Clinton and Iraq; Again

Okay. In October of 2003 I went to the New American Strategies for Peace and Security Conference. A widish range of views was represented there, but it was a basically anti-war group." Great damage was done to America's own security and to the fabric of multilateral cooperation by the manner in which the United States pursued virtually unilateral war in Iraq," said the mission statement, "While the immediate war aim of overthrowing Saddam Hussein succeeded, the collateral damage was immense, and it continues." In short, a speech before this group would have been a good time for a US Senator who'd seemingly voted in favor of the war a year ealier to clarify that she thought invading Iraq had been a mistake.

If you read the speech Senator Hillary Clinton actually gave, I think you'll see that's not what happened. She criticized many aspects of the Bush administration's conduct of the war, voiced support for the basic mission ("we seek to build democratic institutions in Iraq"), and certainly didn't say anything that would tend to contradict one's basic intuition that the pro-war vote was a pro-war vote. And on some level, I think she deserves credit for all that. It's easy to go into a room and tell people what they want to hear, but she didn't.

Comments

Yawn. The amount of journalistic- and blog-attaention devoted recently to interminable-and-excruciatingly-detailed-parsing-of-every-word-Hilary's-ever-uttered-on-the-topic-of-Iraq seems, to me, matched in sheer circle-jerkularity only by Congress's interminable-and-excruciatingly-detailed-debate-of-nonbinding-resolutions-on-the-topic-of-Iraq.

Reading this post, all I can think is, it'd be nice if someone in Washington or the media had the brass to stand up and actually put some weight into advocating withdrawal from Iraq, instead of writing dissertation-level analysis of what Hilary might have implied in a speech three years ago.

Posted by James Gary | February 13, 2007 3:45 PM

"And on some level, I think she deserves credit for all that. It's easy to go into a room and tell people what they want to hear, but she didn't."

But on another level, I'd rather she was right than courageously wrong . . .

Posted by rea | February 13, 2007 3:49 PM

From various speeches she's given it's obvious she had a nuanced position. She supported war as a last resort if inspections failed and we had a meaningful coalition. Unfortunately in today's sound bite media environment there is little room for a nuanced positions. For/against is the only position they accept as credible. They have been trained like trained seals by Bush and have internalized GOP talking points.

Posted by DonB | February 13, 2007 3:50 PM

At one point did "nuance" come to mean "amorphous"? Inspections didn't fail and we didn't have a meaningful coalition. I take MY's point to be that the speech to which he points would have been a perfect opportunity to point out that we shouldn't have gone in as the preconditions she believed were required to justify such an act hadn't been met. But other than that, yeah, we're totally trained seals.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 13, 2007 3:53 PM

Ok, I actually agreed with HRC's vote on the war. While the war was a disaster, I don't blame her for voting for it or even for saying you don't get do-overs and refusing to recant (for all the reasons readers here know and loathe). What really annoys me though, as Matt points out, is that she now says she was never in favor of it in the first place. Really, this brings us right back to "it depends what the meaning of is is". It feeds right into the worry that the Clintons are just incredibly manipulative; not exactly lying as much as stretching the literal truth to breaking point-- you can never trust them; all principles are negotiable, etc. I have real doubts that the American people are ready for more of this nonsense. I guess you could call me a liberal hawk and I'm more towards Obama than her b/c of this. I'm just one person but I suspect her manipulative script will prove trouble for her down the road.

Posted by pt | February 13, 2007 4:03 PM

"What really annoys me though, as Matt points out, is that she now says she was never in favor of it in the first place."

Or so the current press narrative goes. Frankly, I can't even find any instances where she's even comes close to actually implying that she was never in favor of it--even THAT seems too specific.

I agree with you, pt, but I know of no instances of HRC presenting ANY arguable position on Iraq-past, present, or future. Except for the hard fact that she's on record as voting for the war, it's been all "nuance" with HRC (and everyone else) for the last four years.

Posted by James Gary | February 13, 2007 4:16 PM

James Gray, you're right. She says that she was right (given the info she had) to vote for the IWR in October 2002. She says that Bush was wrong to begin the war in March 2003. She simply does not mention that she used to (in 2003 and 2004) think Bush was not wrong to start the war!

Posted by Cavalier | February 13, 2007 4:53 PM

Before the vote on the Iraqi war resolution, HRC said that she was voting to get the inspectors back into Iraq, to get the United Nations behind us, and that she assumed that war would be the very last resort. Unfortunately, the resolution she voted for said none of that. GW Bush was allowed to start a war on his own whim. She voted for the war resolution because she afraid not to. That's why I wont' support her or Edwards unless they win the nomination.

Posted by Marvyt | February 13, 2007 4:57 PM

In claiming that her vote to give the President carte blanche to invade Iraq was not really a vote to give the President carte blanche to invade Iraq, Hillary attempts to add conditions and provisos to the legislative authorization to use force that simply are not there. It is not "nuance" for Hillary to claim that you authorized a President who was dead set on war to wage that war but somehow did it with her fingers crossed. It's just plain dishonest. And it is dishonesty in the service of covering for a lack of judgment in the first place.

Posted by Sebastian Dangerfield | February 13, 2007 5:17 PM

Perhaps the explanation is not too complicated. She knew when she cast her vote that she was granting Bush authority to launch a war against Iraq; she supported the war and spoke favorably about the war when it was not an obvious disaster, with a quibble here and there; and finally, now that it is an unmitigated disaster for all to see, she blames the execution, not the launching, of the war. She is, from all appearances, someone who believed war was justified under the rationale offered by Bush. If that is the position you can support, she is your candidate. If not, look elsewhere.

Posted by dmh | February 13, 2007 5:32 PM

Um.

I can't find those quotes in the speech you link to.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | February 13, 2007 5:35 PM

Who are you addressing, Nicholas? AFAIK, Yglesias only referenced one quotation from the speech to which he links, and--unless I have some sort of pro-MY Firefox bug--it's there.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 13, 2007 5:41 PM

unless I have some sort of pro-MY Firefox bug--it's there.

It's not a bug; it's a feature.

Posted by dj moonbat | February 13, 2007 6:18 PM

Well blow me down. HRC goes in front of a group she thinks she can just blow off and "courageously" delivers the speech she thinks will appeal to the military-industrial complex.

Well, I'll give her credit- for using one of the oldest tricks in the book. She still thought there was no point in lying down before the steamroller of Glorious American Victory, and that anybody worrying about collateral damage was just a nattering nabob of negativity. Like any good parent, she's ready to tell people she disagrees with them when she thinks there's nothing they can do about it.

Now, can anyone find a case where she courageously disagreed with the majority? That would earn her a credit of an entirely different type.

Posted by serial catowner | February 13, 2007 6:59 PM

Now, can anyone find a case where she courageously disagreed with the majority?

There was that time most of America thought Bill getting his pole smoked was no big deal.

Posted by dj moonbat | February 13, 2007 7:30 PM

Nice.......

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 13, 2007 7:33 PM

I don't know where the extra periods came from.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 13, 2007 7:36 PM

MY: "she thought invading Iraq had been a mistake.

If you read the speech Senator Hillary Clinton actually gave, I think you'll see that's not what happened. She criticized many aspects of the Bush administration's conduct of the war, voiced support for the basic mission ("we seek to build democratic institutions in Iraq"), and certainly didn't say anything that would tend to contradict one's basic intuition that the pro-war vote was a pro-war vote."

Clearly MY's basic intuition is not worth paying attention to here:

Clinton: "But the fact is that new doctrines and actions by the Bush Administration undermine these core democratic principles - both at home and abroad. I believe they do so at a severe cost.

In our efforts abroad, we now go to war as a first resort against perceived threats, not as a necessary final resort. [Which she had said was bad when casting her vote. Goes on to discuss a lot of other bad stuff obviously considered bad]."

MY wants Clinton to publicly rend her garments and give the Republican nominee in '08 a nice soundbite to run against her, and he's apparently willing to abandon his ability to read to make his case. She's a left/center politician running for office in a sadly conservative country and she's had to be careful and chary - recognizing that is just being reality-based.

Posted by rilkefan | February 13, 2007 8:01 PM

Hillary talks out of both sides of her mouth

I saw Hillary Clinton’s DNC speech on C-span where she said if she was President we would have not gone to war in Iraq. Hillary and her husband had more information about why we shouldn’t have gone to war than any other Senator or Congressman.

Why did Clinton vote for a war she did not support? And if she voted for the war because of WMDs, had we found them, how would anything be any different in Iraq? If Hillary supports attacking Countries over WMDs, does she want to attack North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Syria…?

Posted by John Konop | February 13, 2007 8:02 PM

The naivete of Hillary supporters astounds me. 90% of Democrats dissaprove of the war. 63% of all Americans think Congress should set a withdrawal date. Obama's polling shot up like a rocket when he announced a withdrawal plan. If Hillary wants any shot of winning this primary she needs to go left and she needs to go left hard.

The Democratic base is unbelievably fired up and pissed. You are fooling yourself if you think it won't demand absolute fealty on Iraq. In six months, no candidate is going to have a shot unless a central plank of their platform is the immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Period. Anything less, you lose.

If Hillary is smart, she will stop talking about her support for starting the war and outflank Obama and Edwards on ending it. People care more about 2007 then 2003. They will forgive her vote then if she shows leadership now.

Posted by owenz | February 13, 2007 8:27 PM

People analyze her vote as if it had something to do with believing the war was justified. It made no sense, and her persistent cheerleading made no sense, and her attempts to re-spin history make no sense, but only if you try to analyze it as if the vote actually had to do with her beliefs.

Analyze it in terms of what seemed, at any given moment, to best preserve political viability, and it all makes complete sense.

She can't admit she was wrong and made a mistake. If she does, Obama gets to say "I could see that Bush was lying at the time. Why couldn't Hillary?"

Posted by goawayhillary | February 13, 2007 8:30 PM

The Democratic base is unbelievably fired up and pissed. You are fooling yourself if you think it won't demand absolute fealty on Iraq.

You are talking about primary voters, party loyalists, apparatchics. A lot, (most) are minor functionaries or wannabe's who worked for her husband at some level or another.

Posted by Ed Marshall | February 13, 2007 8:58 PM

She's a left/center politician running for office in a sadly conservative country and she's had to be careful and chary - recognizing that is just being reality-based.

Great, then the party as a whole will recognize that and nominate her. People will continue to ask her to justify her position, she'll ignore them because she knows that discretion is the better part of valor, and she'll still win. Everything works as it's supposed to work.

Or someone else will get the nomination, and then either win the Presidency or lose for reasons other than his position on the war. We'll have to wait and see. That's why they play the games.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 13, 2007 9:05 PM

You have to make some allowances, in a democracy, for politicians to take positions that are hemmed in by the range of everyone else's opinions. We all know Hillary moved to the center in the Senate, and we all know why. She did essentially the same thing Barack Obama did in law school. Any critique of her position on Iraq in 2002-3 should take into account the fact that, as a woman universally despised by the base of the party then in power, she had to move aggressively to the center if she wanted to actually accomplish anything in the Senate, rather than just serving out her time as an emotionally satisfying outlet for liberal New Yorkers -- the new Bella Abzug.

The legit grounds for criticism of Hillary run deeper: does what she said about Iraq at the time indicate that she's insecure enough in her grasp of foreign-policy issues that she can easily be swayed by a militarist consensus? This would probably not be too much of a problem in a Democratic administration. But the anxiety about a liberal woman President is that she would have to bomb somebody just to prove she's as tough as any guy in the house. That's why it is worth looking at how she's spoken about Iraq. Personally, I think she's smart, I largely agree with what she's said on Iraq, and I think she'd do fine. Perhaps more important, I think that if you're looking for someone who understands how to reverse the institutional impact of the Bush years - how to undo the politicization of the civil service and executive branch, how to change the nature of government - then she is probably a much smarter candidate to back than someone like Edwards.

Posted by mattsteinglass | February 13, 2007 9:55 PM

Rather than continued parsing of Hillary's non-positions on Iraq, please write about the concept of a WAR TAX -- a one-time surtax on upper incomes with an EXEMPTION for taxpayers with family serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Either repealing the AUMF or somehow "defunding" the Occupation of Iraq are actions which would feed right-wing paranoia about "second guessing the Commander-in-Chief." The War Tax concept is a better strategy because it shifts the agenda away from hyperventilation about Democrats' supposed "DISLOYALTY" and onto the more favorable ground of the Republicans' GREED and SELFISHNESS.

The Republicans will throw a fit about any attempt to raise revenue to pay for the war, but the Democrats can defend it because our all volunteer military results in sending the SAME soldiers to Iraq OVER and OVER and OVER. Those of us not serving, just get to keep shopping. Instead of trying the "backseat driving" approach, why not just hand the country the tax bill for the ongoing Occupation?

Posted by STS | February 13, 2007 10:24 PM

We all know Hillary moved to the center in the Senate, and we all know why. She did essentially the same thing Barack Obama did in law school. Any critique of her position on Iraq in 2002-3 should take into account the fact that, as a woman universally despised by the base of the party then in power, she had to move aggressively to the center if she wanted to actually accomplish anything in the Senate, rather than just serving out her time as an emotionally satisfying outlet for liberal New Yorkers -- the new Bella Abzug.

Unbelievable. We now see that careerism in law school (I'm going to assume your characterization of Obama is correct) should be judged the same as careerism in the Senate when voting on a war. That Sens. Stabenow and Boxer are little more than emotionally satisfying outlets for liberals (let's let the characterization of Abzug stand). That the advisers who went after the anti-war folk, and those who briefed her Iraq War vote, are nothing to worry about; there's no chance that her success will mean that people working for her now will work in the White House, because that never happens.

BTW, does this rule of careerism apply to Presidents, too? There are people who argue that there were political considerations that made a war attractive to Bush (Card on "rollout," etc.). Does he get a pass if he was just trying to guarantee a second term, so that he wouldn't be a pointless one-termer? What about McCain, Giuliani, etc.? If you want the Republican nod, you have to support the war. Heck, you have to support various v. conservative social positions. But we should ignore that, right? Because any critique has to take into account that such is the cost of getting ahead in the Republican Party.

Gawd, I hope HRC runs with the "you people are being naive and silly" approach to people who distrust her on FP. Nothing is likely to placate the anti-war base like being told that they're not "serious" enough about the "real world" by the same people who made the same argument about support for Iraq the first time around. That'll argument will bring out the smiles and hugs for sure.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 13, 2007 10:38 PM

I guess they're right: there's no more point talking about Hillary's stance on the war. The war was an act of monumental idiocy. No question. But if you were looking for someone to stand out from the crowd in the fall of 2002 and oppose it, that someone was not going to be Hillary Clinton, for obvious reasons. She came with baggage, and that baggage limned her freedom to act. I am concerned about what a Clinton presidency would mean, because I am concerned about the implications of the baggage she carries. But the personal tone of outrage against her seems to me extremely misplaced. She, like Obama, is a politician. Obama has a vast freedom to act because of his freshness and because, just being who he is (in addition to his own exceptional political and oratorical talents), he comes virtually baggage-free. That, to my mind, is the exceptional strength of his candidacy. But Hillary Clinton is a very impressive and sympathetic person who has been put in a very tight bind by historical circumstances and has done extraordinarily well at working herself out of it.

Posted by mattsteinglass | February 13, 2007 11:10 PM

Incidentally, I dispute your characterization of either Obama's stances in law school or Hillary's stances in the Senate as "careerism". Politicians are leaders who assemble coalitions of people to do things. They are not just people who state opinions -- that role is reserved for bloggers. The opinions a politician embraces, and his/her way of phrasing them, are part of an activity of political organization and mobilization. Politicians are not free to just say whatever they think; they have to be responsive to the community. Obama could have simply backed Derrick Bell's strike over minority hiring at Harvard Law; that wouldn't have accomplished anything, and Derrick Bell is no longer a professor at Harvard Law. Instead Obama learned how to bridge sharply divided communities of opinion; he learned how to become a politician and a leader. We would all be much poorer without such "careerism", as we would not have Barack Obama.

Posted by mattsteinglass | February 13, 2007 11:21 PM

"But Hillary Clinton is a very impressive and sympathetic person who has been put in a very tight bind by historical circumstances and has done extraordinarily well at working herself out of it."

Exactly what "historical circumstances" are you referring to? Being Bill Clinton's wife means she's excused for supporting the Iraq war?

Posted by James Gary | February 13, 2007 11:25 PM

I think I would characterize it more as being accused for 10 years by the right wing of being a Communist lesbian man-hating real-estate crook -- and, worse, an atheist. Barbara Boxer did not have similar negatives to overcome in the newly GOP Senate in 2002. You don't want to vote for Hillary, fine; I don't think I will (except as Senator, where I have, twice). But I don't see the point of spending time slamming her. It's a self-defeating move on Democrats' part.

Posted by mattsteinglass | February 13, 2007 11:39 PM

"We would all be much poorer without such "careerism", as we would not have Barack Obama."

In a similar way, Werner von Braun "bridged sharply divided communities of opinion" during the years 1933-45 and went on to lead the U.S. space program. To suggest that political necessity excused "going along to get along" on the Iraq war is truly Kissingerian in its scope. I, personally, am looking to vote for a candidate who has, as they used to say, the courage of his convictions.

Posted by James Gary | February 13, 2007 11:40 PM

Politicians are leaders who assemble coalitions of people to do things. They are not just people who state opinions

And? What exactly was she assembling a coalition to do that was worth American lives, a trillion plus in treasure, and all manner of foreign policy messes for the future? I hope it's more than a rest area named after herself on a turnpike. I suspect she voted as she did because thought it would be a smart move if she were to run for President. She guessed wrong.

It's a self-defeating move on Democrats' part.

Not if we don't nominate her. Not if she's forced to change advisers.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 13, 2007 11:49 PM

Sorry...did Braun become a leader of German Jews? Or Communists? Or social democrats? I'm confused here. I thought he just built rockets, and didn't have to bridge any communities of opinion.

In any case, Godwin's Law. And as for Kissinger, I think if you look back at 1968, you will find a lot of politicians you admire who backed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, and were still defending their vote, in the face of murderous campaigns by US troops in South Vietnam that were far worse than anything the US has done in Iraq. Say, Hubert Humphrey. Or LBJ himself.

Posted by mattsteinglass | February 13, 2007 11:52 PM

Not if we don't nominate her. Not if she's forced to change advisers.

I think these goals are legit, but the tone of the criticism is not productive. The media and the GOP are both slavering at the prospect of an internecine Democratic fight over who was for the war and who was against it, when. I was against it all the way and have no self-interest involved when I say that Democrats would be chumps to let that fight develop. We need to assure ourselves that future policy will reverse militarism, but we don't need to do it through a purge.

Posted by mattsteinglass | February 13, 2007 11:58 PM

"Sorry...did Braun become a leader of German Jews? Or Communists? Or social democrats? I'm confused here. I thought he just built rockets, and didn't have to bridge any communities of opinion."

Sorry, weak analogy. How about this: "Benito Mussolini "bridged sharply divided communities of opinion" during the the early 1920s, and then went on to "assemble coalitions of people to do things" as "part of an activity of political organization and mobilization."

Posted by James Gary | February 14, 2007 12:00 AM

Well, is that true? I thought fascist politicians tended to be the type who aggravated sharply divided communities of opinion, and then staged putsches and silenced the opposition, ultimately building up mass public unanimous support through personality cults and persecution of dissent. Which doesn't sound much like Obama or Hillary to me. Some US politicians may fall into the category, but neither of them.

Posted by mattsteinglass | February 14, 2007 12:10 AM

SCMT: "Great, then the party as a whole will recognize that and nominate her."

One concern among many - like what the misogyny vs. racism factor is, who's better organized, ...

"People will continue to ask her to justify her position"

"People"? Maybe fringe lefty Naderites will hound the Democratic nominee facing Giuliani or whoever.

"she'll ignore them because she knows that discretion is the better part of valor, and she'll still win. Everything works as it's supposed to work."

MY losing his ability to read and see shades of gray and going all monomaniacal is not how things are supposed to work.

Posted by rilkefan | February 14, 2007 1:16 AM

Y losing his ability to read and see shades of gray and going all monomaniacal is not how things are supposed to work.

If all she offers is shades of gray, it's fair to to try and sort out under which conditions she'd see white, and under which conditions she'd see black. Apparently you're willing to take the whole thing on faith. I'd have thought HRC's apparent experience of expectation on Iraq and betrayal would have taught her supporters something, but whatever. Faith is faith. Fair enough. You're decision's easy--HRC. Others want more.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 14, 2007 1:38 AM

Insofar as one is trying to assess what a candidate is likely to do in office, what are we supposed to base those assessments on other than (primarily) their past actions and (secondarily) their statements explaining those actions? I guess one answer is to look at other factors which might explain those actions but which the candidate wouldn't want to acknowledge, and discount the value given to their public statements accordingly, but that's really hard to know how to do in any way that isn't likely to just introduce greater error into your assessments.

Posted by washerdreyer | February 14, 2007 2:08 AM

And because she didn't, the leftwing nutosphere will continue to pillar her and make the Repugs job all that much easier come 2008? You guys ready for President McCain? Sure sounds like it. I am continually amazed by ALL the people who knew this war would go so badly... and were willing to say so in 2003!

Posted by Luigi | February 14, 2007 8:58 AM

"I think she deserves credit for all that. It's easy to go into a room and tell people what they want to hear, but she didn't."

Parole Board chairman: You're not just telling us what we want to hear?
H.I.: No, sir, no way.
Parole Board member: 'Cause we just want to hear the truth.
H.I.: Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.
Parole Board chairman: Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?
H.I.: Yes, sir.
Parole Board chairman: Okay, then.

Clinton wants to retain her stature with the "export democracy using force" crowd. That's all well and good, and it's nice that she doesn't "pander to the anti-war crowd", but at the end of the day, I'd prefer somebody who shared my belief that exporting democracy via the application of military force is a horribly wrongheaded notion, which ought to have been thoroughly discredited by now. I would prefer to see the US return to a "peace dividend" frame of mind, as opposed to the policies of her husband, which included a lot of military intervention and the dubious implication that "regime change" is a legitimate policy goal for a nation not at war.

Posted by RickD | February 14, 2007 9:33 AM

I am continually amazed by ALL the people who knew this war would go so badly... and were willing to say so in 2003!

In fact, it would have been a bad idea even if it hadn't gone quite this badly. This one was a gimmee.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 14, 2007 9:40 AM

It is almost entertaining to watch Hillary supporters here hop from foot to foot trying alternatively to deny the existence of Hillary's support for the war ("yes she voted to authorize the president to go to war, but didn't you notice her signing statement?"), explain away that support with fibs and non sequiturs ("Hillary's support for the war resolution made sense at the time; don't hold it against her that she was duped; and in any event she wouldn't have gone to war if she had been president"), and ultimately it seems attempting to argue "yes it was political calculation, yes that calculation proved to be short-sighted in retrospect, but we should all cut her slack knowing that she was hemmed in by political realities -- to wit, the right's campaign to tar her as a patchouli-soaked hippie peacenik -- making it necessary for her to vote that way." The latter-most rationalization (and yes I know I am paraphrasing freely) has at least the virtue of honesty about it, but it has far more weighty vices, not the least of which are: (a) it suggests that we should support a candidate who voted against our interests on the most important issue to come before her during her Senate career, and who did so because she felt compelled to vote the wrong way on account of the way that her enemies portray her, on the faith that such a habit will evaporate should she become president; (b) it rewards those enemies; it does not defeat them; (c) it mreo broadly rewards and therefore perpetuates decisionmaking based on nothing more than political calculations (and poor ones to boot) rather than principle.

Posted by Sebastian Dangerfield | February 14, 2007 10:29 AM

Sebastian, I agree on a, b, and c, with the caveat that re: a, I would not actually suggest that we should back Hillary in the primaries. I just don't think we should excoriate her or impugn her honesty. I think all your concerns are solid, and that one major strike against Hillary is that her history and public persona would limit her freedom of action as President.

On the other hand, one thing we do know about Hillary, by now, is that she is tough as nails, and never gives up.

Posted by mattsteinglass | February 14, 2007 12:00 PM

SCMT: "You're decision's easy--HRC"

I'm not a supporter of HRC, except as the Democratic nominee. Even if I thought she had the talent to be the best president, her divisiveness and the dynasty problem would outweigh that. I'll send (more) money to Clark if he runs. If not, I'll probably vote for Obama (esp. if he doesn't keep whacking liberals on religion and the war and money for teachers). But I have the ability to read a speech from her and understand it despite that.

Posted by rilkefan | February 14, 2007 12:16 PM

Since no improvement is being made on the Iraq War, we need to spend our resources on other issues such as global poverty in order to discourage more terrorism and wars. According to the Borgen Project, in reality only .16% of our federal budget is spent on poverty reduction, the least among wealthy nations. We should let our representatives know that we want change.

Posted by marie2 | February 14, 2007 12:46 PM