It's the War

And, yes, to echo Atrios the tendency of many analysts to somehow forget about Iraq when talking about how Obama managed to topple the Clinton machine is pretty bizarre. Clearly, Iraq alone wasn't enough to carry Obama to victory. But had Clinton voted against the war in 2002 there would have been no Obama challenge -- it would have been a senseless and absurd thing to do. In short -- no war, no Obama.

Denying this reality seems to be part of the continuing hawk effort to avoid any accountability for the war. At the end of the day, Hillary Clinton had (and has) much more credibility with the liberal base than does the average person who shares her position on the war. If she can be held accountable, and if John McCain (until very recently the most popular politician in America) can be held accountable, then the sky's the limit.

Comments

But had Clinton voted against the war in 2002 there would have been no Obama challenge

Yes, this is obviously true. The more interesting question is whether Clinton could have diffused the issue a year ago by the proper acknowledgment of error, contrition, lessons learned, etc. I think that would have been enough to diffuse the Obama challenge.

There was a long article in the Boston Globe this morning about what went wrong in the Clinton campaign, and absolutely no mention of the war. It really is bizarre.

Posted by Jim W | June 4, 2008 10:53 AM

In order:
1. She voted for the Iraq Resolution and supported the Iraq Invasion and never acknowledged that the Iraq Invasion was a horrible decision and she failed to learn from the Iraq Invasion by voting for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment.
2. She aligned herself with establishment party types (Terry McAuliffe) and that's not where the party's going right now (e.g., Howard Dean's successful 50 state strategy vs. Rahm Emmanuel's same ol' same ol' network). She's the big money candidate. It's all about internet grass roots and a lot of small donations right now--at least in the primaries (which is a good thing).
3. She and her team went barking mad when the above two reason's, in contrast to Obama's, cast her electoral fate.

These are the Bigass Reasons why Hillary lost.

Now she either needs to shake Obama's hand (firmly, while looking him in the eye) and congratulate him on winning the nomination and a great race then get to the business of helping him beat McCain and being a powerful Senator, or defect to fucking Uzbekistan.

Posted by ed | June 4, 2008 10:55 AM

Give Tweetie credit here. Chris Matthews makes this point regularly -- as he put it the other day, Hillary's fundamental mistake wasn't political, it was on policy: voting for the war simply put her out of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Nothing she could do tactically could ever make up for that point.

Posted by Egypt Steve | June 4, 2008 10:57 AM

I still believe Hillary will be the nominee.

Posted by Tim K | June 4, 2008 10:57 AM

In fairness, Matthews mentions it nearly every time he discusses this.

Posted by TDE | June 4, 2008 11:02 AM

Watching David Gregory several times w/ other journos discuss Obama's VP possibilities.

Gregory and the others regularly insist Obama shoud nominate various pro war Dems on the list.

They never suggest McCain should nominate an anti war Republican, for balance.

This is just one example of the MSM media according default respect for McCain's pro war stance above majority opinion.

Posted by Comment | June 4, 2008 11:06 AM

Tweetie does deserve credit - partially. We took him to task over his Alinsky lie (part of his own faux-populism), but he does point this out.

Obama would not have run if there was no war - He would not have had an opening rational. He would not have been able to get any traction early on.

Also - when Obama first denounced the ideolgues in his now famous speech, he was not regarded as insigntfull.

But Matthews only blames the neocons in the context of defending Bush's "good intentions" and "good heart" being misled by Wolfowitz &Co.

This is a tempting thesis - But not factual - Bush used the neocons more than they used them. He knew who they were well before he hired them.

Posted by Comment | June 4, 2008 11:13 AM

Obama supporters are out of their minds. Hillary Clinton will never concede the race and call his supporters friends. Hillary Clinton will never endorse Barack Obama or will work to help elect him president. She has earned the right to decide whether or not she'll do that. Barack Obama said that himself: "At a time and place of her choosing" were his words. Why can't Obama and his supporters accept that if she decides not to she doesn't have to?

Posted by Tim K | June 4, 2008 11:18 AM

Obama supporters are out of their minds. Hillary Clinton will never concede the race and call his supporters friends. Hillary Clinton will never endorse Barack Obama or will work to help elect him president. She has earned the right to decide whether or not she'll do that. Barack Obama said that himself: "At a time and place of her choosing" were his words. Why can't Obama and his supporters accept that if she decides not to she doesn't have to?

Posted by Tim K | June 4, 2008 11:18 AM

Is it fair to say that from an Obama for President perspective, Hillary is now Iran to John McCain's Cold War Soviet Union???

She can harass, distract, distort, and even occasionally prick the superpower, but only McCain possesses the capability to destroy it...

Posted by Dan K | June 4, 2008 11:21 AM

Also - along the same lines - McCain's effort to claim his (somewhat bogus) denunciation of Rumsfeld means he had diffferent position on the war.

In other words - the media often collaborates on the false collusion/confusion of being against the Iraq Vs being against Bush's way of fighting it.

Posted by Comment | June 4, 2008 11:32 AM

Obama would have run anyway. His realistic goal would have been shooting for the VP spot, or simply name recognition for a 2012 or 2016 run, but he would have run.

Posted by DanF | June 4, 2008 11:33 AM

Oh come now!

If people could be held accountable for the Iraq War, then most of the current media would be flipping hamburgers.

Remember. Dan Rather can loose his job; Bill Maher his, and Phil Donahue can be canceled. The Georgetown cocktail party for them, however, goes on.

It's all a big joke; and, hey Matthew, where's your sense of humor. Get with it.

Posted by Duncan Kinder | June 4, 2008 11:33 AM

Well, yes, Tim K, there's a lot of precedent for what you suggest. I mean, we all know that Edwards, Richardson, Biden, and Dodd "will never endorse Obama" and that Huckabee, Romney, et al. "will never endorse" McCain. I mean that's what all these politicians do, hold out even when it's futile and ridiculous, and try to undermine the guy with the most delegates. There's nothing special or unusual about the way Hillary is acting. Is there?

Posted by David in NY | June 4, 2008 11:36 AM

It is bizarre when they do autopsies on HRC's campaign that they forget to mention the war - The war is the biggest reason she lost - She would have wrapped up the nomination in weeks if she had be anti war.

As soon as Hillary voted for the war - I knew almost everyone that supported Hillary at the time making the tradional Dem defensive exuses - 'she had to that' ' she doesn't want to called unpatriotic'

So she was never convincing when she said she expected Bush to use diplomacy since her aides and others all scoffed at that idea.

The media is pro war.

They supported the Iraq war - they regarded dissent as someone who thought a particular military tactic was wrong.

Posted by Comment | June 4, 2008 11:38 AM

I agree with you and Duncan generally, but it should be noted that Tweety has acknowledged this a number of times. Credit where credit is due.

Posted by michael | June 4, 2008 11:40 AM

"But had Clinton voted against the war in 2002 there would have been no Obama challenge -- "

Yes, because it would have been silly to challenge someone who was not a credible contender for president. Obama would have been the front-runner from the start.

As should be obvious by now, anyone who opposed the war and who was in the spotlight was destroyed. The fact that they were right does not mean that they get un-destroyed later. There is no vindication in American politics.

Every prominent Democrat was screwed by that vote. You could vote the right way and be crucified for months in the press, or vote the wrong way and eventually suffer for it later. Clinton had enough advantages that she could probably have pulled off a victory if she were more critical of her "yes" vote, and were not so pro war in her stances since then. Had she voted "no" in 2002, she would not have had a prayer.

Posted by Njorl | June 4, 2008 11:41 AM

While the war is what gave Obama his ticket into the game, I think it's silly to pretend that Hillary would have simply rolled to the nomination otherwise. There's always a front-runner and the other guy. If it wasn't Obama, it likely would have been John Edwards, which would have been an interesting parallel universe campaign where Hillary's support with women and African-Americans battles it out with Edwards white, working-class, male power base. Hillary probably pulls that race out, but it would have been close for a while if Edwards had won Iowa.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | June 4, 2008 11:42 AM

Re: But had Clinton voted against the war in 2002 there would have been no Obama challenge --

Why do you say this? It's not as if Obama is a famed anti-war figure. His foreign policy stances, until rather recently, have been fairly vague and muted. I think you and a lot of people are reading far more into him than is there.

Posted by JonF | June 4, 2008 11:48 AM

"As should be obvious by now, anyone who opposed the war and who was in the spotlight was destroyed. The fact that they were right does not mean that they get un-destroyed later. There is no vindication in American politics."

How would Clinton have been destroyed? Would she have lost her Senate seat? No, just as Boxer didn't in California and Kennedy didn't in Massachusetts.

Posted by Reality Man | June 4, 2008 11:54 AM

Thanks, Reality Man. In fact, 22 different Senators and more than a third of the House voted against the AUMF. I'm not aware than any of them has suffered in the least. And what they said at the time, like what Obama said, was prophetic.

Posted by David in NY | June 4, 2008 12:01 PM

What hurt Hillary more, her Iraq vote, or the vote on the Iran resolution? Pretty hard to walk back from the Iraq vote after you've essentially consented to giving the President the same authority five years later.

Posted by Seitz | June 4, 2008 12:02 PM

Why do you say this? It's not as if Obama is a famed anti-war figure. His foreign policy stances, until rather recently, have been fairly vague and muted. I think you and a lot of people are reading far more into him than is there.

I don't think it's so much that Obama is some hero of the anti-war movement. It's mainly that for a lot of people, myself included, Hillary Clinton disqualified herself from consideration for the nomination by casting those two particular votes. Obama, while not being in the Senate for the first one, and being on the campaign trail for the second, at least spoke out against them at the time.

Her self-disqualification created an opening for someone else. Obama was the beneficiary.

Posted by Hunter H. | June 4, 2008 12:23 PM

Tim,

that's ridiculous, and if HRC had won and Obama hadn't conceded, you'd be sitting your baby blue pantsuit screaming betrayal of the Democratic Party.

Posted by James | June 4, 2008 12:25 PM

I got this right in March 2007 on this very site's comments threads:

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/03/hate_the_sin_hate_the_sins_emp/index.php

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 4, 2008 12:26 PM

One of the prime identifying characteristics of soft-headed partisan analysis is that it always attributes the worst possible motives to those who disagree with the Party Line. It is patently obvious that Hillary, like most of the rest of the huge majority of Congress doing so, voted for the AUF because based on the facts known in 2002 it was the right thing to do. She persisted in her view long after the common wisdom said it was politically expedient to do otherwise, as John "Weasel" Edwards quickly recognized.

Njorl is right for the wrong reasons. Anyone voting in 2002 to cave to Iraq's ongoing challenge to the norms of international conduct, not to mention the vital interests of most of the industrialized world, was going to be damaged goods going forward unless they were from pretty unrepresentative leftist districts, as most of the minority voting against were.

Posted by robert powell | June 4, 2008 12:30 PM

One thing that just occurred to me is that it does seem like Hillary started winning primaries again as soon as Iraq faded from the equation. We haven't heard Obama or Hillary talk about the Iraq vote since February, and since then Hillary's been much more successful. I highly doubt places like South Dakota would've voted for Hillary if the war had still been a major topic of conversation. Why did it go away? I guess because Obama saw no reason to waste his energy attacking Hillary when he had already won, but I think he'd do well to bring it back very quickly to use against McCain.

Posted by Adam | June 4, 2008 12:34 PM

Every prominent Democrat was screwed by that vote. You could vote the right way and be crucified for months in the press, or vote the wrong way and eventually suffer for it later. Clinton had enough advantages that she could probably have pulled off a victory if she were more critical of her "yes" vote, and were not so pro war in her stances since then. Had she voted "no" in 2002, she would not have had a prayer.

I reject this on 2 levels. 1st, as the war went bad, Clinton would have become a hero, just like Al Gore did.

Second, even if it were in some sense true, why, exactly, does that excuse Hillary. Let's say that she stands up and does the right thing, lends her credibility to the anti-war movement (an underappreciated point is how the anti-war movement suffered because the easily demonized far left (ANSWER, for instance), led the demonstrations instead of mainstream Democratic politicians), and loses her Senate seat and her political career. Guess what. It's her JOB to do the right thing, especially when exercising her constitutional power to take this country to war. I don't think voting to send 4,000 people off to die is something that can be excused along these lines. There are some things that are more important than Hillary Clinton's political ambitions-- a lesson that she has hopefully now learned.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 4, 2008 12:36 PM

I definitely concur with Matt on this. If Hillary had voted against the Iraq War in October 2002 she would have easily coasted to victory in Iowa and New Hampshire and then spent the next 5-6 months vetting VP choices. There would have been no oxygen for Obama. If he had decided to run--and I doubt he would have--everyone would have politely listened to him and then voted for Hillary.

It is amazing though that no one in the MSM outside of Chris Matthews ever mentions this obvious fact.

Posted by Moonlight | June 4, 2008 12:38 PM

"Denying this reality seems to be part of the continuing hawk effort to avoid any accountability for the war." Yes, this certainly seems to be the case. That and, as some commenters here have pointed out, the hawks (and their enablers throughout the MSM) are still pro-war.

Posted by bobbo | June 4, 2008 12:44 PM

I'd like to think HRC lost mainly because of her war vote. That's why I didn't support her, at any rate. I'd also like to think that people aren't reading too much into Obama (who, in many ways, remains a very frustrating, and yet inspiring, figure for me).

But people in the blogosphere and in the MSM have gotten so upset and/or outraged about so many stupid, often made-up controversies that it's hard, sometimes, to believe this.

But what the hell. In the spirit of not getting outraged or "concerned" over every little blip on the radar, I declare myself convinced.

Posted by mary | June 4, 2008 12:51 PM

Njorl is right for the wrong reasons. Anyone voting in 2002 to cave to Iraq's ongoing challenge to the norms of international conduct, not to mention the vital interests of most of the industrialized world, was going to be damaged goods going forward unless they were from pretty unrepresentative leftist districts, as most of the minority voting against were.

You know, Al the troll is a lot less tiresome than those of Robert Powell and Chris Ford's ilk. At least Al can be somewhat clever and does not consistently insist that mainstream liberal positions are 'leftist'. Furthermore, he appears at least mildly chastised by the course of actual events and has been willing to walk back some level of support for the Iraq war. But like some undestroyable hyrdra, a new troll emerges to spout the same nonsense in his place. It's one thing to continue arguing that the Iraq war was a good idea in retrospect. But to insist that this point is not only true, but extremely obvious requires a hubris a normal human simply does not possess.

Posted by mpowell | June 4, 2008 12:57 PM

"I reject this on 2 levels. 1st, as the war went bad, Clinton would have become a hero, just like Al Gore did."

Al Gore is a hero to a fairly narrow audience. If he tried to run this time around, he would have been crushed, and he was dismissed as irrelevant at the time. Had Clinton opposed the war on the senate floor, she would be portrayed as weak - a woman incapable of using force. Even as it became clear that the war was a mistake, she would always be a weak woman incapable of using force.

Labels matter. John McCain is still inexplicably a "maverick". Al Gore is still an exaggerator even though every one of those stories has been debunked. Scott Ritter is still a whacko because he claimed Iraq had no WMDs despite being in Iraq and being able to see them for himself. Sure, they didn't have WMDs, but that doesn't mean he's not a whacko.

That's the way it works. You can be praised for being right when everyone else is wrong, but you can never be forgiven for it.

"Second, even if it were in some sense true, why, exactly, does that excuse Hillary. "

Who's saying it does?

Posted by Njorl | June 4, 2008 1:00 PM

FWIW, this is mentioned at NPR (albeit at the end):

http://www.npr.org/watchingwashington/2008/06/who_did_this_to_hillary.html

Posted by matt | June 4, 2008 1:04 PM

Worth keeping in mind that voting against the AUMF in 2002 was hardly a wild-eyed, radical thing to do; while it did indeed pass handily in the Senate, 21 of 50 Democratic senators voted against it. Contrary to my most fevered fantasies, there simply aren't 21 radical leftists in the United States Senate. Most of the 21 nay votes are still in that august body, too; they aren't presidential candidates, no, but they're still among the 100 most powerful politicians in the United States.

Posted by cdc | June 4, 2008 1:52 PM

How would Clinton have been destroyed? Would she have lost her Senate seat? No, just as Boxer didn't in California and Kennedy didn't in Massachusetts.
Posted by Reality Man | June 4, 2008 11:54 AM
________________
Thanks, Reality Man. In fact, 22 different Senators and more than a third of the House voted against the AUMF. I'm not aware than any of them has suffered in the least. And what they said at the time, like what Obama said, was prophetic.
Posted by David in N

Of the 23 Senators voting against the war, only one, Bob Graham had any presidential hopes. The attacks he suffered as a result cut his approval rating in Florida from over 80% to under 50%. He is still primarily known as a weird guy who writes everything in a notebook, despite the things he's accomplished. He retired from the Senate after his failed presidential bid, probably staving off electoral defeat.

Posted by Njorl | June 4, 2008 1:57 PM

Al Gore is a hero to a fairly narrow audience. If he tried to run this time around, he would have been crushed, and he was dismissed as irrelevant at the time. Had Clinton opposed the war on the senate floor, she would be portrayed as weak - a woman incapable of using force.

Njorl-- between 60 and 70 percent of the American public, and a far greater percentage of Democratic primary voters, oppose the war.

Until you get that into your head, you aren't worth arguing with.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 4, 2008 2:14 PM

"Al Gore is a hero to a fairly narrow audience. If he tried to run this time around, he would have been crushed, and he was dismissed as irrelevant at the time. Had Clinton opposed the war on the senate floor, she would be portrayed as weak - a woman incapable of using force. Even as it became clear that the war was a mistake, she would always be a weak woman incapable of using force."

I'm too lazy to look up his favoribility numbers with Democrats right now, so I'm talking out of my ass, but it does seem to me that Gore has gotten more comfortable in his own skin and become the guy we wanted him to be in 2000. If he could have tapped into the anger a lot of us still felt about him being robbed and then having his views vindicated, he could have been a formidable opponent. In addition, he would have robbed Clinton of anything to run on except for gender and appealing to the narrow band of Democrats who still want a hardcore hawk. Clinton ran on experience against a first term Senator and lost. What would she have run on against the former Vice President who should have been President? I just think Gore simply has enjoyed his life not being a politician too much to get back into the electoral game and decided not to run. If he ran, we would likely be seeing a Gore-Obama ticket right about now.

Posted by Reality Man | June 4, 2008 2:16 PM

"Of the 23 Senators voting against the war, only one, Bob Graham had any presidential hopes. The attacks he suffered as a result cut his approval rating in Florida from over 80% to under 50%. He is still primarily known as a weird guy who writes everything in a notebook, despite the things he's accomplished. He retired from the Senate after his failed presidential bid, probably staving off electoral defeat.

Posted by Njorl | June 4, 2008 1:57 PM"

Except that Florida is a purple state. New York is solidly blue. She would have been re-elected no matter what. This war was simply going to go bad without a massive international coalition sending over a massive number of troops, many Arabic speakers, even more money, a whole lot of luck and the entire 101st Poney and Flying Pig Brigade. This was a war doomed to failure on so many levels. The society in Iraq was just too divided to expect such an occupation to go well. Once the war would have gone bad, she would have been vindicated and could have run.

Posted by Reality Man | June 4, 2008 2:22 PM

At the end of the day, Hillary Clinton had (and has) much more credibility with the liberal base than does the average person who shares her position on the war. If she can be held accountable, and if John McCain (until very recently the most popular politician in America) can be held accountable, then the sky's the limit.

You take something that is critical to the Lefty base of Democrats and project it on to the rest of the country and assume they too are as invested in defeat in Iraq as much as Lefties. This is similar to a Republican partisan saying that anyone in their primaries who crossed the Religious Right was held accountable and the Religious Right will be just as big a factor in the general election.

It is bizarre when they do autopsies on HRC's campaign that they forget to mention the war - The war is the biggest reason she lost - She would have wrapped up the nomination in weeks if she had be anti war.

No, if you look at how she was defeated in the delegate race, it was the black voter, not the war, that screwed her. By voting tribally 92% for Obama, blacks ensured Obama won while losing the vote of whites, hispanics, and women - blacks ensured Obama piled up delegates in heavily black states and kept the delegate spread low in states like Texas that Hillary won. They were 33% of registered Democrats.

But they are only 10% of registered voters in the general election.

Secondarily, it was the inspirational speaker (black messiah) effect not just on blacks, but on young upwardly mobile white liberals in the West or living in "safe" places.

The Iraq war has now slipped to the 6th biggest concern of voters, behind such things as the economy, health care, jobs, the energy crisis.

Posted by chris ford | June 4, 2008 2:32 PM

"Njorl-- between 60 and 70 percent of the American public, and a far greater percentage of Democratic primary voters, oppose the war.
Until you get that into your head, you aren't worth arguing with."
Posted by Dilan Esper

I think you have me confused with Robert Powell.

I know most people recognize that the war was a mistake, and I agree. That doesn't mean they won't dislike people who were right about it. Journalists particularly despise anyone who gets something right that they themselves get wrong.

How often do you read the complaint on blogs that those who publicly got the war right are never considered "serious"? Where do you think that comes from?

Posted by Njorl | June 4, 2008 2:59 PM

"Except that Florida is a purple state. New York is solidly blue. She would have been re-elected no matter what. "

She was concerned about the Presidential race, not the Senatorial one.

"Once the war would have gone bad, she would have been vindicated and could have run."

Why do you think vindication happens? I've never seen evidence of it. If anything, people further resent that vindication is due.

Posted by Njorl | June 4, 2008 3:20 PM

Dilan Esper is now a preening asshat.

Posted by Barack Obama | June 4, 2008 4:37 PM

Dilan Esper is now a preening ***hat.

There's a lot of audacity in that comment, but very little hope, Senator.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 4, 2008 4:43 PM

Njorl:

If "toughness" were still the coin of the realm, Clinton would be the nominee right now. It isn't, and she wasn't.

Heck, even in 2004, Howard Dean came pretty close. And Al Gore would have won the nomination hands-down in 2004 (and probably 2008) if he had run.

There's no evidence for this political currency of "toughness" in Democratic PRIMARIES at this point. So Clinton's vote was dumb politically as well as being wrong on the merits (and, of course, the fact that it was wrong on the merits is enough to condemn her to political purgatory for killing over 4,000 brave American servicemembers).

I suspect that in November, we will learn that the currency of toughness in a general election has also dissipated.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 4, 2008 4:48 PM

When is Yglesias going to allow himself to be held accountable on Iran?

Oh, wait, never - since he fucked up on Iraq.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 4, 2008 5:21 PM

While Hillary should have done the right thing regardless of the political consequences (and I think we all agree on that), there really wasn't any guarantee in 2002 that the anti-war side would be vindicated. Even though no WMD's were going to be found, if we got Saddam out, let the Iraqis take control, and got out before too many Americans died people would still be pretty satisfied. Maybe not gung ho about more of these sorts of invasions, but not too critical of the administration since the WMD stuff would be chalked up, incorrectly, to an innocent mistake with the reasoning that "everybody thought they were there." At this point it seems obvious that Bush's plan was to stay in no matter what, but it wasn't unreasonable to assume that if things got really bad (i.e. to the point where it would be a liability to yea voters) the GOP would cut their losses rather than commit political suicide. Even as a war opponent I'm not sure I ever expected to see this level of opposition to the war. And still about half the country is willing to consider the candidate that has no plans to end the thing any time soon.

Like Njorl, I'm not trying to say this excuses Clinton, since a true leader would use judgment instead of political considerations, even if it reduced her chances of becoming a nominal leader. And just because the anti-war side may not have been vindicated wouldn't mean they weren't right. But it was much easier to envision a vote against a popular war ending your presidential aspirations than a vote for an unpopular war doing so. In fact, she almost won in spite of it. It was close enough that if she just admitted she was wrong she may have taken enough Edwards voters (who were willing to forgive him for his vote) to win. I always thought there were more women who wanted to vote for her but couldn't endorse unrepentant hawkishness (I don't think the exit polls gave numbers for gender/age combinations, but it seems the first competitive female candidate didn't even win the young female vote). Admitting you were wrong to vote against war doesn't work the same way. It's sick and twisted, but politicians are expected to err on the side of war to show they are serious about national security. Especially Democrats, and being a woman doesn't help on this count either. No one would be saying today that Clinton only voted against the war because of politics, in the same manner that they attempt to justify her vote for war.

The problem isn't Clinton per se, it's that anyone who wants to run for president is required to make these calculations. Seeing as all the candidates in 2004 and 2008 who could vote in 2002 voted for the war (except Kucinich, who didn't run a very calculated campaign), you have to think that at the time it was difficult to foresee a vote for the war becoming a liability. Dean and Obama were able to fill the anti-war niche, but they were unknowns in 2002. They ran for president because they opposed the war, they didn't oppose the war because they were running for president. Those who voted their conscience did so because they weren't concerned with being president, so by definition those concerned with being president generally don't vote their conscience.

Posted by ibid | June 4, 2008 5:33 PM

ibid:

I suspect that Obama's victory, over long odds and a candidate with huge advantages, has changed the calculus, and in the future you will see more liberals and Democrats being willing to stand up against warmongering. Indeed, that's one of the strongest arguments for Obama's nomination. It creates an incentive for politicians to do the right thing.

That, I believe, is also one reason why there is such pushback against the idea that Clinton's war vote was dumb politically. One of the few things the hawks still have is the argument that if you don't support even dumb wars, you will lose.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 4, 2008 5:49 PM

If "toughness" were still the coin of the realm, Clinton would be the nominee right now. It isn't, and she wasn't.

I don't disagree, but to say that it was politically expedient in 2002 for a Senator with presidential aspirations to vote for the war is not to deny that a vote for the war was a liability in 2008.

Posted by ibid | June 4, 2008 5:50 PM

I should add one more thing. If the point of this discussion is to show how difficult a situation Clinton was in during 2002, spare me. She is a United States Senator, a position that both pays well and has a great deal of power and influence. She got 8 years of free perks courtesy of the taxpayer as unelected, unconfirmed First Lady, a position that shouldn't even exist. She got a decade of free perks before that as the unelected, unconfirmed First Lady of Arkansas. Due to her husband's presidency and the desire of donors to buy influence from her, her family has made over $100 million in income over the last 7 years.

Oh, how tough it is, that she might have to cast a vote and do the right thing once in awhile. Oh, it's so tough.

Nonsense. Welfare mothers have it tough. The people Hillary SENT to Iraq, have it tough (not to mention the Iraqis she voted to bomb and kill). I don't feel one ounce of sympathy for the fact that she might have had difficulty weighing the political consequences of her decision in 2002. Nobody forced her to be in the Senate, and if she couldn't make the right decision on this, maybe she shouldn't be there.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 4, 2008 5:56 PM

Seeing as all the candidates in 2004 and 2008 who could vote in 2002 voted for the war (except Kucinich, who didn't run a very calculated campaign), you have to think that at the time it was difficult to foresee a vote for the war becoming a liability.

I think you mean all of the Democratic candidates. There was a Republican candidate who voted against the war - Ron Paul.

I think all of this talk about whether or not Hillary should have voted for the war in 2002 misses the larger point - she has never said that she was wrong. If she had voted for the war, and then when it turned bad admitted that she had made a mistake, she would have been forgiven. Bu instead, she seems to think that there is no incongruity between her previous support for hte war and her current anti-war position. That's her problem.

Posted by Glaivester | June 4, 2008 9:34 PM

I have to admit that I'm fascinated by Robert Powell's psychotic clinging to an imaginary reality. It's like meeting, in 2008, an upper class English twit who still thinks the British Empire is going to hold onto India. And he won't. shut. up.

Posted by 23456 | June 4, 2008 9:48 PM

If you are really "fascinated" you should examine the basis of my arguments rather than just dismiss them with boorish wisecracks, 23456. Reality only looks "psychotic" when you spend all of your time in the lefty echo chamber, from which millions of American voters appear to be "trolls", dupes, neo-imperialists, etc. This is not an attitude that produces political success.

What's fascinating to me is the extent to which folks who appear to have normal intelligence can so completely misunderstand historical events (excepting of course the unfortunates whose awareness of Iraq only began sometime after the 2000 elections). There is no plausible explanation for Hillary's vote, and especially her determined defense of it, beyond the obvious fact that she like her colleagues considered on the merits that it was the right thing to do.

Posted by robert powell | June 5, 2008 2:48 AM

Powell: "Reality only looks "psychotic" when you spend all of your time in the lefty echo chamber, from which millions of American voters appear to be "trolls", dupes, neo-imperialists, etc. This is not an attitude that produces political success."

Yeah, the Republican trolls, dupes and neo-imperialists got a lot of "political success" in 2006 - and will get less this year, unless of course Cheney gets his Iran war, in which case fucktards like you will be screaming how wonderful it all is that McCain gets a "war bounce" and beats Obama.

Moron.

Take your right wing horseshit down the road.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 5, 2008 4:14 AM

If Obama manages to add Jim Webb or Chuck Hagel to the ticket - McCain-Lieberman will be the '08 version of '84's Mondale-Ferraro. The vast majority of average everyday Americans want a change for the better. And are willing to buy into Obama as the agent of that change. They really don't want to elect an old POW idiot who doesn't give a damn about any of their concerns. The rightwing slime machine can wheel out the Revs and Ayers shit until shitflys begin circulating but that ship has sailed. It's really Obama's to lose at this point and as he's an immeasurably better candidate than Dems who blew leads like Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry - the odds are in his favor.

Garden-variety naysayers(R. Powell)have very little social contacts other than their immersion in moronic news outlets like "The Factor" and Rush and don't have the slightest clue as to what apolitical MOR Americans are thinking today. Their alienation from the Republican brand is significant and right now they're very inclined to vote for Obama. Their talk of "left echo chambers" is the type of talking points drool they get from right-wing radio idiots like the buttoned-down shmo Chris Matthews humiliated over "appeasement." Someone like that hears flapdoodle like "We're fighting 'em over there so we won't have to fight 'em over here" 900,000 times and thinks he's hearing advanced logic worthy of Wittgenstein.

Posted by Trevor | June 5, 2008 5:56 AM

Robert Powell:

What's fascinating to me is the extent to which folks who appear to have normal intelligence can so completely misunderstand historical events

I know, it's awful! I understand there are some people so appallingly uninformed that they think "historical events" include big-sample, good-methodology polls done about twice a year from 1991 to 2003 that show large majorities of Americans supporting an invasion of Iraq. Even worse, they do this while pompously declaiming about "facts" and "history"!

Posted by 23456 | June 5, 2008 3:45 PM

Trevor--
As a measure of your expertise on "garden-variety naysayers" and what kind of "contact" they have:

I don't know what "The Factor" is, don't watch Matthews, and have heard Rush maybe two or three times in my life--I thought he was an idiot. I've been active in every presidential campaign since '68, and put effort into keeping in touch with "what apolitical MOR Americans are thinking"--in fact, I am one. I've been supporting Obama since before Iowa.

In spite of your obvious lack of insight on who's who, I do agree that McCain is likely to end up like Mondale. The only things to prevent this outcome in my view are either a huge error by Obama (unlikely); or arrogant overconfidence on the part of lefty Democrats, the most consistent characteristic of whom over the last forty years has been their utter lack of comprehension regarding MOR American thinking.

A good example is 23456, who manically attempts with no supporting evidence whatever to argue that most Americans didn't support winning the war in Iraq from the time we were dragged into it in 1991.

Posted by robert powell | June 6, 2008 4:00 AM

A good example is 23456, who manically attempts with no supporting evidence whatever to argue that most Americans didn't support winning the war in Iraq from the time we were dragged into it in 1991.

Congratulations, Robert! Your streak of never making a factually correct statement continues intact! Less committed men would slip up and accidentally say something true, but not you.

Of course, I've never made a claim of any kind on this subject. But I can see how you'd make that mistake, given that you're unbelievably stupid. In any case, since this seems to be a subject of overwhelming importance for you, it does make me curious what Gallup's big-sample, good-methodology polls say about whether most Americans think the war has been a "mistake."

Tell you what -- why don't you look into this and report back, Robert? I know this might put you in dangers of breaking your streak, but it would be so edifying it could be worth it.

Hint: start here.

Posted by 23456 | June 6, 2008 6:39 AM

Elegant sophistry as always, 23456. Focus on the details to distract from the main point, and when it comes up again, resort to personal attack.

Under the circumstances, I'd probably be with the majority again on the question of "mistake", but would prefer the plural. As in any war I'm aware of, there have been a LOT of mistakes.

Posted by robert powell | June 6, 2008 7:09 AM

You know, Robert, I haven't had a chance to look at those polls myself. Since this is a subject of such intense interest to you, I assume you'll want to explain exactly what the question was, how many times the question has been asked, how consistent the results have been, etc. Go ahead, don't be shy!

Posted by 23456 | June 6, 2008 7:45 AM

Also, while you're explaining these poll results, be sure to use the guidelines from the Robert Powell School Of Statistical Analysis:

(1) If the a positive answer is generally in the high fifties and the negative answer is generally in the low forties or high thirties, this should be characterized as "almost 2:1"

(2) If the question has been asked every month or more, you should claim that it's been asked twice a year during periods when it actually hasn't been asked. So (for instance) if Americans have called the war as mistake in 23 straight polls from 2006-8, you could say that Americans have called the war a mistake about twice a year from 2006 to 2018. Or from 1996-2008! Remember: when using the Robert Powell Guidelines, the accurate answer is the same thing as the answer you want.

Posted by 23456 | June 6, 2008 8:03 AM

At a time when Hillary could have truly led by standing up and vocally opposing the Bush administration's rush toward invading Iraq, she was silent and chose to side with the neo-cons, rather than with the millions throughout the world who opposed the idea.

Posted by Clarke D | June 6, 2008 11:13 PM