Bill takes Hillary off-message

November 28, 2007

It was only three words — “from the beginning” — but Bill Clinton managed to cause quite a stir yesterday while campaigning on behalf of his wife’s presidential campaign.

During a campaign swing for his wife, former President Bill Clinton said flatly yesterday that he opposed the war in Iraq “from the beginning” — a statement that is more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003.

Before the invasion, Mr. Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war. A week before military action began, however, he did say that he preferred to give weapons inspections more time and that an invasion was not necessary to topple Saddam Hussein.

At the same time, he also spoke supportively about the 2002 Senate resolution that authorized military action against Iraq.

Advisers to Mr. Clinton said yesterday that he did oppose the war, but that it would have been inappropriate at the time for him, a former president, to oppose — in a direct, full-throated manner — the sitting president’s military decision.

The advisers’ line may not be entirely helpful — it suggests Bill Clinton opposed the war from the outset, but we just didn’t know about his opposition.

In context, Clinton was talking about Republican tax cuts for the wealthy, and the ways in which lost federal revenue affected financing for the military: “Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning, I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers.”

The problem, of course, is that Clinton has a reputation for trying to straddle the fence on contentious questions, hoping to be “all things to all people.” The “from the beginning” reinforces the narrative — and takes Sen. Clinton’s campaign off-message.

In 2003, for example, the former president said, “I supported the President when he asked the Congress for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” On the other hand, as Hillary Clinton’s campaign documented nicely, Bill Clinton delivered a speech less than a week before the war began, in which he urged patience. “I’m for regime change too, but there’s more than one way to do it,” he said. “We don’t invade everybody whose regime we want to change.”

I’m afraid none of this is helpful to Sen. Clinton’s campaign.

After all, Bill Clinton supported the 2002 AUMF resolution, supported regime change, argued that Saddam Hussein had WMD, but opposed the invasion when it happened. As far as he’s concerned, that qualifies as opposing the war “from the beginning.” But therein lies the rub — Hillary Clinton shared her husband’s views on all of those same questions. Does that mean that Hillary Clinton also opposed this war “from the beginning”?

Probably not, but that’s effectively the bottom line of the argument.

There seems to be an understanding in the political world — in order to qualify as opposing the war “from the beginning,” you had to oppose the war resolution in 2002, and then forcefully speak out against the conflict (as Al Gore did) in 2003. That’s the standard, and neither Hillary Clinton nor Bill Clinton meet it.

But, and this is important, that’s not a deal-breaker. John Kerry voted for the AUMF resolution five years ago, and he went on to win the nomination. John Edwards voted for it, too, and he was Kerry’s running mate. Chris Dodd, an articulate opponent of the war now, voted the exact same way. I’d argue that it’s a mistake to use that one vote as a litmus test, automatically rejecting any candidate who was wrong at the time.

But part of this includes being honest. It’s okay to make a mistake, just own up to it and work to set things right. That’s the real standard for the Democratic presidential candidates, not a debate over parsing the word “oppose.”

And all of this, of course, takes the Clinton campaign off-message, refocusing attention on 2002 and 2003, which is the opposite of what the senator wants.

I don’t doubt for a second that Bill Clinton is wildly popular, and a real asset to his wife’s presidential campaign. But he’s going to have to be disciplined on the stump.

So, Clinton opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq after he was in favor of eight years of bombing Iraq and imposing a “no-fly zone”?

I used to think very highly of President Clinton. Then I learned all about NAFTA, the Iraqi “no-fly zone,” and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Now I know better.

  • As I recall, both Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright were both saying they strongly suspected Saddam Hussein of secretly building up WMD. At a time when much of the WMD argument was already falling apart, I gave these two credibility. As for the resolution, the Dems who voted for it did so on a condition of adding inspections to the preconditions, and I think it is fair to conclude that their intent, at least in part, was to force Iraq into compliance. That said, Bill and Hill did seem more hawkish than many other Dems. I have long suspected that the main reason Dems supported the war was because they thought it would be easy. And that is unforgivable!

  • Seems the goofiest argument to be had.

    Ugh.

    For the days when a resolution to authorize action meant rattling the saber, not just grabbing it once the safety tie is cut and running through the nearest person.

  • In a different time and a different place, what Bill said wouldn’t really matter and despite what I think, Hils would probably easily be the first female prez and do a decent job. However, Now isn’t that time or place. Bill’s foreign policy equivalent of “I feel your pain” just doesn’t cut it anymore as the situation has changed and quite frankly is a lot more desperate for America now.

    To return back to the “experience” question. This is why Hils “experience” doesn’t matter. The situation has changed, but yet Hils and Bill haven’t. If Hils had the relevant experience (dealing with America in a time of major foreign policy and economic crisis or self inflicted war) then she could club the daylights out of Obama with it. Besides, Bill and the Middle East (from what I remember) didn’t exactly get along so well.

  • Jkap,

    Thomas Ricks makes a pretty compelling case in his book, Fiasco, that the 8 years of bombing and no fly zone was perhaps one of the strongest reasons to oppose invasion. It happened to be incredibly effective at both destroying what capacity was left as well as making Saddam paranoid and untrusting of his top staff, as he susepcted that he had top level leaks.

    I don’t have a really strong feeling about the rest. I know plenty of people who claim to have opposed actual invasion but still felt that posturing that way was the correct way to go if they took this President on good faith. Many others just felt bullied by war fever. None of those are great reasons, but at least they aren’t absurd.

    Still, the implication that one couldn’t oppose the war unless they opposed all military maneuvers made against Saddam since Gulf War 1 is not only wrongheaded, it also helps the Republican playbook by suggesting the only way to oppose the war was to be an Iraq pacifist, a position many Americans just don’t hold.

  • Sorry, that is a deal breaker. Kerry, Edwards and Dodd all said their vote was a mistake. Hillary, not so much. CB says “It’s okay to make a mistake, just own up to it and work to set things right. That’s the real standard for the Democratic presidential candidates, not a debate over parsing the word “oppose.” Has Hillary said she made a mistake voting for the war? No, she made a mistake trusting Bush. That’s 2 strikes on 1 pitch. Wrong on the vote and trusting Bush? Who trusted Bush at the time?

  • Am I the only one who’s kind of sick of the bickering over who had first-class seats on the anti-war bandwagon, who’s in steerage and who’s barely hanging on? Because, in all honesty, I am just really sick of it, because for the most part, it means nothing. You’ve got Barack Obama, who wasn’t even in the Senate at the time of the vote, proudly reminding everyone that he was against the war from Day One. Well, big whoop for you, Barry – what, exactly, have you done since them to help end it? Kerry and Edwards and Dodd – Oh, My! – voted for it, realized the error of their ways, and have publicly said so. Hillary also voted for it, and refuses to admit that it was a mistake; for her, it is what it is and all she can do is live in the present – can’t change the past. She’s right, but after so many years of a president who cannot admit mistakes, her being unable to do that is not something that gives a lot of people much comfort.

    And now there’s Bill…the more he says, the more people wonder whether it really would be a good idea to have a former president back in the WH, even if it is just as Hillary’s husband. When she falters, is he going to step in and take charge? Are we going to spend at least 4 years having every policy decision she makes compared and contrasted with Bill’s, and constant speculation about what he would do now, and constant leaks about his role and his advice, and endless assumption that he’s on the sidelines with the headset, calling the plays? I’m sick of it her presidency already.

    I don’t know – maybe this is all a good thing. If her campaign is going to crack, I would rather it were now, before it’s too late.

  • JKap –

    So, Clinton opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq after he was in favor of eight years of bombing Iraq and imposing a “no-fly zone”?

    Well, yes? That’s not really a contradiction.

    Not to jump up to defend Clinton – who ran the country as a moderate Republican through and through when he was President – but you could be in favor of containment and regime change in Iraq, think that Iraq has an illegal WMD program ramping up, and STILL oppose unilaterally invading Iraq and forcibly deposing the government. Because it was a damn stupid thing to do. I’m sure that Clinton’s advisers looked at it when he was President (the plans for invading Iraq were “on the shelf” in the Pentagon since Bush the Elder’s days), and I’m sure they told him the same thing: “We could topple the government in a matter of weeks, but we probably couldn’t hold the country with less than X number of troops and it would take Y dollars per month to hang onto it and Z years before we could leave and we’d probably take Q-% casualties per year fighting off insurgents and foreign fighters.” Even if you think that regime change is the right goal for Iraq, you could look at those numbers and say “not worth it – keep the no-fly zones and the bombing in place ’til Hussein dies” – basically a belief that a slightly more aggressive “Cuba policy” was right for Iraq.

    And I’d believe that (Bill) Clinton would stand by that policy – which is a (truly) conservative position because it’s basically the last 50 years of US foreign policy wrapped up with a bow. Bush took a radical step when he invaded Iraq – what he did was not conservative but neo-conservative. Clinton, who is closer on foreign policy issues to being a true “conservative” than Bush ever has been, would stick with “what works” and what costs the least amount of money – ergo, keep up with containment and hope that Hussein chokes on a fishbone instead of the seeming immortality that Castro has had.

  • The problem, of course, is that Clinton has a reputation for trying to straddle the fence on contentious questions, hoping to be “all things to all people.”

    Thank you for bringing this to the unthinking idolaters of the Democratic party.
    This ‘triangulation’ junk requires substantial charisma that Bill Clinton seems to have by the pantload. The Mrs.,… well… if you don’t have the pretty roses poking out the top, you tend to notice the smell of the fertilizer a lot more.

    Hil is not Bill Part II, people.

  • So if you had access to the NIE, but didn’t bother to read it, and you then gave Bush a blank check that he has used to fuck us all over for the forseeable future, don’t you owe us all an apology? Is that too much to ask?

    Too slick by half. Both of ’em. And with the Red Morons salivating at the opportunity to make this into a mudfest grudgematch, they’re a political liability as well.

    And I sure hope Al Gore is happy sitting this one out, I lost a lot of respect for him too. He could have kicked ass on this and many other questions.

    Oh well, we’ll take the best we can get, and get up the next day to fight for more progress, no matter how many triangulating slick willys keep getting in the way.

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  • I’d argue that it’s a mistake to use that one vote as a litmus test, automatically rejecting any candidate who was wrong at the time.

    I agree we shouldn’t use one vote as a litmus test, but Hillary has been on the wrong side of too many war votes and Bush power grabs. Her support for the use of military for against Iraq is just one of many.

    At least Dodd and Edwards have to courage to say they made a mistake.

    Am I the only one who’s kind of sick of the bickering over who had first-class seats on the anti-war bandwagon, who’s in steerage and who’s barely hanging on? -Anne

    I agree with your sentiment. I do feel that much of the anti-war rhetoric from sitting Senators has gone on without much any real action.

    Bill is trying to revise history or obfuscate the truth here, and that is too much like the Bush Administration for my tastes. I’ve had enough of that.

  • Anne said:

    “And now there’s Bill…the more he says, the more people wonder whether it really would be a good idea to have a former president back in the WH, even if it is just as Hillary’s husband. When she falters, is he going to step in and take charge? Are we going to spend at least 4 years having every policy decision she makes compared and contrasted with Bill’s, and constant speculation about what he would do now, and constant leaks about his role and his advice, and endless assumption that he’s on the sidelines with the headset, calling the plays? I’m sick of it her presidency already.”

    As I listened to NPR hashing over this topic this morning I realized that I was experiencing significant Clinton fatigue and we’ve barely gotten started. We are caught in a dysfunctional paradigm with these people. They may be concerned about the country but I think they are just as concerned about Bill and Hillary. There’s no good reason to invite Bill and Hill back in to start the whole binge/purge cycles up again. They want this more than we need them. America needs to break up with Bill and Hill.

  • JKap — So, Clinton opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq after he was in favor of eight years of bombing Iraq and imposing a “no-fly zone”?

    I used to think very highly of President Clinton. Then I learned all about NAFTA, the Iraqi “no-fly zone,” and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Now I know better.

    You may want to double check the accuracy of your statements.

    Enforcing a “no-fly zone” may involve military strength. The action was no where near the bombing of Iraq under the current Administration.

    NAFTA was signed into law by Bush Sr. on 12/17/92 not Bill Clinton.

    Unsure what your beef is with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is. Some operators didn’t like it because of the forced-access provision, but from a consumer standpoint this was increasing competition on price. It also ensured companies would not be duplicating infrastructure.

    Clinton has his faults — but IMHO these are not it.

  • I am SO tired of the Clintons. And the vote to go to war (which isn’t a war and wasn’t clearly what was being voted upon). And Democrats attacking each other rather than Republicans and the military-industrial complex. And “liberals” who forget the issues which historically made Democrats the overwhelming choice of non-bigoted Middle- and Working-class voters.

  • You may want to double check the accuracy of your statements.

    NAFTA was signed into law by Bush Sr. on 12/17/92 not Bill Clinton. -Ronin

    George HW Bush signed an agreement with Mexico and Canada, not a law.

    The law was not passed until 1993 when Clinton was in office and took effect on January 1, 1994.

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  • If Bill Clinton opposed the war, what was he doing in CT last year campaigning with Joe Lieberman, one of the war’s biggest supporters? Did he ever endorse Lamont?

    I’m not part of the anti-Hllary club, but this is just nonsense that only reinforces the idea that “the Clintons”, can’t tell the truth.

  • But JKap that’s still not anything more than a more agressive version of our Cuba policy. It doesn’t indicate that Clinton would thinking invading and occupying Iraq would be a good idea – it says he thought aggressive containment was a good idea.

    I’m not suggesting that Clinton was opposed to the war for moral reasons – I fimrly believe that if the cost-benefit analysis worked the other way Clinton would have ordered the invasion himself. I suggest that Clinton was opposed to invading Iraq for logistic reasons – as it was pretty damn clear to anyone with an ounce of sense that invading Iraq would lead to an epic mess.

    I mean, Clinton continued our Cuba policy too, and I doubt he’d suggest that he was in favor of invading Cuba and ousting Castro. The cost-benefit analysis is terrible – just like with Iraq – which is why NO ONE before Bush the Lesser thought it was worthwhile to invade Iraq – even when given a chance.

  • By the time the AUMF came up, it was quite clear to anyone paying attention that Bush was out of control and could not be trusted. Many of us HOPED that he would use authorization as a lever, but we KNEW he was hellbent on invading. Thus, for all practical purposes, a vote for the AUMF was a vote for invading even if the language said something else. Those with principled opposition voted against the AUMF. Those afraid to be labeled unpatriotic tried to have it both ways — voting for authorization while claimed they weren’t voting for war. Anyone who really believed that is too dumb to be in public office.

  • I must say honestly that I don’t think this hurts HRC at all; in fact, I think it helps.

    I’m a Clinton supporter, but I try not to spin.
    So, part of why I think this was meant to be is because HRC knows what she wants the dialogue to be. All signs (to me) point to her wanting this to be the dialogue.
    Clinton hardly ever does something without a purpose.

    I think their purpose IS to take us back to 2003.
    Hillary’s vote only hurts her with the netroots, and I think as far as she’s concerned, she’s not depending on their vote — they will or won’t support her; she will not pander to them.

    But for other voters…
    Most of them are right where the Clintons are — feeling betrayed by the Bush administration. They fell for it too.

    So, which campaign is getting coverage today? Who is out there explaining that “we all” thought Bush would keep the inspectors in? Who is reminding us of that hard sell from all the neocons back in 2003, that “we all” fell victim to?

    And calling Bill Clinton a derogatory name over this is also calling…
    82% who supported it in 2003 MINUS 32% who support it today…
    50 friggin’ % of the American people the same name.
    They feel betrayed.
    Believe me, the message this audience got from President Clinton was, “I feel your pain.”

    I stopped believing that these things are mistakes a long time ago, especially watching her in her first Senate race. I can see the long-term advantage in this. And Hillary was thoroughly prepared to defend this statement on her Facts Hub immediately. I think you’re going to find out that Hillary Clinton knows exactly what she’s doing.

    If everyone else thinks this was an accident… all I can say is, we’ll see.

  • beep52 said: “By the time the AUMF came up, it was quite clear to anyone paying attention that Bush was out of control and could not be trusted.”

    Just because you saw it that way does not mean everyone did. The majority of Americans, and the majority of their elected representatives, supported Bush and supported the invasion at the time of that vote. I saw it the same way you did, at that time, because I had (and still have) a visceral dislike for Bush. I couldn’t stand the guy and I thought he was a snake. But at that time there was almost no evidence to support your and my minority opinion that Bush could not be trusted. There was only the slightest evidence that the intelligence might be a little weak. There was no evidence at all of the secret prisons, no evidence of the torture, no evidence of the renditions, and no evidence of the illegal spying that Bush was doing. Not even rumors of that stuff were around at the time of the vote. A reasonable person, who was not a Bush hater, could very easily be convinced by Collin Powell and the other Bush lackeys that we needed to invade Iraq for our own safety. Remember, our country had recently been attacked and there lots of stories of other attacks (remember the anthrax scares).

    Many millions of Americans were misled by Bush and put their trust in him to defeat the terrorists but now regret it. They were not stupid or morally corrupt (those still support Bush). Bush abused their trust for his own purposes. I don’t think it is either justified or useful to berate those who were deceived by Bush and came to regret it, unless they were among those that called the rest of us traitors and terrorist sympathizers and have not apologized for that.

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