So, Hillary has made her stand on her vote to go to war, and will dig in her heels. And it amounts to the same old, sad old story of all the senators who voted yes with her: they relied on the president, and he misled them.
She says that if she had known then what she knows now, shed have voted no, but like Bush, she refuses to admit she made a mistake.
So lets see now, what did she know?
Well, if she was reading the newspapers and she surely should have been during Bushs campaign for the nomination in 2000, she knew that Bush was a liar, and that nothing said by him, or anyone speaking on his behalf, was worthy of belief.
Then, she knew that Bush was determined to go to war. His forcing the UN inspectors out of Iraq was the dead give-away and so she knew hed use any support he got from anyone in Congress to justify the invasion.
And she knew that Saddam Hussein was no threat to the security of the United States.
She had to know all these things, because shes an extremely smart lady smarter than most of us and most of us knew them.
But then, giving the Devil her due, there were indeed some things she didnt know.
She didnt know and who could have? that Bush and Co. would wage war with such monumental incompetence.
She didnt know that the small majority of the public who then supported the invasion would morph into the present large majority against it, before it was time for her to run for president.
So, naturally, she didnt know she could vote against the war and still be elected.
I think she made a conscious, cynical gamble, in October of 2002, that the war would be a quick and popular success, which would be over by 2007 and she would reap a political reward for her vote in support of it.
She will not, and should not, get that reward. This vote demonstrates a callous opportunism worthy of Bush or Cheney, and I think her attempted self-exculpation for it now is simply dishonest.
I would cheerfully vote for a woman for president. Just not this one.
Norman K. Marsh
Darrington