One of the strangest elements of this campaign has been that Hillary Clinton has put special emphasis on the idea that she's the candidate of experience with regard to foreign policy matters, even though most accounts of the Clinton administration seem to indicate that this was the part of her husband's administration she was least involved with. The one concrete example of involvement in foreign policymaking she's really given relates to the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland, but she seems to be lying about this:
Hillary Clinton had no direct role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and is a "wee bit silly" for exaggerating the part she played, according to Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of the province.
George Mitchell, too, has tended to contradict Clinton's claims on this score.
UPDATE: Chicago Tribune takes a broader look at Clinton's claims of foreign policy experience and finds it to be mostly flim-flam. It's not just that it's false, in general, that she has a lot of experience in this field, but her campaign actually puts out specific examples of things she did while First Lady that, upon examination, turn out not to hold up.
Josh Marshall says "she doesn't need to be a seasoned foreign policy hand. But she's setting herself up for a fall when she claims to be." Right. Clinton would, like Barack Obama, and most modern presidents (Ike, Nixon, and GHWB being the big counterexamples) have little experience with running foreign policy. But she feels compelled to lie about it.
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Heads in the Sand
Matt, take a deep breath. Clinton and Obama are really not that far apart on most policy issues.
I'm an Obama supporter too, and I am irritated enough with Hillary to agree with a lot of what Jon Chait wrote today. But let's be serious, here.
Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | March 7, 2008 7:40 PM