One of the pressing questions in the 2004 Democratic primaries was how best to deal with the 2002 votes of Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards on the Iraq war resolution. Would they acknowledge that the votes were a mistake? Would they apologize? Was this a litmus-test issue for voters? Should it be?
When it comes to the presumptive frontrunner in the 2008 field, the same questions seem to apply.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton told New Hampshire voters Saturday that ending the war in Iraq is more important than whether she repudiates her 2002 vote authorizing President Bush to use military force there.
The New York senator and party front-runner repeatedly has faced calls for her to say her vote was a mistake. Democrats pressed her on it last weekend in New Hampshire and again on Saturday at a town hall meeting in the early voting state. […]
On Saturday, Clinton was asked by a University of New Hampshire professor why she refused to apologize for voting to give Bush the authority for the March 2003 invasion.
“I take responsibility for my vote. It was a sincere vote based on the facts and assurances we had at the time. Obviously I would not vote that way again if we knew then what we know now,” she said, her oft-repeated explanation.
She then added in a clear reference to her rivals: “I have to say, if the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from. But for me, the most important thing now is trying to end this war.”
At this point, it’s one of the dominant campaign questions in Democratic circles, particularly within the DC political establishment. John Edwards has apologized for his ’02 vote and acknowledges he was wrong. Does Hillary Clinton have to do the same? And will it matter to anti-war voters if she does?
There’s no shortage of advice for the senator. NYT columnist David Brooks said calls for Hillary to apologize “are almost entirely bogus.” He added, “If she apologizes, she’ll forfeit her integrity. She will be apologizing for being herself.”
As Tom Schaller noted the other day, the Washington Post published four columns on this very subject in less than a week.
Following Clinton around New Hampshire, Ruth Marcus concludes that, “Democratic primary voters don’t want Kerryesque parsing. ‘Let the conversation begin,’ Clinton’s banners proclaim, but she’s not saying what many of them want to hear — words like ‘mistake’ and ‘sorry.'” Bob Novak adds, “What’s wrong with Clinton was demonstrated by the Feb. 4 performance on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ of a competitor, former senator John Edwards, who displayed the qualities she lacks. He took firm positions and admitted error, in contrast to Clinton’s careful parsing.” Admitting his own errors in supporting the war, Richard Cohen says he does not “condemn Clinton [and other Dems running for president]…for voting for the war because I would have done the same. I fault them, though, for passing the blame to Bush as the guy who misled them. They all had sufficient knowledge to question the administration’s arguments, and they did not do so. Not a single one of them, for instance, could possibly have believed the entirety of the administration’s case or not have suspected that the reasons for war were being hyped. If they felt otherwise, they have no business running for president.” (By that logic, of course, Cohen ought to consider giving up his column for a progressive voice that got it right from the jump; not holding my breath on that one.) Finally, our own Harold Meyerson puts Hillary’s position into historical perspective: “Today, Hillary Clinton seems almost uncannily positioned to become the Ed Muskie of 2008. She opposes the U.S. military presence in Iraq but not with the specificity, fervor or bona fides of her leading Democratic rivals.”
So, what do you think Clinton should do now? If she says the vote was a mistake and she was wrong to cast it, does she appear weak? Or is it a sign of weakness not do so?
And if Clinton did apologize now, would her Democratic critics be satisfied, or would they say it’s too little, too late? And if she never apologizes and/or remains reluctant to call her vote a mistake, will it seriously undermine her chances at winning the nomination?
Or is all of this moot? Are we at a point in which it just doesn’t matter how Clinton voted in 2002, and it matters far more what she’ll do in the future?
Discuss.