clinton). If anything, both are more skeptical than Clinton about intervention and more circumspect than she about maintaining the nation’s post-World War II military commitments. Trump loudly proclaims his opposition to the Iraq War. He wants the United States to spend less to underwrite NATO and has talked about withdrawing the American security umbrella from Asia, even if that means Japan and South Korea would acquire nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Cruz, unlike Clinton, opposed aiding the Syrian rebels in 2014.
Whew! Now we don’t have to worry so much if Cruz or Trump wins. Theocracy and ethnic purges aside, at least we’ll have fewer wars.
In a thread slamming Hillary for hawkishness, you choose to swing at her by quoting Lyndon Baines Vietnam Johnson? Really?
Also, remind me how happy liberals were with JFK’s choice for Veep in ’61 or ’62 — before you tell us Hillary is way too much of an establishment figure to get anything done.
66.
Emma
So the moment the oh-so-fair NYT writes a hit piece on Hillary (and oh wow, isn’t that a new thing in this here Universe) you all start pissing and moaning. It’s not straight up misogyny, so what the hell is it? Fear of the vagina dentata?
And if you’re telling me that it’s because oh-my-god, the President may have to consider force at some point, I will send all of you back to reality school.
I can’t stand it anymore. I am down to hoping for President Cruz, so that you learn about the destruction of empires from the inside.
67.
PeakVT
Pretty much everybody who could possibly get elected to the presidency is either a hawk or bigoted anti-muslim hawk when it comes to the Middle East. Sanders at best is the least worst, but who really knows given his lack of interest foreign policy.
Apart from that, the entire establishment – Congress, the political parties, the military, the media, think tanks, lobbyists, etc. – are pro-intervention in the Middle East for their own – mostly pecuniary – reasons. Even if the least hawkish candidate were to be elected, s/he would be under pressure to intervene from both within and without their government each and every time a “crisis” develops. It’s kind of a hopeless situation, at least in the Middle East.
Elsewhere around the globe, things may be different, but at this point in time “foreign policy” = Middle East, with only an occasional mention of China, so elsewhere is rarely discussed.
68.
jl
@FlipYrWhig: There is a good argument that it was more costly because federal laws and regulations forced it to be more cautious. Some of the argument is right there in the block quote in NR’s comment. Most forecasts indicated the VT plan would still save money, but the savings in expenditure shrunk, and made the tax increases loom larger than when the plan was first proposed. And since the governor chickened out of a detailed financing proposal until very late, it failed politically.
“Secretary Clinton has said Medicare-for-all will never happen,” he said. “Well, I agree with Secretary Clinton that Medicare-for-all will never happen if we have a president who never aspires for something greater than the status quo. Medicare-for-all will never happen if we continue to elect corporate Democratic whores who are beholden to Big Pharma and the private insurance industry instead of us.”
Gosh, I can’t imagine why anyone would think he had called Hillary a “corporate whore” just because he had used her name twice in the two sentences before it. Total co-inky-dink.
The Times does not have a good record when it comes to fairness in covering the Clintons. If you think they are objective when it comes to either one of them, I have a bridge for sale.
Jesus Christ on the Death Star, if you’re gonna talk about alternatives to Clinton’s hawkishness, the last fucking person on Earth you should bring up is LBJ.
73.
jl
@Technocrat: Nominee will probably be Trump. His opposition to the Iraq war is far louder now than it was before the invasion, and I’m not so sure that encouraging nuclear proliferation to compensate for withdrawal of US forces is good recipe for peace.
That’s an idiotic analysis. I was going to save this piece for later. I should have known not to give NYT a second’s thought.
84.
Dr. McCoy
@Citizen_X:That was an answer to a efgoldman post and not directly responding to the “hawkishness of Hillary” article. It’s well known. Per normal here, the digression factor is in full effect.
This is a guy who pioneered gamma knife treatments
I did not know Lars Leksell was spelled “Paul Song.”
Wikipedia can tell you a little about the history of gamma knife. Developed in Sweden, etc.
86.
Elie
She is a boss lady coming up in a time where militarism was dominant and seguing now to a different and more nuanced role in a world with a lot of trip wires and a very different US. We are no longer the prohibitive big dog, and that has to be considered in weighing every option we have as intervention. Even the moron Republicans understand fully now that there are real limits to what the military can do and that using it unilaterally ends up with a huge expensive mess with unwanted and open ended entrapment of our resources and standing in the world. I think that the trick will be that our immediate state opponents (China, Russia) and our non state (Isis and the whole Taliban etc) — know of her rep and know she is the first woman Pres (if elected), and they will play to that very quickly. In her role as President, she has to be willing to use all of the powers of the office but she also has to be smart about being set up. She is not stupid nor unaware of all that I am saying. Each of the candidates will bring their own baggage. If y’all who support Bernie think that he would be without risk, you are just not thinking. He is an old man with a hot head and probably would have a difficult time recruiting the right support talent around him and then would have to actually listen in an arena where he was totally inexperienced. Trump, impulsive and self listening would bring similar weakness. Both could be easily set up by opponents who would test their basic character and strength. Cruz also probably pretty much like Trump.
I am not sure the purpose of this article. We elect commanders in chiefs with hopefully the necessary smarts to deal with what comes their way and to keep our options open where we can. It is unfair to try to set and expectation that the first woman President should be totally unwilling to ever use military force or given her experience, have no sense of her ability to be aggressive if need be. I would be very insecure about electing a woman (or man), who would unilaterally disarm us or not possibly use force to set up negotiated options (yes that happens). As a woman, Hillary would face many of our allies who have long traditions of not respecting women. As I have said in my previous comments, she will have to both be able and willing to show the stick as well as use it and sleep well that night. The people who think she will be some weird LBJ/Nixon/Bush female clone, are super short changing her but also more importantly, what strengths we need in our leader. A woman who can use the stick has a lot of room to set up and use more peaceful means. Make no mistake though — our opponents will be on her immediately and I am curious if John Cole thinks she should take a stance right now that she would NEVER ever, use force to protect us or our interests….
sheesh cole, have ya taken a look at the other side’s we will carpet bomb everyone klowns lately? fucking perspective.
90.
Keith G
Hillary is more hawkish than the average Democrat is right now. That , and a bit too much chumminess with Wall Street are among her most notable flaws. Presidents have flaws. Obama has flaws. It’s gonna have to be up to folks like Warren, Sherrod Brown, Durbin, and Murray (among others) to remind Hillary to be very wary of the siren songs of those even more militaristic than she.
If she wants a second term, let alone a favorable chance at a successful first one, she will need to be very careful. I bet she knows this. Let’s see if that knowledge works.
Dr Song, brilliant as he is in gamma ray treatments can be compared to Dr. Ben Carson — a brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon who is as poor at politics as he was brilliant as a surgeon. People can have strengths in one area that do not carry through to others. Please use something more relevant and no, Dr. Song does not get to call any woman a whore, much less a candidate for the office of President. If he lacks that sense, well, that tells me a great deal about HIM. At least Carson doesn’t call women opponents whores.
92.
ruemara
@Dr.McCoy: that’s bullshit. It effectively ignores the history of voting, social security, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights.
At some point, can the front pagers, including John, just cut this constant recognition of the Clinton vs Sanders war? Because an article of supposition is just that and unworthy of attention.
Compare that to our current Democratic front-runner, whose most impassioned moment on the 2016 campaign trail came when she denounced single-payer health care as an idea “that will never, ever come to pass.”
If I could make candidates’ passionate supporters accept one thing, it would be “don’t believe your own bullshit.”
That moment may have been a really big deal for Sanders fans, but claiming that it, or anything to do with Sanders, was her “most impassioned moment” conveys that you only pay attention to your side’s caricatures of your opponent, rather than what she actually says, which is fine if you only want to talk to people who already agree with you.
Yes, months ago the Clinton campaign criticized Sanders’ proposals by saying they were impractical and there was no way he could get them enacted. Sanders fans insisted this meant she was saying “nothing is going to change and you should give up.” And months later, I still hear this repeated, unconnected to the actual statement, as if it were a fact which you can use to judge any other statement.
Politics ain’t beanbag, and attacks like these go with the territory. But that who convince themselves they’re reality are on a level with wingnuts who shout “Benghazi!” and “Bill Ayers”, fine inside your bubble, but increasingly incomprehensible outside it.
94.
Stella
@Bob In Portland: LOL. In 1968 she was a 21 year old college student and a George McGovern supporter. She didn’t write a speech for Melvin Laird.
HRC was rated the 11th most liberal senator during her senate career, that’s only to the right of Sanders by a tiny amount. Of course, we have to weigh that against being a “Goldwater Girl” as a high school student forty (!!!) years earlier.
I don’t think “reasonable” or “attainable” means what you think it means.
96.
Andy
I couldn’t figure out the $27 donation shit and the Sanders campaign….”Balloon Juice Lexicon”-
.27 Percenters – Those Americans who will predictably vote against their own best interests. In his seminal post on the Crazification Factor, John Rogers used the 2004 Obama/Keyes senate race as a measure: “Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That’s crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.”
Fuck You assholes.
I hope the voters go along, to get along, like they did previously. 2012 was no contest, but now, the “Nuclear option” is on the table.
97.
Stella
@Amaranthine RBG: Gamma knife treatments were a new thing when I was in medical school, um, some years ago. Radiosurgery is common in big medical centers nowdays.
98.
Doug R
@Stillwater: So are you saying we should have let Gaddafi massacre thousands of civilians?
In 2007, when I was “Fat Charlie the Archangel,” the Friday night relief blogger at iamtrex, I wrote a post that said, among other things, “the road to universal health care runs through fundamental tax reform, and there is no alternate route.”
That’s still true, and given the majority party in Congress’ thoughts on what fundamental tax reform would look like, not going there now.
His [Trump’s] opposition to the Iraq war is far louder now than it was before the invasion
Trump’s opposition to the war before the invasion is complete BS, like pretty much everything he says.
103.
Heliopause
perhaps what Americans yearn for is something in between
Yes, that’s exactly it. There’s a sweet spot for number of nameless people in far flung lands to kill and HRC will find it. GW Bush totals too big, Obama totals too small, HRC juuuuuust right. Maybe Nate Silver can run a Bayesian regression and help her out.
Meanwhile, y’all need to start investing in shares of popcorn and Turner broadcasting. because the entertainment quotient here stateside will be off the charts. Whoever manufactures cluster bombs, too. And tell any relatives you might have in the military that Ukraine is just the hill to die on.
104.
JMG
As someone who voted for Hillary, let me say I share this concern. Her foreign policy is about 30 years out of date. BUT, in this case, I feel that the caution and unwillingness to get too far ahead of her troops that has marked hers (and Bill’s career) will serve Clinton well. She surely knows starting a foreign war of any size would rip the Democrats apart and end her presidency in no time.
Doesn’t mean she wouldn’t, just means she’ll think twice.
She trusts these people (McChrystal, Keane, Petraeus)
IIRC, none of those guys are currently on active duty.
106.
Andy
@Elie: “our” interests are broad and vague in the U.S.—-“OUR opponents will be on her immediately and I am curious if John Cole thinks she should take a stance right now that she would NEVER ever, use force to protect us or our interests….”
Super Predator Drones will make the case in that regard.
@Andy: Did autocorrect mess it up, or do you just think it’s over the top?
I will say, while I focused on Bernistas because that’s what I was responding to, they are not the only ones I wish would learn this lesson. I’d put quite a lot from our own “David Koch” in the same category.
108.
Andy
@Redshift: But that who convince themselves they’re reality are on a level ….Whaaa
109.
Tractarian
From the article:
For all their bluster about bombing the Islamic State into oblivion, neither Donald J. Trump nor Senator Ted Cruz of Texas have demonstrated anywhere near the appetite for military engagement abroad that Clinton has.
Did you notice how the author seems to believe that “bombing the Islamic State into oblivion” does not qualify as “military engagement”?
Thank you! Trying to see this right for us… There are always doubts but I just try to see myself as her and remember what history and historical analysis that I have read.
” I was surprised that he has already started to pivot to center… As in today’s comments re NC controversy. ”
I don’t know whether there will be a pivot to the center for Trump on substance for a lot of his issues. Believe it or not, he has never been as reactionary as the other winger GOP candidates, apart from his bozo ideas on kicking out Mexicans and barring Muslims and other race/ethnic bigotry.
A commenter posted some old youtubes of a much younger Trump talking serious issues on talk shows, Oprah was one of them I think. Trump was spouting the same stuff about withdrawal of US troops, and too many US troops overseas, same goofy ideas on how to solve the problem of US spending too much to protect allies. Main difference was presentation: Trump tried to act and sound serious and sane (as if he would run in a Democratic primary, which I think was his goal back than), as opposed to apeshit insane (which he is using for the GOP primary).
@Andy: Eh, the “they’re” was meant to refer to the attacks, but I can see it would be confusing if you read it to refer to the people. To late to edit in any case.
Well, I read the article and it didn’t convince me that Hillary is a “hawk.” Instead, it convinced me that sometimes she takes hawkish positions and sometimes she doesn’t. And sometimes she takes positions that, in retrospect, are regarded as hawkish, but that weren’t necessarily viewed that way at the time. And sometimes she listens to and agrees with her military colleagues/advisers and sometimes she doesn’t. And the article didn’t contrast her positions with those (like McCain/Graham) that usually take more hawkish positions. It instead contrasted her positions with Obama’s positions, which usually were slightly less “hawkish” than hers. She voted for the Iraq war- a bad mistake. She opposed the 2005-06 “surge” in Iraq. She supported a 40,000 troop “surge” in Afghanistan in the context of an overall withdrawal strategy and Obama eventually implemented a 30,000 increase which has now gone down to about 10,000. She advocated for intervention in Libya but without a ground troop commitment. She supported greater amounts of special forces in Iraq and an aggressive air strategy. She advised sending a carrier into the South China Sea. But she also was part of a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq. She opposed intervention in Georgia. She helped negotiate a settlement in Honduras, Sri Lanka and (in a more limited fashion) Myanmar. She advocated negotiations in Thailand. She’s helped to simmer down tensions between India and Pakistan. But, like Sanders, she supported the Kosovo intervention and the original Afghan intervention.
It’s a mixed bag. Sometimes I agree; sometimes I don’t. Like most, she sometimes makes mistakes. That’s what I would expect if she becomes President. From a non-interventionist purity standard, she’s somewhat hawkish. From a hawkish standpoint, she’s cautious and not reliably aggressive enough/hawkish. Republicans will undoubtedly portray her as “weak” and timid. Bernie supporters consider her to be aggressively pro-war all the time.
When has the NYT ever shied away from a shiv at the Clintons?
In terms of likely Democratic voters this may be a shiv. In the general election it will not hurt her and may help her. Look at who she may need to convince in the general: The left wing of the Democratic party? Not really.
People who think a woman is not tough enough to be President? Quite possibly.
@Doug R: No, we certainly shouldn’t have. But since there’s zero evidence that he planned to do so, it probably would have been wiser not to create a failed state.
@Redshift: That’s because you’re a totebagger squish. Some of us actually support a much more radical and just agenda. We don’t trust the establishment with good reason – they aren’t there to serve the people.
This Sunday will be the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising. So a quote from James Connolly, founder of the Irish Labor Party, whom Michael Collins once said he would have followed through hell:
“Yes, friends, governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class.”
122.
Ferd of the Nort
Sooooo. My evening started off with running over our female dog.
Good news is she seems to be ok.
Bad news is…. Can’t get her to a vet because I live in the fricken Arctic and it is two days to get to the nearest vet, even when the planes are not being blizzarded out.
Up here, to blizzard is a verb.
I was running her (sled racing breed) by driving the car on the cleared roads where there is no traffic. She cut in front of me and under the car. Everything is in the right place by palpating, no indications of significant injury (cuts and bruises likely) and ok on the weight bearing. Looks like we might have gotten lucky.
She runs at 40 kmh (ummmm… Carry the five and subtract…) FAST in American. Has not been able to run enough to recently with the blizzards, road blockages and other issues, so I was giving here extra run distance while the other two boys were in the car. She looks like a large white greyhound, with extra fur. Will run at 25 kmh for an hour when the roads on the tundra are open.
Anyways.
Climate change is real!
Donald Trump is scary.
Hillary would not be my favourite, but the best of the realistic choices.
Sometimes you get lucky.
123.
goblue72
@Elie: The use of the paragraph return would render this something less than nonsense. Though its still mostly nonsense that is just a nice sounding way to argue in favor of Big Daddy, Big Stick bullshit in a dress. And its not like the world hasn’t seen that before, contrary to your revisionism. Maggie Thatcher already had that TV show and the international community didn’t have any problem taking her seriously.
And a decade before that, there was Golda Meir, and nobody put her in a corner.
124.
Jean
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: I have a 16 year old rescue schnoodle (schnauzer/poodle) mix. I’m sorry for your loss. Sundae is mostly deaf and somewhat blind, but still a sweetie pie.
That’ll hurt, for sure. At least as much as the third-grade playground shit you like to throw at me.
126.
PJ
@Elie: The purpose of the article is to establish Hillary as a take-no-shit hawk now that she is pivoting towards the general election – she wants to pick up as many Republicans disaffected by Trump and Cruz as possible. Likewise, her claim of being buddies with Kissinger and her love for the wonderful job the Reagans did are to establish that she is not a Democrat like those other people.
127.
Miss Bianca
@goblue72: Gee, I seem to recall that Michael Collins et al. were not at all averse to violence to pursue their ends. Are you advocating violence against the government in the name of your “just and radical agenda”?
128.
PJ
@patroclus: It’s not that she’s “aggressively pro-war all the time” – she’s no Bill Kristol – it’s that she doesn’t adequately compare the cost of military adventures with the benefit to US policy goals; she buys into whatever the villagers are saying because it is the politically expedient thing to do – how else can you explain her vote on the Iraq war?
129.
PJ
@burnspbesq: And I would bet that they are slurping up their share from the military-industrial trough.
Some of us actually support a much more radical and just agenda.
Great! Now, if you can just convince the rest of your fellow citizens…
ETA: Telling them fuck off and go die in a fire or get on an ice floe probably isn’t the optimal means to accomplish this. Just saying.
131.
magurakurin
@goblue72: you keep pluggin’ away slugger. I’m sure you’ll get to your glorious revolution some day. Maybe the leaders will appoint you the head of the Committee of Public Squish Removal. You could get us all in one big sweep.
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: Chiming in way late here, but I’m truly sorry for your loss. Take what time you need, but check in with us as you can. This place is a righteous bunch. Believe me, I’ve seen it.
@PJ: I don’t know why she voted to authorize the Iraq war. But then again, I don’t know why Churchill was in favor of the Gallipoli invasion, for which he was excoriated for decades, but he did fairly well in WWII. And I don’t know why Bill “would have voted with the majority but agreed with the arguments of the minority” in the Gulf War. Maybe it’s just political expediency. But her experience as SoS, I think, has given her more broad experience than a mere junior Senator from NY. I’m hopeful that she learned from the Iraq war experience and wouldn’t authorize the invasion of the wrong country based on baldfaced whoppers again. We’ll see. But she’s far better than the uninformed bellicosity of Trump (or Cruz). She’s already a world states”man” – she wouldn’t have to learn on the job. Am I concerned? Sure, but I always worry about foreign policy.
140.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Nope, the commenter has used it repeatedly.
With respect to retired military, that doesn’t bother me. They are vastly underpaid relative to private-sector execs with comparable skills and responsibilities.
142.
Aimai
@PJ: in reality her vote on the aumf was neither here nor there. It did not cause the war and it did not hasten the war. I dont really understand your point here. Whoever she was listening to is irrelevant. Her vote was irrelevant. It happened but no one is under the impression that she was choosing war on anyones advice. Because her vote did not authorize war, nor was it a reflection of her desire to go to war. She didnt make the vote happen and she didnt make the war happen. Neither the vote nor the war are proof of her hawkishness or desire for war.
@BillinGlendaleCA: Well what the heck does it mean? I saw it one day as a presumed typo, and I was kind of hoping it would take off, but now I rue the day I thought that (Tuesday).
144.
magurakurin
@Amaranthine RBG: I know you think you are letting off some heavy zingers and really putting everyone in their place, but all I hear is “hare kṛiṣhṇa hare kṛiṣhṇa kṛiṣhṇa kṛiṣhṇa hare hare…”
How about you check back with us after you have left the cult. Then maybe we can talk.
145.
magurakurin
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m not in the cult, so what does it even mean?
So? What’s your reasonable, attainable alternative?
How about a less militaristic HRC?
And if that isn’t possible, should she really be the Democratic nominee for president?
I intend to vote for her, but her aggressive militarism does concern me — a lot. I haven’t read the article, but Kevin Drum says it doesn’t actually answer the question its title purports to answer.
Is it something in her upbringing? Is it because she’s compensating for being a woman — since sexists would have us believe that women are weak and couldn’t be commanders in chief. (This isn’t limited to women. Nixon was the only one who could go to China — supposedly — because Democrats would be perceived as too soft on Communism. Those kinds of distorting perceptions can cause politicians to over-compensate, with unfortunate results.)
I am hoping that Clinton’s well-known fondness for the military and the military solution will allow her to step back and be more responsible as president. Otherwise, she could do great harm not only to herself and the country, but to the prospects of future female presidents. Her decision to support the 2003 attack on Iraq was a disaster, but one of my own senators, Maria Cantwell, also supported the war. I received her form letter explaining her decision and it was truly one of the worst thought out, least convincing rationales I’ve ever seen. But Cantwell was new to the Senate and as a woman with no military or defense-related
experience may have been concerned about being seen as weak on defense. Patty Murray, my other Senator, with more years in the Senate, resisted that thinking, and voted against.
If Clinton continues to favor military solutions to problems (that Obama has wisely avoided), she may end up reminding us more of George W. Bush than Barack Obama, who according to Clinton’s campaigning she supports unfailingly. (As opposed to Sanders, who hates Obama and isn’t really a Democrat…at least according to Clinton.)
In the end, I don’t care why Clinton favors military intervention so enthusiastically — I just want her to be more responsible as president.
149.
patroclus
@burnspbesq: @Aimai: Thanks. I’m just calling it as I see it. I just reject this binary choice of either Chamberlain-like appeasement or Curtis LeMay-like bellicosity or Noam Chomsky v. Bill Kristol. It’s just not that simple. Overall, I’m in favor of reducing American military commitments abroad, but that’ll take a long time and it’ll be a matter of two steps forward and one step backward for generations. Foreign policy is tough. Hillary’s got some good experience, but I’m not a fanboy – I could turn on her big-time if she pulls a LBJ/Vietnam or Bush/Iraq kind of thing.
@magurakurin: I’m not in the cult either, so shit if I know.
152.
sdhays
Bernie voter here, but a tip for me early in the campaign that he was never going to be the nominee was how foreign policy was basically treated as an afterthought (I voted for Bernie to push the party towards his position on the economy, not for him personally). Foreign policy is Clinton’s biggest Achilles heal, especially since it’s talked about as her strength. If you’re serious about defeating Hillary Clinton, you develop a strong, consistent critique of her foreign policy instincts.
Bernie didn’t do that. He phoned it in, saying he voted against the AUMF and basically just sort of tried to ride that bus like Obama. But Obama did a lot of homework himself to sell both his basic judgement (at the time of the AUMF) and his vision of a different, somewhat less belligerent foreign policy. He wove their different positions on the AUMF into a broader foreign policy framework that set him apart from both Hillary and the Republicans. Bernie has never demonstrated that degree of effort on the foreign policy front, and without that, he was never going to truly break through.
President Obama’s foreign policy hasn’t been perfect, but he doesn’t get nearly enough credit for the things he’s gotten right, and I’m so sick of the jackasses who say that all he had to do was send in more troops to do this or that. What exactly did we lose by the President deciding not to flip the bird to China by not sailing the aircraft carrier into the Yellow Sea? Demonstrating restraint doesn’t signal “weakness”, it signals reasonableness. Would the climate change talks have gone differently if Obama had listened to Secretary Clinton and been extra belligerent? We’ll never know, but hawkish ideas always seem to be sold as consequence-free, when of course they aren’t. All the talk about Syria never mentions the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons. It’s like they never existed. And I’m really tired of hearing “hawks” talk darkly about the dangers of ISIS, and yet their Syria policy prescriptions are all completely centered around the removal of Bashar al Assad. It’s bait and switch.
These people talk about President Obama “managing our decline”, but what he’s really doing is demonstrating that the US can achieve its goals without always pointing a gun in people’s face. If that’s “decline”, it’s one we should welcome.
Oh, and no, NYT, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump having no idea what they’re talking about does not indicate that they are “reluctant warriors” or “less hawkish than Hillary”. It just means that if either one gets elected, we’re all completely doomed.
It is unfair to try to set and expectation that the first woman President should be totally unwilling to ever use military force
For the sake of people around here who may be suffering from allergies, please remove your straw man.
155.
patroclus
@sdhays: Good points. Bernie could have presented an entirely different foreign policy orientation if he had put in the effort and the study like Obama did. Obama was quite specific about his willingness to talk to everyone – expressly including Iran and Cuba, and look what has resulted from that. Obama was active while a Senator in nuclear non-proliferation and worked with Lugar on other issues as well. Bernie may very well have different foreign policy views and formulations but he hasn’t expressed them very well during the campaign, so I really don’t know what his views are and what policies he would pursue. Obama went out of his way – multiple times – in speeches and debates to lay out his differences, and he has followed through. If you’re an insurgent, you really have to do that, even if it doesn’t get applause and seems boring. I think Bernie would be okay on foreign policy, but he just never convinced me of that. Notwithstanding Iraq, I think Clinton would be effective on foreign policy even though I may disagree with her from time to time.
Managing our decline is a pretty Manichean way to put the reality that we now have a much more complex world and set of powers to deal with. To assume that Hillary didn’t or doesn’t notice is to assume she is George Bush or someone who has no observation or decision making capabilities other than some knee jerk or responding to what she is told by others. She will have it rough no matter what she does. Rough times is just where its gonna be with or without her. If she is about negotiation — watch — her critics will call her a weak woman. If she choses even limited force, she is the bitch warmonger — watch. I see a cautious and cerebral person who is well aware of the reality that fucking up these days, is pretty damned easy. As the first woman President (if elected), the last thing she wants to be is some trigger fingered fuck up but she is well aware that the world is on the edge and losses can be catastrophic from the degree of unknowns.
I see Putin, a misogynist and America hater, as being one of her worst potential problems. I know he is licking his lips. I think that she is up for this job and I think that she will do it honorably and well. She thinks about that a lot…
Bernie is a good guy but he is just not mentally ready for this kind of thing. He is still in the economic world of the 70’s, much less the foreign policy world. If he could just gadfly his favorite issues domestically, he would be just fine. Unfortunately, that is not THIS job…. He would be a total mess —
Lets figure out how we can think about this huge role and how it needs to work and change for whoever is in it and not — especially, try to view it from the point of view of even the 90’s or 2000’s. Its a very different world even from when George W left office. Lets open our heads to that reality if we can…
158.
dollared
@Elie: Doesn’t really matter what you think or we “figure out.” Hillary is going to do it the way she wants. And the way the National Security State wants, because she is part of it. And Henry Kissinger will be on speed dial.
@Aimai: Jesus, you’ve completely jumped the damn shark with your apologia. Have you lost your fucking mind?
164.
liberal
@patroclus: if she had learned from Iraq she wouldn’t have been so eager to bomb Libya.
165.
liberal
@Stella: not sure I buy that. Of course there were far more conservative Dems in the Senate, but I recall some chicanery with these ratings in the past. Eg IIRC National Journal called Obama the most liberal Senator, which was risible.
166.
liberal
@Doug R: except that there’s lots of evidence he wouldn’t have done that.
BTW, the Saudis are killing lots of civilians in Yemen, and we’re actively supporting them in that endeavor.
167.
dollared
@Aimai: Wow. Her vote is irrelevant? Maybe you should ask her that. You’ll need to go to New York to ask her though. You see, because of that “irrelevant vote” she doesn’t live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in DC.
Obama worried me early on when he talked about defeating the Taliban. The Taliban aren’t our enemy. They’re a local political and military force that the Afghans are going to have to figure out how to deal with. They’re no threat to us. Eventually he stopped talking that way.
Hillary worried me for a while when she talked about creating a “no fly” zone in Syria. We’ve got no business imposing such a thing on our own. Nations in the region have to come together to figure out whether something like that is required, and then maybe we can help. But we shouldn’t be fighting the Saudi’s war for them no matter how big a monster Assad is. Eventually she stopped talking that way.
Foreign affairs are complicated and they’re always fluid. As you say, I wouldn’t take a bunch of out-of-context snippets of what she said years ago as necessarily being indicative of her approach as President. I think HRC is smart enough to know that even if she feels very strongly about something, she has the obligation to hear other sides and carefully consider them. Obama showed that even when we have a compelling interest – like making sure the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons stands – the overarching goal isn’t to enforce some treaty, it’s to do things and promote things that make the world safer and more peaceful. Sometimes that means working around “red lines”…
Look at the big picture, JC. Hillary is smart and she understands the role of President is very different from the role of Secretary of State and Senator. She’s not going to blunder into some stupid war because she likes some 3-star General or other. After working so hard to get the prize, she’s not going to trash her legacy doing something stupid. (She might trash it some other way (but I don’t expect her to).)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
169.
dollared
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: In other words you hope she doesn’t jump into shit, even though she’s made it quite clear that she is more likely than Obama to do exactly that. So it’s more your hope than any factual basis.
170.
PJ
@efgoldman: Oh come on. Anyone who could read could see that the justification was bullshit, and 1/3 of the House and 1/4 of the Senate voted against it. Whether or not Bush could be proven to be lying was irrelevant when it was clear there was no threat and there was no plan to deal with the aftermath of an invasion.
171.
PJ
@Aimai: Voting for war is neither here nor there? WTF? For all of his chicanery, Bush would not have invaded Iraq if he did not have Congress on his side.
172.
Omnes Omnibus
@PJ: Me? I thought the AUMF would give the gov’t some more leverage in negotiations. I also thought that the UN inspectors’ results would matter. I didn’t trust Bush, but I didn’t distrust him enough. I believe others may have made the same mistake.
173.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: I think Hillary had a choice – as the Senator from New York, she had to be bellicose. But she could have been much more vocal about “It wasn’t Iraq that attacked us on9/11.” But it was safer to just play along – especially since Bush could use the CIA and NSA to keep manufacturing evidence. She knew she couldn’t win that arms race, so she gave in and protected her seat.
Well, if it’s from the New York Times, it must be valid, right? You know, the same NYT that brought us Whitewater, this-gate, that-gate….
If Hillary’s a hawk, then Trump, Cruz and Kasich are vultures. But hey, let’s swing everything on only one issue and one of them get in office because we can’t have that warmongering c*@! in the White House. I mean, it’s all her fault that we invaded Iraq, yes?
@liberal: Well, I guess we should’ve let ol’ Mohmar keep bombing the s**t out of his own people, right? But then again, it’s all Hillary’s fault. I’m sure the stubbed toe you got this morning is her fault too.
176.
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared: I offered my opinion. Agree or disagree…. I am not going to argue tonight.
These people talk about President Obama “managing our decline”, but what he’s really doing is demonstrating that the US can achieve its goals without always pointing a gun in people’s face. If that’s “decline”, it’s one we should welcome.
^This. Excellent statement here. I agree–Obama does not get enough credit for his foreign policy, which is much, MUCH better than his predecessor’s shoot-from-the-lip-and-hip nonsense.
And mending relations with Cuba and Iran should be applauded; it’s too bad that the far Right and even a few idiots on the Left keep giving Obama grief about it.
@efgoldman: SHHHH!! We’re not supposed to mention that, don’t you know?
180.
PJ
@Omnes Omnibus: Everything Bush had been pushing since 9/11 was patent bullshit – what the hell did Iraq have to do with anything, and how was it any kind of threat to the US? Even if they had nuclear weapons (and even Bush didn’t argue that they did), how the hell would they deliver them to the US? I certainly had no doubt that Bush would use the AUMF to go to war when he was ready. And just read Robert Byrd’s arguments against it. Slightly after the fact (late November or early December 2002), I talked to an acquaintance who was fairly high up in the Marine Corps, and I asked him what he thought the chances were that we would go to war. “Chances?” he laughed. “There’s no stopping this train.”
181.
Omnes Omnibus
@PJ: I stated my opinion above. I was okay with Afghanistan, but not Iraq.
182.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not disagreeing. I’m adding my perspective. She took a conservative move on the chess board It didn’t pan out. That is all. You think it was about trust, I think it was because she was boxed in because Bush controlled the intelligence community and therefore the media.
183.
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared: Honestly, i am so knocked off center by the Prince thing that I can’t really argue.
184.
El Caganer
@Marc McKenzie: This is a little strange – you’re the second or third person to bring up the Gaddafi-massacring-his-own-people myth on this thread. That was debunked about five years ago; this is the first time in quite a while I’ve actually run across anybody who still believed it.
@Technocrat: that statement about Trump/Cruz is a complete lie, IMO.
190.
Paul in KY
@BubbaDave: I think they were happy then. We had won a close election over the diabolical Nixon & liberals understood Johnson helped on ticket. He was in the VP position, behind a young, charismatic Liberal. In 61/62, things were great!
191.
Paul in KY
@Aimai: Weak sauce, Aimai. She knew or should have known that Cheney/Dubya were itching to get some OK/rationale to go to war with Iraq. She also should have known how crazy that was.
I think she did it for political expediency & probably, having a lot of Jewish constituents, was lobbied hard by them to do it. IMO, she should have resisted those urges & voted against.
192.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: You were really, really stupid back then (on that issue).
193.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: I was fine with Afghanistan too. I wanted OBL’s head on a pike. Iraq was completely illegal/stupid/wasteful, etc.
I was trying to be sarcastic (hence the “theocracy and purges part”), but I am regretting the failed attempt.
195.
Paul in KY
@Technocrat: Didn’t mean you were lying, just that the Times (whomever wrote it) was lying & if Cruz/Trump had said stuff about staying out of Mid East, that they were lying too.
I think I skimmed it too much to even see the ‘theocracy & purges part’ :-)
196.
Barbara
I posted this at NYT, but here is how I view this:
You should read the latest Andrew Bacevich work on America’s military strategy, or at least a review of it in last week’s Book Review, before judging Hillary Clinton. Because Clinton was recently SOS, there is a lot of material to draw on showing how she views military power, but what is missing is an acknowledgement that she and Obama are in step with what has been the long time de facto American position — where the distinctions are whether you are a hawk, a real hawk, or nothing but a hawk. This position is maddeningly entrenched by a host of forces, e.g., contractors who are financially benefited by it, and military commanders themselves. There is also the persistent use of “being strong” as a wedge issue against any Democratic candidate (e.g., Dukakis) or president — Carterizing, you might call it — who even looks like he might draw back and turn us into a bunch of peaceniks. You might expect this to be especially true for a female Democratic candidate (which is why Patricia Schroeder cited her service on the Armed Services committee when she considered running for president). But the worst thing I have heard so far this primary season, is Donald Trump’s disastrous endorsement of turning the American military into a military for hire by anyone willing to pay for our protection. As a nation, we the people need to figure out a way to move all politicians away from seeing our military as a primary means of solving problems.
I also happen to believe that Clinton “seems” more hawkish the same way people perceive that she is shouting when she is speaking no more loudly than the man next to her. And, sadly, I think Sanders would be pressured to be more like everyone else, including Clinton, if he were to actually become president. This is where Washington really does live in a bubble of military contractors and think tanks and people like the Kagans. They all love them a big piece of our national economy to play with as they please.
197.
Revrick
If we ever want a woman President, it will be Hillary. Period. Or we might never have one.
Why?
Hillary reflects all the constraints white male supremacy puts on women seeking a promotion, and the Presidency is the ultimate promotion.
There’s a lot of research out there that illustrates the damned if you do, damned if you don’t rules for women leaders.
First, she must be tough. No women will ever be elected President if she doesn’t sound like one tough hombre, especially with regard to military and foreign policy. Women are supposed to be soft, but any sign of softness would be fatal.
Second, she must be super qualified, showing a wide variety of skills, such as leading a health care task force and being a Senator and being Secretary of State. Of course, this means, inevitably, that her hands will get dirty, which is a no-no for women. Women are supposed to be pure and holy, and if they aren’t the fury button gets pushed.
Third, she must speak forcefully. But women are supposed to be soft-spoken, and if she isn’t she’s a bitch.
Fourth, she must be authentic. But women are judged so many ways, that any woman who jumps into this arena had best be wary of the 50,000 pitfalls in her path.
Fifth through 695th, I’m a guy. this is beyond my ken. But I’m sure any woman, who by definition has put up with our white male shit from the day of her birth, can fill in all the excruciating rules that put women in double binds all the time.
Oh, and I don’t believe for one minute those who say I won’t vote for Hillary, but I would for Elizabeth Warren. For one thing, you don’t think Elizabeth Warren hasn’t been watching the hell Hillary’s been put through? For another, Elizabeth has been on this planet long enough to know that there would be plenty lined up to disqualify her for some damn reason.
198.
tweedstereo
@efgoldman: RE: VT single-payer…Peter Shumlin is what happened to it.
199.
Miss Bianca
@Ferd of the Nort: Way late, you’re probably not even here, but OMG…so sorry! What a nightmare! Hope she turns out OK.
200.
Paul in KY
@Ferd of the Nort: Man, didn’t even see this! Hope everything turns out for best. Say hello to Santa for me!
@PJ: Um, that means two-thirds of the House and three-fourths of the Senate voted FOR it. I mean, I’m not that great at math, but seemingly she voted with the majority. I am no fan of the Iraq war, but at the time, there was kind of a willingness to trust that the President knew stuff we didn’t know. I’m sick of hearing about how she voted for it. Let’s move on.
I don’t believe for one minute those who say I won’t vote for Hillary, but I would for Elizabeth Warren.
Yep, the old “I can’t vote for the woman who is actually running but FOR SURE I would vote for this other woman over here.” dodge. If Warren had run the same people would be just as sorrowfully reluctant to vote for her.
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Well, the women defiantly are breaking the barriers when one can be accused of Kasier William II level warmongering.
Major Major Major Major
I don’t know, I heard on the comment section of some blog that a bunch of assholes read that this was a hit-piece. Or something.
Davebo
As Kevin Drum pointed out, if you’re going to headline an article “How Hillary Clinton became a Hawk” you should, at some point in the article, explain how Hillary Clinton became a hawk.
The article makes a decent case that she is a hawk however.
Dr.McCoy
Awakening?
“For most of the Left, Clinton-style “incrementalism” is just a code word to disguise what is effectively a right-wing retrenchment. Nevertheless many self-identified progressives have backed Clinton’s “theory of politics” as the most realistic path to achieve Sanders’s objectives.”
dollared
@efgoldman: Bernie Sanders. SATSQ.
jl
@Davebo:
” The article makes a decent case that she is a hawk however. ”
Seems to me a very anecdotal case, with not many anecdotes. I didn’t get much info on a future president HRC’s policies from it.
I’m not sure how much of HRC’s hawkishness is rhetoric versus reality. Consider her discussion of the her proposed no-fly zones in Syria, during the Democratic debates. She is not going to shot any Russian aircraft down on first or even second violation, but use as an excuse to get some talks going, or something.
She won’t start pinpoint targeted saturation bombing of large chunks of the earth on Day One of her administration, so she is better than the alternative GOPer (except maybe Kasich, but he is irrelevant).
Dr.McCoy
@efgoldman: The simple truth is that virtually every significant and lasting progressive achievement of the past hundred years was achieved not by patient, responsible gradualism, but through brief flurries of bold action. The Second New Deal in 1935–36 and Civil Rights and the Great Society in 1964–65 are the outstanding examples, but the more ambiguous victories of the Obama era fit the pattern, too.
“There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth,” declared Lyndon Johnson in 1964. “I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want.”
Compare that to our current Democratic front-runner, whose most impassioned moment on the 2016 campaign trail came when she denounced single-payer health care as an idea “that will never, ever come to pass.”
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: Agreed, ef, but I still don’t get your first point. We can still complain/criticize. It sounds like you’re saying there’s no point, (insert Democratic politician here) will never change, we need to focus on beating Republicans instead.
Damien
@dollared: Stupid answer to a serious question?
Sanders Totally Should Quit?
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@dollared: Dude’s not getting elected to anything other that Senator from Vermont. Sorry.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Dr.McCoy:
When you have a political opposition that will characterize single payer and “your taxes will go up and the DMV will choose your doctor”, she’s right.
liberal
@jl: the no fly zone talk is just fucking stupid, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Bob In Portland
This article says in 1968 she questioned Melvin Laird about Vietnam. The way I heard it, she wrote a speech for Laird to deliver in the House of Representatives justifying the bombing of North Vietnam.
And I still haven’t gotten a clear explanation as to why she went to both the Republican and Democratic conventions in ’68.
She’s a hawk, she is deep into militarism and seems to have been for most of her life. But maybe because something something she won’t get us into any more wars.
Dr.McCoy
@BillinGlendaleCA: Sic semper erat, et sic semper erit.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
And most them seemed to be early in the Obama administration; she might have learned something from the President. She certainly seems to as far as running her campaign.
MobiusKlein
When has the NYT ever shied away from a shiv at the Clintons?
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Bob In Portland: “The way you heard it” SMDH
Major Major Major Major
@Dr.McCoy: Well that’s just not true. Also it’s polite to include your source when quoting from a source not readily apparent.
Yeah, thank God we had that unapologetically liberal guy Eisenhower in 1957 so we could expand voting rights in the immediate post-Brown era. And there certainly hadn’t been decades of grassroots activism up until that point that helped pave the way. Nope, 1957 was definitely a “brief flurry of bold action.”
Oh, did the author mean 1964? My bad.
Seriously, there are holes in that piece big enough for a Brinks truck full of $27 donations.
NR
@efgoldman: Vermont didn’t try to implement a fully single-payer system and it’s simply dishonest to claim they did.
PJ
@jl: It’s not about her policies, per se, but rather her instincts and judgments, which are to go with whatever the “let’s invade!” people from the military-industrial complex suggest, rather than to look at what US policy goals are and whether these are achievable by the means being promoted. She trusts these people (McChrystal, Keane, Petraeus) though their only goal seems to be to keep US troops occupying whatever country for the next 40 years, despite the fact that the evidence indicates that the US occupations were directly responsible for preventing stable states from emerging in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Poopyman
Google is purple tonight for Prince.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Dr.McCoy: I don’t know if you were paying attention to the roll-out of the ACA, but folk were PISSED OFF about ANY changes in the care they were receiving and the price they were paying. Mind you with single payer, those changes are infinitesimal by comparison.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Poopyman: So is Bloom County.
PJ
@MobiusKlein: Maybe when they endorsed Hillary? It’s written as a pro-Hillary “look, she won’t be as weak as Obama” piece.
NR
@efgoldman: See here about Vermont’s health care plan.
Poopyman
Yes, Hillary’s past shows that she’s prone to militaristic responses. Watch and see who she brings in as her advisors as a tell as to whether she wants a check on this or more of a free pass. Right now I honestly can’t tell.
scav
We can complain a lot, but I very much doubt we’ll see realistically see better politicians until we have a better general electorate. There’s a reason we see generalized warmongering and fiats about letting drug addicts die unnecessariy (no matter the ethics of the pharmacists) while other fiats elevate the moral sensitivities of pharmacists that don’t want to disperse medicines and LEOs that don’t get more than the occasional stern nod when they kill people. There’s a market-demand for such such behaviors. Same goes for the cheapest-ass “solutions” available.
david10
She has shown an ability to learn and to change-too much so according to her critics. So perhaps this isn’t where she is now. Certainly the mess in the Islamic world just gets worse with each western-or Russian-intervention.
Still, it is worrisome. She doesn’t, for instance, seem to realize that Russia intervening today is wholly different from the USSR intervening-Russia isn’t out to take over the world.
Climate change is going to rewrite the rules of international engagement and that very soon, but everyone continues to think and act as though everything will continue as it is, just a little warmer. When faced with catastrophe even human beings may grow more sensible.
Weaselone
This isn’t exactly a balanced piece. Its objective is to portray Hillary as a hawk and that is exactly what it does. It starts with a premise and then throws in anything to support it, including asinine stuff about growing up following WW2.
BillinGlendaleCA
@NR: They tried but it failed in the planning stages.
Mnemosyne
@MobiusKlein:
It’s not like they have a 25-year long history of doing it or anything.
But, hey, maybe this time the blind squirrel found a nut with its poorly-sourced story, unlike Travelgate, Whitewater, Wen Ho Lee, Benghazi, Emailgate, etc etc etc. Hope springs eternal.
A Ghost To Most
@Bob In Portland:
I’m sure it sounded better in the original Russian.
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
Didn’t McChrystal and Petraeus both get shit-canned from the Army? I seem to recall a scandal for each of them.
And as I pointed out before, in 2004 the NYT endorsed John Kerry while knowingly suppressing a story about domestic surveillance by the Bush administration. Anyone who thinks the NYT isn’t supporting Republicans is a fool.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
Y’know, I’d join in the fun, but my little girl passed away today and snarking on the internet just doesn’t seem amusing tonight. Sixteen years was a good run for a yorkie-daschaund mix, but I still wish I had more time with her. I miss her so much.
I’m going to go hug her brother for the rest of the evening. Enjoy every sandwich, everyone.
SteveinSC
Well as much as I dislike the lame bitch, her biggest, proximal sin was voting for the authorization to use military force. However, she just had to do that since the earlier adventure in the middle east, Cole’s War, was a disaster for Democrats who voted against it. She really had no choice except go along with Bush’s War, shrub’s most excellent adventure.
Oh, and thank you Jesus for Donald Trump pissing all over the repukes’ latest Bush revisionism and rubbing their faces in it. A loose cannon on your own ship can sometimes do more than your enemies.
Technocrat
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
I’m so sorry to hear that. At least she had someone who loved her.
BillinGlendaleCA
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: Sorry to hear about your girl, one of mine is a York Pom mix.
A Ghost To Most
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
Sorry to hear that.
Hillary Rettig
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: 16 years isn’t nearly enough. My heart goes out…
Major Major Major Major
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: :( So sorry to hear about that.
Nice Zevon reference, though.
starscream
@efgoldman: Besides that, the idea that he’s some kind of dove is just like the idea that he’s incorruptible and above taking money to stay in power: a myth. 2011 article about how much Bernie loves the military industrial complex.
starscream
“Sanders’s support of the Kosovo War led to the resignation of an adviser; when antiwar activists occupied his office, he had them arrested; and Sanders voted to authorize the war in Afghanistan”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/09/bernie-sanders-loves-this-1-trillion-war-machine.html
rikyrah
I have said from day one that I didn’t trust her with foreign policy. Nothing has changed.
Greg
I have hopes that her time at State led her to see the other side of some of these questions, but it’s true – this is the area in which I’m least sure of my preferred candidate.
That being said, this particular article doesn’t seem to provide any real evidence either way to inflame or calm my fears.
Stillwater
John Cole,
Well, if perception is reality, then you’re getting pummeled on the
factsperceptions.Amaranthine RBG
Obama is a moderate and Clontom is to the right of him in several important matters
She’s better than a thing that is likely to be followed by an “R” on the ballot, but people shouldn’t do-l themselves about what they are getting
I didn’t think it was possible but the Hilldos have gotten even more dishonest and shrill in the past week. The attacks on Dr. Paul Song misrepresenting what he said are despicable. He was clearly talking about institutional barriers to single payer, not Clontom, when he used the word whore. This is a guy who pioneered gamma knife treatments and has devoted his life to improving public health in this country. No matter, just another scalp for the Hilldos.
Stillwater
@SteveinSC:
Her biggest sin was the combination of voting for the AUMF and then defending that vote after the fact. Until she didn’t.
Oh, and Libya.
Gvg
The article is saying Trump and Cruz are less militaristic. In a way that’s true in that they don’t actually know enough to have a policy but they also think it’s a good idea to respond “firmly” to every dumb little provocation and stand up for America. We have no idea what random event will make them give warish orders but they would start a war without even knowing it themselves and then flounder around without plans making shit up and not able to admit a mistake or fix it. So calling them less hawkish really misses a boatload of disasters.
Yeah she is more hawkish than Obama. Can’t be helped. Most Americans are as clueless and a agressive as Trump or Cruz so we are lucky when we get a wonk
jl
@NR:
” the Vermont reform did not contemplate…”
My understanding is that the original VT plan did contemplate doing something about much of the list that followed. Exemptions and waivers for federal laws and regs did not materialize in time. Federal government places quite a few restrictions on what individual state governments can do. I don;t think a real test of individual state single payer can happen unless a state can escape them. Though I need to brush up on how Hawaii coped, since it has a long standing system that is close to single payer.
WarMunchkin
Yup, scares the crap out of me. Though notably Bill isn’t mentioned really.
Davebo
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
So sorry. Sixteen years is a hell of a run even for a little girl. My Dad’s dog has maybe a month or two left (kidney failure) and he’s so close to her I worry how he’ll deal with it.
geg6
@Weaselone:
Agreed. Typical Times hit piece.
Weaselone
I would also add that this article should probably be a wake up call to Sander’s supporters. Hillary is going to take on the positions that she needs to in order to win the election. If Sanders and his supporters look like they can be made part of her coalition, then she’s likely to adapt pieces of their platform and move in their direction on the issues and try to win the election with a leftward leaning coalition. If on the other hand, she does not think they will come on board in sufficient numbers to win the election, she’s going to have to look for more voters to the right of her current position and that means we’re going to see a lot more of the crap we see in this article, but perhaps for her surrogates and even her, not just in the NY Times.
A Ghost To Most
@Amaranthine RBG:
Yea,and Ben Carson was a great pediatric nuerosurgeon. Doesn’t mean he’s Moses.
Emma
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: Oh, no. I’m so sorry.
geg6
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
I am so sorry. So hard when we lose them. My deepest sympathies.
JPL
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: That sucks.. There are no words to describe what you are feeling. rip..
jl
Hillary Clinton is more hawkish than I would like, and I think she is far too committed to existing US policy that I think needs rethinking (NATO in Europe, for example). And my personal opinion is that her ambition controls what she says so much that it is difficult to distinguish what she really believes from what she thinks is politically advantageous. But right now, it looks like the alternative is…
Trump Advisor Worried Native Americans Might Get The Bomb And Nuke Montana
” Schmitz’s clients, Montana state Sen. Bob Keenan and former state Sen. Verdell Jackson, wanted to keep the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes from taking over the former Kerr Dam because they feared the government of Turkey would somehow team up with the tribes to obtain nuclear materials for terrorists. ”
http://wonkette.com/600928/trump-advisor-worried-native-americans-might-get-the-bomb-and-nuke-montana
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Too bad St. Bernie threw him under the bus, then.
But if Dr. Song didn’t realize that you shouldn’t use the word “whores” when referring to a group that includes your favored candidate’s female opponent, perhaps public speaking is not your forte.
And didn’t that candidate’s ex-president husband travel to North Korea to negotiate the release of Song’s sister-in-law?
dr. bloor
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: Just remember, she won’t always be there for you, but you were always there for her. Warren approves, as does the Universe.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: The important thing is, if it had been bolder and more costly, it would have totally worked, but because it was more cautious and less expensive, it failed. That’s how NR sees it, because NR believes a lot of extremely stupid things.
geg6
@Amaranthine RBG:
You could make the same claims about the narrow expertise of Ben Carson. Doesn’t mean he knows shit about the reality of politics or much of anything else.
Marc
@geg6: I’d like to think we’re better than Republicans, refusing to even bother to address anything that they don’t like in the “liberal media”. Apparently not, when it’s something that we don’t want to hear about Clinton.
Technocrat
Nothing in that article is a surprise? I’m actually glad to hear commanders respect her (an unpopular opinion, no doubt).
On the bright side, there’s this:
Whew! Now we don’t have to worry so much if Cruz or Trump wins. Theocracy and ethnic purges aside, at least we’ll have fewer wars.
BubbaDave
@Dr.McCoy:
In a thread slamming Hillary for hawkishness, you choose to swing at her by quoting Lyndon Baines Vietnam Johnson? Really?
Also, remind me how happy liberals were with JFK’s choice for Veep in ’61 or ’62 — before you tell us Hillary is way too much of an establishment figure to get anything done.
Emma
So the moment the oh-so-fair NYT writes a hit piece on Hillary (and oh wow, isn’t that a new thing in this here Universe) you all start pissing and moaning. It’s not straight up misogyny, so what the hell is it? Fear of the vagina dentata?
And if you’re telling me that it’s because oh-my-god, the President may have to consider force at some point, I will send all of you back to reality school.
I can’t stand it anymore. I am down to hoping for President Cruz, so that you learn about the destruction of empires from the inside.
PeakVT
Pretty much everybody who could possibly get elected to the presidency is either a hawk or bigoted anti-muslim hawk when it comes to the Middle East. Sanders at best is the least worst, but who really knows given his lack of interest foreign policy.
Apart from that, the entire establishment – Congress, the political parties, the military, the media, think tanks, lobbyists, etc. – are pro-intervention in the Middle East for their own – mostly pecuniary – reasons. Even if the least hawkish candidate were to be elected, s/he would be under pressure to intervene from both within and without their government each and every time a “crisis” develops. It’s kind of a hopeless situation, at least in the Middle East.
Elsewhere around the globe, things may be different, but at this point in time “foreign policy” = Middle East, with only an occasional mention of China, so elsewhere is rarely discussed.
jl
@FlipYrWhig: There is a good argument that it was more costly because federal laws and regulations forced it to be more cautious. Some of the argument is right there in the block quote in NR’s comment. Most forecasts indicated the VT plan would still save money, but the savings in expenditure shrunk, and made the tax increases loom larger than when the plan was first proposed. And since the governor chickened out of a detailed financing proposal until very late, it failed politically.
Davebo
@Mnemosyne:
I think we got there with Hilldos.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
BTW, here’s the quote from Dr. Song, per the LA Times:
Gosh, I can’t imagine why anyone would think he had called Hillary a “corporate whore” just because he had used her name twice in the two sentences before it. Total co-inky-dink.
geg6
@Marc:
The Times does not have a good record when it comes to fairness in covering the Clintons. If you think they are objective when it comes to either one of them, I have a bridge for sale.
Citizen_X
@Dr.McCoy:
Jesus Christ on the Death Star, if you’re gonna talk about alternatives to Clinton’s hawkishness, the last fucking person on Earth you should bring up is LBJ.
jl
@Technocrat: Nominee will probably be Trump. His opposition to the Iraq war is far louder now than it was before the invasion, and I’m not so sure that encouraging nuclear proliferation to compensate for withdrawal of US forces is good recipe for peace.
Linda Featheringill
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
I am so sorry for your loss. I know it hurts.
Amaranthine RBG
@jl: a good point.
I was surprised that he has already started to pivot to center… As in today’s comments re NC controversy.
geg6
@Citizen_X:
Yeah, seriously.
Amaranthine RBG
@geg6: somewhat true, but ignores fact that Song is working to make America better for everyone, and Carson is pulling up ladder behind him.
Elie
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
My condolences and a hug…
BillinGlendaleCA
@Technocrat: Or at least the wars would be short(like we’ve never heard that before), with Trump(we’ll just take their oil) and Cruz(glowing sand).
Tim F.
@Enhanced Voting Techinques: Maggie Thatcher would like a word.
Baud
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
Aw man. I’m so sorry.
Technocrat
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Oh yeah, I forgot about the glowing sand. That’s fine, I wasn’t looking forward to the United States of Jesus anyway.
ETA: And to be fair, the wars would be so short like you wouldn’t believe. They would be the shortest wars ever.
Baud
@Technocrat:
That’s an idiotic analysis. I was going to save this piece for later. I should have known not to give NYT a second’s thought.
Dr. McCoy
@Citizen_X:That was an answer to a efgoldman post and not directly responding to the “hawkishness of Hillary” article. It’s well known. Per normal here, the digression factor is in full effect.
JCJ
@Amaranthine RBG:
I did not know Lars Leksell was spelled “Paul Song.”
Wikipedia can tell you a little about the history of gamma knife. Developed in Sweden, etc.
Elie
She is a boss lady coming up in a time where militarism was dominant and seguing now to a different and more nuanced role in a world with a lot of trip wires and a very different US. We are no longer the prohibitive big dog, and that has to be considered in weighing every option we have as intervention. Even the moron Republicans understand fully now that there are real limits to what the military can do and that using it unilaterally ends up with a huge expensive mess with unwanted and open ended entrapment of our resources and standing in the world. I think that the trick will be that our immediate state opponents (China, Russia) and our non state (Isis and the whole Taliban etc) — know of her rep and know she is the first woman Pres (if elected), and they will play to that very quickly. In her role as President, she has to be willing to use all of the powers of the office but she also has to be smart about being set up. She is not stupid nor unaware of all that I am saying. Each of the candidates will bring their own baggage. If y’all who support Bernie think that he would be without risk, you are just not thinking. He is an old man with a hot head and probably would have a difficult time recruiting the right support talent around him and then would have to actually listen in an arena where he was totally inexperienced. Trump, impulsive and self listening would bring similar weakness. Both could be easily set up by opponents who would test their basic character and strength. Cruz also probably pretty much like Trump.
I am not sure the purpose of this article. We elect commanders in chiefs with hopefully the necessary smarts to deal with what comes their way and to keep our options open where we can. It is unfair to try to set and expectation that the first woman President should be totally unwilling to ever use military force or given her experience, have no sense of her ability to be aggressive if need be. I would be very insecure about electing a woman (or man), who would unilaterally disarm us or not possibly use force to set up negotiated options (yes that happens). As a woman, Hillary would face many of our allies who have long traditions of not respecting women. As I have said in my previous comments, she will have to both be able and willing to show the stick as well as use it and sleep well that night. The people who think she will be some weird LBJ/Nixon/Bush female clone, are super short changing her but also more importantly, what strengths we need in our leader. A woman who can use the stick has a lot of room to set up and use more peaceful means. Make no mistake though — our opponents will be on her immediately and I am curious if John Cole thinks she should take a stance right now that she would NEVER ever, use force to protect us or our interests….
Technocrat
@Baud:
The piece is not terrible, it’s just slanted. And I thought “Theocracy and ethnic purges aside”, would be an effective /sarc tag. Apparently not!
MomSense
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
Oh I’m so sorry. Condolences to you.
amk
sheesh cole, have ya taken a look at the other side’s we will carpet bomb everyone klowns lately? fucking perspective.
Keith G
Hillary is more hawkish than the average Democrat is right now. That , and a bit too much chumminess with Wall Street are among her most notable flaws. Presidents have flaws. Obama has flaws. It’s gonna have to be up to folks like Warren, Sherrod Brown, Durbin, and Murray (among others) to remind Hillary to be very wary of the siren songs of those even more militaristic than she.
If she wants a second term, let alone a favorable chance at a successful first one, she will need to be very careful. I bet she knows this. Let’s see if that knowledge works.
Elie
@Amaranthine RBG:
Dr Song, brilliant as he is in gamma ray treatments can be compared to Dr. Ben Carson — a brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon who is as poor at politics as he was brilliant as a surgeon. People can have strengths in one area that do not carry through to others. Please use something more relevant and no, Dr. Song does not get to call any woman a whore, much less a candidate for the office of President. If he lacks that sense, well, that tells me a great deal about HIM. At least Carson doesn’t call women opponents whores.
ruemara
@Dr.McCoy: that’s bullshit. It effectively ignores the history of voting, social security, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights.
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: my condolences.
At some point, can the front pagers, including John, just cut this constant recognition of the Clinton vs Sanders war? Because an article of supposition is just that and unworthy of attention.
Redshift
@Dr.McCoy:
If I could make candidates’ passionate supporters accept one thing, it would be “don’t believe your own bullshit.”
That moment may have been a really big deal for Sanders fans, but claiming that it, or anything to do with Sanders, was her “most impassioned moment” conveys that you only pay attention to your side’s caricatures of your opponent, rather than what she actually says, which is fine if you only want to talk to people who already agree with you.
Yes, months ago the Clinton campaign criticized Sanders’ proposals by saying they were impractical and there was no way he could get them enacted. Sanders fans insisted this meant she was saying “nothing is going to change and you should give up.” And months later, I still hear this repeated, unconnected to the actual statement, as if it were a fact which you can use to judge any other statement.
Politics ain’t beanbag, and attacks like these go with the territory. But that who convince themselves they’re reality are on a level with wingnuts who shout “Benghazi!” and “Bill Ayers”, fine inside your bubble, but increasingly incomprehensible outside it.
Stella
@Bob In Portland: LOL. In 1968 she was a 21 year old college student and a George McGovern supporter. She didn’t write a speech for Melvin Laird.
HRC was rated the 11th most liberal senator during her senate career, that’s only to the right of Sanders by a tiny amount. Of course, we have to weigh that against being a “Goldwater Girl” as a high school student forty (!!!) years earlier.
burnspbesq
@dollared:
I don’t think “reasonable” or “attainable” means what you think it means.
Andy
I couldn’t figure out the $27 donation shit and the Sanders campaign….”Balloon Juice Lexicon”-
.27 Percenters – Those Americans who will predictably vote against their own best interests. In his seminal post on the Crazification Factor, John Rogers used the 2004 Obama/Keyes senate race as a measure: “Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That’s crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.”
Fuck You assholes.
I hope the voters go along, to get along, like they did previously. 2012 was no contest, but now, the “Nuclear option” is on the table.
Stella
@Amaranthine RBG: Gamma knife treatments were a new thing when I was in medical school, um, some years ago. Radiosurgery is common in big medical centers nowdays.
Doug R
@Stillwater: So are you saying we should have let Gaddafi massacre thousands of civilians?
Andy
@Redshift: You need to edit that last statement…
burnspbesq
@Dr.McCoy:
In 2007, when I was “Fat Charlie the Archangel,” the Friday night relief blogger at iamtrex, I wrote a post that said, among other things, “the road to universal health care runs through fundamental tax reform, and there is no alternate route.”
That’s still true, and given the majority party in Congress’ thoughts on what fundamental tax reform would look like, not going there now.
PhoenixRising
@Elie:
Best comment at BJ this year at least.
Cole, front page this too. Smarter than the NYT editorial bias and incorporating their well sourced facts.
Redshift
@jl:
Trump’s opposition to the war before the invasion is complete BS, like pretty much everything he says.
Heliopause
Yes, that’s exactly it. There’s a sweet spot for number of nameless people in far flung lands to kill and HRC will find it. GW Bush totals too big, Obama totals too small, HRC juuuuuust right. Maybe Nate Silver can run a Bayesian regression and help her out.
Meanwhile, y’all need to start investing in shares of popcorn and Turner broadcasting. because the entertainment quotient here stateside will be off the charts. Whoever manufactures cluster bombs, too. And tell any relatives you might have in the military that Ukraine is just the hill to die on.
JMG
As someone who voted for Hillary, let me say I share this concern. Her foreign policy is about 30 years out of date. BUT, in this case, I feel that the caution and unwillingness to get too far ahead of her troops that has marked hers (and Bill’s career) will serve Clinton well. She surely knows starting a foreign war of any size would rip the Democrats apart and end her presidency in no time.
Doesn’t mean she wouldn’t, just means she’ll think twice.
burnspbesq
@PJ:
IIRC, none of those guys are currently on active duty.
Andy
@Elie: “our” interests are broad and vague in the U.S.—-“OUR opponents will be on her immediately and I am curious if John Cole thinks she should take a stance right now that she would NEVER ever, use force to protect us or our interests….”
Super Predator Drones will make the case in that regard.
Redshift
@Andy: Did autocorrect mess it up, or do you just think it’s over the top?
I will say, while I focused on Bernistas because that’s what I was responding to, they are not the only ones I wish would learn this lesson. I’d put quite a lot from our own “David Koch” in the same category.
Andy
@Redshift: But that who convince themselves they’re reality are on a level ….Whaaa
Tractarian
From the article:
Did you notice how the author seems to believe that “bombing the Islamic State into oblivion” does not qualify as “military engagement”?
Yeah, I guess you could say it was a hit piece…
Technocrat
@Andy:
I’m on board with this part.
Elie
@PhoenixRising:
Thank you! Trying to see this right for us… There are always doubts but I just try to see myself as her and remember what history and historical analysis that I have read.
Elie
@Andy:
Andy, drones are tactics to a strategic approach… not ends in themselves..
jl
@Amaranthine RBG:
” I was surprised that he has already started to pivot to center… As in today’s comments re NC controversy. ”
I don’t know whether there will be a pivot to the center for Trump on substance for a lot of his issues. Believe it or not, he has never been as reactionary as the other winger GOP candidates, apart from his bozo ideas on kicking out Mexicans and barring Muslims and other race/ethnic bigotry.
A commenter posted some old youtubes of a much younger Trump talking serious issues on talk shows, Oprah was one of them I think. Trump was spouting the same stuff about withdrawal of US troops, and too many US troops overseas, same goofy ideas on how to solve the problem of US spending too much to protect allies. Main difference was presentation: Trump tried to act and sound serious and sane (as if he would run in a Democratic primary, which I think was his goal back than), as opposed to apeshit insane (which he is using for the GOP primary).
Andy
@Technocrat: Fuck you
Redshift
@Andy: Eh, the “they’re” was meant to refer to the attacks, but I can see it would be confusing if you read it to refer to the people. To late to edit in any case.
Andy
@Technocrat: And I would say it to your face.
patroclus
Well, I read the article and it didn’t convince me that Hillary is a “hawk.” Instead, it convinced me that sometimes she takes hawkish positions and sometimes she doesn’t. And sometimes she takes positions that, in retrospect, are regarded as hawkish, but that weren’t necessarily viewed that way at the time. And sometimes she listens to and agrees with her military colleagues/advisers and sometimes she doesn’t. And the article didn’t contrast her positions with those (like McCain/Graham) that usually take more hawkish positions. It instead contrasted her positions with Obama’s positions, which usually were slightly less “hawkish” than hers. She voted for the Iraq war- a bad mistake. She opposed the 2005-06 “surge” in Iraq. She supported a 40,000 troop “surge” in Afghanistan in the context of an overall withdrawal strategy and Obama eventually implemented a 30,000 increase which has now gone down to about 10,000. She advocated for intervention in Libya but without a ground troop commitment. She supported greater amounts of special forces in Iraq and an aggressive air strategy. She advised sending a carrier into the South China Sea. But she also was part of a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq. She opposed intervention in Georgia. She helped negotiate a settlement in Honduras, Sri Lanka and (in a more limited fashion) Myanmar. She advocated negotiations in Thailand. She’s helped to simmer down tensions between India and Pakistan. But, like Sanders, she supported the Kosovo intervention and the original Afghan intervention.
It’s a mixed bag. Sometimes I agree; sometimes I don’t. Like most, she sometimes makes mistakes. That’s what I would expect if she becomes President. From a non-interventionist purity standard, she’s somewhat hawkish. From a hawkish standpoint, she’s cautious and not reliably aggressive enough/hawkish. Republicans will undoubtedly portray her as “weak” and timid. Bernie supporters consider her to be aggressively pro-war all the time.
catclub
@MobiusKlein:
In terms of likely Democratic voters this may be a shiv. In the general election it will not hurt her and may help her. Look at who she may need to convince in the general: The left wing of the Democratic party? Not really.
People who think a woman is not tough enough to be President? Quite possibly.
burnspbesq
@patroclus:
Well said.
El Caganer
@Doug R: No, we certainly shouldn’t have. But since there’s zero evidence that he planned to do so, it probably would have been wiser not to create a failed state.
http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/04/14/false_pretense_for_war_in_libya/
goblue72
@Redshift: That’s because you’re a totebagger squish. Some of us actually support a much more radical and just agenda. We don’t trust the establishment with good reason – they aren’t there to serve the people.
This Sunday will be the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising. So a quote from James Connolly, founder of the Irish Labor Party, whom Michael Collins once said he would have followed through hell:
“Yes, friends, governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class.”
Ferd of the Nort
Sooooo. My evening started off with running over our female dog.
Good news is she seems to be ok.
Bad news is…. Can’t get her to a vet because I live in the fricken Arctic and it is two days to get to the nearest vet, even when the planes are not being blizzarded out.
Up here, to blizzard is a verb.
I was running her (sled racing breed) by driving the car on the cleared roads where there is no traffic. She cut in front of me and under the car. Everything is in the right place by palpating, no indications of significant injury (cuts and bruises likely) and ok on the weight bearing. Looks like we might have gotten lucky.
She runs at 40 kmh (ummmm… Carry the five and subtract…) FAST in American. Has not been able to run enough to recently with the blizzards, road blockages and other issues, so I was giving here extra run distance while the other two boys were in the car. She looks like a large white greyhound, with extra fur. Will run at 25 kmh for an hour when the roads on the tundra are open.
Anyways.
Climate change is real!
Donald Trump is scary.
Hillary would not be my favourite, but the best of the realistic choices.
Sometimes you get lucky.
goblue72
@Elie: The use of the paragraph return would render this something less than nonsense. Though its still mostly nonsense that is just a nice sounding way to argue in favor of Big Daddy, Big Stick bullshit in a dress. And its not like the world hasn’t seen that before, contrary to your revisionism. Maggie Thatcher already had that TV show and the international community didn’t have any problem taking her seriously.
And a decade before that, there was Golda Meir, and nobody put her in a corner.
Jean
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: I have a 16 year old rescue schnoodle (schnauzer/poodle) mix. I’m sorry for your loss. Sundae is mostly deaf and somewhat blind, but still a sweetie pie.
burnspbesq
@goblue72:
That’ll hurt, for sure. At least as much as the third-grade playground shit you like to throw at me.
PJ
@Elie: The purpose of the article is to establish Hillary as a take-no-shit hawk now that she is pivoting towards the general election – she wants to pick up as many Republicans disaffected by Trump and Cruz as possible. Likewise, her claim of being buddies with Kissinger and her love for the wonderful job the Reagans did are to establish that she is not a Democrat like those other people.
Miss Bianca
@goblue72: Gee, I seem to recall that Michael Collins et al. were not at all averse to violence to pursue their ends. Are you advocating violence against the government in the name of your “just and radical agenda”?
PJ
@patroclus: It’s not that she’s “aggressively pro-war all the time” – she’s no Bill Kristol – it’s that she doesn’t adequately compare the cost of military adventures with the benefit to US policy goals; she buys into whatever the villagers are saying because it is the politically expedient thing to do – how else can you explain her vote on the Iraq war?
PJ
@burnspbesq: And I would bet that they are slurping up their share from the military-industrial trough.
BillinGlendaleCA
@goblue72:
Great! Now, if you can just convince the rest of your fellow citizens…
ETA: Telling them fuck off and go die in a fire or get on an ice floe probably isn’t the optimal means to accomplish this. Just saying.
magurakurin
@goblue72: you keep pluggin’ away slugger. I’m sure you’ll get to your glorious revolution some day. Maybe the leaders will appoint you the head of the Committee of Public Squish Removal. You could get us all in one big sweep.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: Chiming in way late here, but I’m truly sorry for your loss. Take what time you need, but check in with us as you can. This place is a righteous bunch. Believe me, I’ve seen it.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
Oh, that’s awful. I’m so very sorry. Big loss.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Okay, it was kind of cute and amusing for a couple of days, but it’s gotten stale now.
Miss Bianca
@magurakurin: heh heh.
hedgehog mobile
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: So sorry.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s not a typo?
Aimai
@patroclus: very good rundown. I concur.
patroclus
@PJ: I don’t know why she voted to authorize the Iraq war. But then again, I don’t know why Churchill was in favor of the Gallipoli invasion, for which he was excoriated for decades, but he did fairly well in WWII. And I don’t know why Bill “would have voted with the majority but agreed with the arguments of the minority” in the Gulf War. Maybe it’s just political expediency. But her experience as SoS, I think, has given her more broad experience than a mere junior Senator from NY. I’m hopeful that she learned from the Iraq war experience and wouldn’t authorize the invasion of the wrong country based on baldfaced whoppers again. We’ll see. But she’s far better than the uninformed bellicosity of Trump (or Cruz). She’s already a world states”man” – she wouldn’t have to learn on the job. Am I concerned? Sure, but I always worry about foreign policy.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Nope, the commenter has used it repeatedly.
burnspbesq
@PJ:
With respect to retired military, that doesn’t bother me. They are vastly underpaid relative to private-sector execs with comparable skills and responsibilities.
Aimai
@PJ: in reality her vote on the aumf was neither here nor there. It did not cause the war and it did not hasten the war. I dont really understand your point here. Whoever she was listening to is irrelevant. Her vote was irrelevant. It happened but no one is under the impression that she was choosing war on anyones advice. Because her vote did not authorize war, nor was it a reflection of her desire to go to war. She didnt make the vote happen and she didnt make the war happen. Neither the vote nor the war are proof of her hawkishness or desire for war.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: Well what the heck does it mean? I saw it one day as a presumed typo, and I was kind of hoping it would take off, but now I rue the day I thought that (Tuesday).
magurakurin
@Amaranthine RBG: I know you think you are letting off some heavy zingers and really putting everyone in their place, but all I hear is “hare kṛiṣhṇa hare kṛiṣhṇa kṛiṣhṇa kṛiṣhṇa hare hare…”
How about you check back with us after you have left the cult. Then maybe we can talk.
magurakurin
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m not in the cult, so what does it even mean?
amk
@Amaranthine RBG:
Hey idiot. Song apologized for his stupid outburst. Publicly. Go, look it up.
magurakurin
@amk:
and he was kicked out of the cult for that.
TriassicSands
@efgoldman:
How about a less militaristic HRC?
And if that isn’t possible, should she really be the Democratic nominee for president?
I intend to vote for her, but her aggressive militarism does concern me — a lot. I haven’t read the article, but Kevin Drum says it doesn’t actually answer the question its title purports to answer.
Is it something in her upbringing? Is it because she’s compensating for being a woman — since sexists would have us believe that women are weak and couldn’t be commanders in chief. (This isn’t limited to women. Nixon was the only one who could go to China — supposedly — because Democrats would be perceived as too soft on Communism. Those kinds of distorting perceptions can cause politicians to over-compensate, with unfortunate results.)
I am hoping that Clinton’s well-known fondness for the military and the military solution will allow her to step back and be more responsible as president. Otherwise, she could do great harm not only to herself and the country, but to the prospects of future female presidents. Her decision to support the 2003 attack on Iraq was a disaster, but one of my own senators, Maria Cantwell, also supported the war. I received her form letter explaining her decision and it was truly one of the worst thought out, least convincing rationales I’ve ever seen. But Cantwell was new to the Senate and as a woman with no military or defense-related
experience may have been concerned about being seen as weak on defense. Patty Murray, my other Senator, with more years in the Senate, resisted that thinking, and voted against.
If Clinton continues to favor military solutions to problems (that Obama has wisely avoided), she may end up reminding us more of George W. Bush than Barack Obama, who according to Clinton’s campaigning she supports unfailingly. (As opposed to Sanders, who hates Obama and isn’t really a Democrat…at least according to Clinton.)
In the end, I don’t care why Clinton favors military intervention so enthusiastically — I just want her to be more responsible as president.
patroclus
@burnspbesq: @Aimai: Thanks. I’m just calling it as I see it. I just reject this binary choice of either Chamberlain-like appeasement or Curtis LeMay-like bellicosity or Noam Chomsky v. Bill Kristol. It’s just not that simple. Overall, I’m in favor of reducing American military commitments abroad, but that’ll take a long time and it’ll be a matter of two steps forward and one step backward for generations. Foreign policy is tough. Hillary’s got some good experience, but I’m not a fanboy – I could turn on her big-time if she pulls a LBJ/Vietnam or Bush/Iraq kind of thing.
Monala
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: I’m so sorry.
BillinGlendaleCA
@magurakurin: I’m not in the cult either, so shit if I know.
sdhays
Bernie voter here, but a tip for me early in the campaign that he was never going to be the nominee was how foreign policy was basically treated as an afterthought (I voted for Bernie to push the party towards his position on the economy, not for him personally). Foreign policy is Clinton’s biggest Achilles heal, especially since it’s talked about as her strength. If you’re serious about defeating Hillary Clinton, you develop a strong, consistent critique of her foreign policy instincts.
Bernie didn’t do that. He phoned it in, saying he voted against the AUMF and basically just sort of tried to ride that bus like Obama. But Obama did a lot of homework himself to sell both his basic judgement (at the time of the AUMF) and his vision of a different, somewhat less belligerent foreign policy. He wove their different positions on the AUMF into a broader foreign policy framework that set him apart from both Hillary and the Republicans. Bernie has never demonstrated that degree of effort on the foreign policy front, and without that, he was never going to truly break through.
President Obama’s foreign policy hasn’t been perfect, but he doesn’t get nearly enough credit for the things he’s gotten right, and I’m so sick of the jackasses who say that all he had to do was send in more troops to do this or that. What exactly did we lose by the President deciding not to flip the bird to China by not sailing the aircraft carrier into the Yellow Sea? Demonstrating restraint doesn’t signal “weakness”, it signals reasonableness. Would the climate change talks have gone differently if Obama had listened to Secretary Clinton and been extra belligerent? We’ll never know, but hawkish ideas always seem to be sold as consequence-free, when of course they aren’t. All the talk about Syria never mentions the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons. It’s like they never existed. And I’m really tired of hearing “hawks” talk darkly about the dangers of ISIS, and yet their Syria policy prescriptions are all completely centered around the removal of Bashar al Assad. It’s bait and switch.
These people talk about President Obama “managing our decline”, but what he’s really doing is demonstrating that the US can achieve its goals without always pointing a gun in people’s face. If that’s “decline”, it’s one we should welcome.
Oh, and no, NYT, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump having no idea what they’re talking about does not indicate that they are “reluctant warriors” or “less hawkish than Hillary”. It just means that if either one gets elected, we’re all completely doomed.
cbear
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: So very sorry for your loss. Peace.
NR
@Elie:
For the sake of people around here who may be suffering from allergies, please remove your straw man.
patroclus
@sdhays: Good points. Bernie could have presented an entirely different foreign policy orientation if he had put in the effort and the study like Obama did. Obama was quite specific about his willingness to talk to everyone – expressly including Iran and Cuba, and look what has resulted from that. Obama was active while a Senator in nuclear non-proliferation and worked with Lugar on other issues as well. Bernie may very well have different foreign policy views and formulations but he hasn’t expressed them very well during the campaign, so I really don’t know what his views are and what policies he would pursue. Obama went out of his way – multiple times – in speeches and debates to lay out his differences, and he has followed through. If you’re an insurgent, you really have to do that, even if it doesn’t get applause and seems boring. I think Bernie would be okay on foreign policy, but he just never convinced me of that. Notwithstanding Iraq, I think Clinton would be effective on foreign policy even though I may disagree with her from time to time.
magurakurin
@BillinGlendaleCA: lol
Elie
@sdhays:
Managing our decline is a pretty Manichean way to put the reality that we now have a much more complex world and set of powers to deal with. To assume that Hillary didn’t or doesn’t notice is to assume she is George Bush or someone who has no observation or decision making capabilities other than some knee jerk or responding to what she is told by others. She will have it rough no matter what she does. Rough times is just where its gonna be with or without her. If she is about negotiation — watch — her critics will call her a weak woman. If she choses even limited force, she is the bitch warmonger — watch. I see a cautious and cerebral person who is well aware of the reality that fucking up these days, is pretty damned easy. As the first woman President (if elected), the last thing she wants to be is some trigger fingered fuck up but she is well aware that the world is on the edge and losses can be catastrophic from the degree of unknowns.
I see Putin, a misogynist and America hater, as being one of her worst potential problems. I know he is licking his lips. I think that she is up for this job and I think that she will do it honorably and well. She thinks about that a lot…
Bernie is a good guy but he is just not mentally ready for this kind of thing. He is still in the economic world of the 70’s, much less the foreign policy world. If he could just gadfly his favorite issues domestically, he would be just fine. Unfortunately, that is not THIS job…. He would be a total mess —
Lets figure out how we can think about this huge role and how it needs to work and change for whoever is in it and not — especially, try to view it from the point of view of even the 90’s or 2000’s. Its a very different world even from when George W left office. Lets open our heads to that reality if we can…
dollared
@Elie: Doesn’t really matter what you think or we “figure out.” Hillary is going to do it the way she wants. And the way the National Security State wants, because she is part of it. And Henry Kissinger will be on speed dial.
dollared
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: Sorry for your loss. I’m sure you gave her 16 years of a great doggie life.
Stillwater
@Doug R: Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying!
Omnes Omnibus
@Stillwater: Bosnia and Rwanda too?
KS in MA
@Elie: Good point.
liberal
@Aimai: Jesus, you’ve completely jumped the damn shark with your apologia. Have you lost your fucking mind?
liberal
@patroclus: if she had learned from Iraq she wouldn’t have been so eager to bomb Libya.
liberal
@Stella: not sure I buy that. Of course there were far more conservative Dems in the Senate, but I recall some chicanery with these ratings in the past. Eg IIRC National Journal called Obama the most liberal Senator, which was risible.
liberal
@Doug R: except that there’s lots of evidence he wouldn’t have done that.
BTW, the Saudis are killing lots of civilians in Yemen, and we’re actively supporting them in that endeavor.
dollared
@Aimai: Wow. Her vote is irrelevant? Maybe you should ask her that. You’ll need to go to New York to ask her though. You see, because of that “irrelevant vote” she doesn’t live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in DC.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@jl: The outline of her policy positions sound sensible enough.
Obama worried me early on when he talked about defeating the Taliban. The Taliban aren’t our enemy. They’re a local political and military force that the Afghans are going to have to figure out how to deal with. They’re no threat to us. Eventually he stopped talking that way.
Hillary worried me for a while when she talked about creating a “no fly” zone in Syria. We’ve got no business imposing such a thing on our own. Nations in the region have to come together to figure out whether something like that is required, and then maybe we can help. But we shouldn’t be fighting the Saudi’s war for them no matter how big a monster Assad is. Eventually she stopped talking that way.
Foreign affairs are complicated and they’re always fluid. As you say, I wouldn’t take a bunch of out-of-context snippets of what she said years ago as necessarily being indicative of her approach as President. I think HRC is smart enough to know that even if she feels very strongly about something, she has the obligation to hear other sides and carefully consider them. Obama showed that even when we have a compelling interest – like making sure the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons stands – the overarching goal isn’t to enforce some treaty, it’s to do things and promote things that make the world safer and more peaceful. Sometimes that means working around “red lines”…
Look at the big picture, JC. Hillary is smart and she understands the role of President is very different from the role of Secretary of State and Senator. She’s not going to blunder into some stupid war because she likes some 3-star General or other. After working so hard to get the prize, she’s not going to trash her legacy doing something stupid. (She might trash it some other way (but I don’t expect her to).)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
dollared
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: In other words you hope she doesn’t jump into shit, even though she’s made it quite clear that she is more likely than Obama to do exactly that. So it’s more your hope than any factual basis.
PJ
@efgoldman: Oh come on. Anyone who could read could see that the justification was bullshit, and 1/3 of the House and 1/4 of the Senate voted against it. Whether or not Bush could be proven to be lying was irrelevant when it was clear there was no threat and there was no plan to deal with the aftermath of an invasion.
PJ
@Aimai: Voting for war is neither here nor there? WTF? For all of his chicanery, Bush would not have invaded Iraq if he did not have Congress on his side.
Omnes Omnibus
@PJ: Me? I thought the AUMF would give the gov’t some more leverage in negotiations. I also thought that the UN inspectors’ results would matter. I didn’t trust Bush, but I didn’t distrust him enough. I believe others may have made the same mistake.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: I think Hillary had a choice – as the Senator from New York, she had to be bellicose. But she could have been much more vocal about “It wasn’t Iraq that attacked us on9/11.” But it was safer to just play along – especially since Bush could use the CIA and NSA to keep manufacturing evidence. She knew she couldn’t win that arms race, so she gave in and protected her seat.
Marc McKenzie
Well, if it’s from the New York Times, it must be valid, right? You know, the same NYT that brought us Whitewater, this-gate, that-gate….
If Hillary’s a hawk, then Trump, Cruz and Kasich are vultures. But hey, let’s swing everything on only one issue and one of them get in office because we can’t have that warmongering c*@! in the White House. I mean, it’s all her fault that we invaded Iraq, yes?
Marc McKenzie
@liberal: Well, I guess we should’ve let ol’ Mohmar keep bombing the s**t out of his own people, right? But then again, it’s all Hillary’s fault. I’m sure the stubbed toe you got this morning is her fault too.
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared: I offered my opinion. Agree or disagree…. I am not going to argue tonight.
Marc McKenzie
@sdhays:
These people talk about President Obama “managing our decline”, but what he’s really doing is demonstrating that the US can achieve its goals without always pointing a gun in people’s face. If that’s “decline”, it’s one we should welcome.
^This. Excellent statement here. I agree–Obama does not get enough credit for his foreign policy, which is much, MUCH better than his predecessor’s shoot-from-the-lip-and-hip nonsense.
And mending relations with Cuba and Iran should be applauded; it’s too bad that the far Right and even a few idiots on the Left keep giving Obama grief about it.
Marc McKenzie
@Amaranthine RBG: Her name is Hillary CLINTON–can you please spell it right? Sheesh.
Marc McKenzie
@efgoldman: SHHHH!! We’re not supposed to mention that, don’t you know?
PJ
@Omnes Omnibus: Everything Bush had been pushing since 9/11 was patent bullshit – what the hell did Iraq have to do with anything, and how was it any kind of threat to the US? Even if they had nuclear weapons (and even Bush didn’t argue that they did), how the hell would they deliver them to the US? I certainly had no doubt that Bush would use the AUMF to go to war when he was ready. And just read Robert Byrd’s arguments against it. Slightly after the fact (late November or early December 2002), I talked to an acquaintance who was fairly high up in the Marine Corps, and I asked him what he thought the chances were that we would go to war. “Chances?” he laughed. “There’s no stopping this train.”
Omnes Omnibus
@PJ: I stated my opinion above. I was okay with Afghanistan, but not Iraq.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not disagreeing. I’m adding my perspective. She took a conservative move on the chess board It didn’t pan out. That is all. You think it was about trust, I think it was because she was boxed in because Bush controlled the intelligence community and therefore the media.
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared: Honestly, i am so knocked off center by the Prince thing that I can’t really argue.
El Caganer
@Marc McKenzie: This is a little strange – you’re the second or third person to bring up the Gaddafi-massacring-his-own-people myth on this thread. That was debunked about five years ago; this is the first time in quite a while I’ve actually run across anybody who still believed it.
Aimai
@liberal: no.
Aimai
@PJ: wrong.
Paul in KY
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: Very sorry to hear that. I’m sure she lived a long, fun life with you & your family.
LanceThruster
Hillary is Skynet. Be warned. That is all.
Paul in KY
@Technocrat: that statement about Trump/Cruz is a complete lie, IMO.
Paul in KY
@BubbaDave: I think they were happy then. We had won a close election over the diabolical Nixon & liberals understood Johnson helped on ticket. He was in the VP position, behind a young, charismatic Liberal. In 61/62, things were great!
Paul in KY
@Aimai: Weak sauce, Aimai. She knew or should have known that Cheney/Dubya were itching to get some OK/rationale to go to war with Iraq. She also should have known how crazy that was.
I think she did it for political expediency & probably, having a lot of Jewish constituents, was lobbied hard by them to do it. IMO, she should have resisted those urges & voted against.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: You were really, really stupid back then (on that issue).
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: I was fine with Afghanistan too. I wanted OBL’s head on a pike. Iraq was completely illegal/stupid/wasteful, etc.
Technocrat
@Paul in KY:
I was trying to be sarcastic (hence the “theocracy and purges part”), but I am regretting the failed attempt.
Paul in KY
@Technocrat: Didn’t mean you were lying, just that the Times (whomever wrote it) was lying & if Cruz/Trump had said stuff about staying out of Mid East, that they were lying too.
I think I skimmed it too much to even see the ‘theocracy & purges part’ :-)
Barbara
I posted this at NYT, but here is how I view this:
You should read the latest Andrew Bacevich work on America’s military strategy, or at least a review of it in last week’s Book Review, before judging Hillary Clinton. Because Clinton was recently SOS, there is a lot of material to draw on showing how she views military power, but what is missing is an acknowledgement that she and Obama are in step with what has been the long time de facto American position — where the distinctions are whether you are a hawk, a real hawk, or nothing but a hawk. This position is maddeningly entrenched by a host of forces, e.g., contractors who are financially benefited by it, and military commanders themselves. There is also the persistent use of “being strong” as a wedge issue against any Democratic candidate (e.g., Dukakis) or president — Carterizing, you might call it — who even looks like he might draw back and turn us into a bunch of peaceniks. You might expect this to be especially true for a female Democratic candidate (which is why Patricia Schroeder cited her service on the Armed Services committee when she considered running for president). But the worst thing I have heard so far this primary season, is Donald Trump’s disastrous endorsement of turning the American military into a military for hire by anyone willing to pay for our protection. As a nation, we the people need to figure out a way to move all politicians away from seeing our military as a primary means of solving problems.
I also happen to believe that Clinton “seems” more hawkish the same way people perceive that she is shouting when she is speaking no more loudly than the man next to her. And, sadly, I think Sanders would be pressured to be more like everyone else, including Clinton, if he were to actually become president. This is where Washington really does live in a bubble of military contractors and think tanks and people like the Kagans. They all love them a big piece of our national economy to play with as they please.
Revrick
If we ever want a woman President, it will be Hillary. Period. Or we might never have one.
Why?
Hillary reflects all the constraints white male supremacy puts on women seeking a promotion, and the Presidency is the ultimate promotion.
There’s a lot of research out there that illustrates the damned if you do, damned if you don’t rules for women leaders.
First, she must be tough. No women will ever be elected President if she doesn’t sound like one tough hombre, especially with regard to military and foreign policy. Women are supposed to be soft, but any sign of softness would be fatal.
Second, she must be super qualified, showing a wide variety of skills, such as leading a health care task force and being a Senator and being Secretary of State. Of course, this means, inevitably, that her hands will get dirty, which is a no-no for women. Women are supposed to be pure and holy, and if they aren’t the fury button gets pushed.
Third, she must speak forcefully. But women are supposed to be soft-spoken, and if she isn’t she’s a bitch.
Fourth, she must be authentic. But women are judged so many ways, that any woman who jumps into this arena had best be wary of the 50,000 pitfalls in her path.
Fifth through 695th, I’m a guy. this is beyond my ken. But I’m sure any woman, who by definition has put up with our white male shit from the day of her birth, can fill in all the excruciating rules that put women in double binds all the time.
Oh, and I don’t believe for one minute those who say I won’t vote for Hillary, but I would for Elizabeth Warren. For one thing, you don’t think Elizabeth Warren hasn’t been watching the hell Hillary’s been put through? For another, Elizabeth has been on this planet long enough to know that there would be plenty lined up to disqualify her for some damn reason.
tweedstereo
@efgoldman: RE: VT single-payer…Peter Shumlin is what happened to it.
Miss Bianca
@Ferd of the Nort: Way late, you’re probably not even here, but OMG…so sorry! What a nightmare! Hope she turns out OK.
Paul in KY
@Ferd of the Nort: Man, didn’t even see this! Hope everything turns out for best. Say hello to Santa for me!
Elie
@Revrick:
So true — so very true — every word…
Marjowil
@PJ: Um, that means two-thirds of the House and three-fourths of the Senate voted FOR it. I mean, I’m not that great at math, but seemingly she voted with the majority. I am no fan of the Iraq war, but at the time, there was kind of a willingness to trust that the President knew stuff we didn’t know. I’m sick of hearing about how she voted for it. Let’s move on.
Marjowil
@Revrick: THANK YOU
nutella
@Revrick:
Yep, the old “I can’t vote for the woman who is actually running but FOR SURE I would vote for this other woman over here.” dodge. If Warren had run the same people would be just as sorrowfully reluctant to vote for her.