OpEdNews
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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_randy_lo_071004_hillary_rodham_nixon.htmWhen President Nixon was elected in 1968, he promised “peace with honor” in Vietnam. The public was under the impression that he had a secret plan to win the war. He didn’t. He began his presidency by announcing his “Vietnamization” plan, or, if you will, the “Nixon Doctrine” which would hand the bulk of the work to South Vietnamese soldiers. Nixon kept the public happy with his talks of “eventual” withdrawal. The process took five years and accounted for almost half the total U.S. deaths eventually tattooed onto the Vietnam Memorial in D.C.
Throughout his campaign, he relied on championing his “silent majority” stance against the hippie counterculture – who were more interested in protesting Hubert Humphrey’s candidacy, since he was part of the Johnson administration which escalated Vietnam. Nixon beat Humphry by 1% of the popular vote and became the 37th president. Today, he is considered by and large the worst president of the 20th Century, because of his prolonging of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal which forced him to resign.
It’s 40 years later. Enter Democratic front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton.
Throughout her Senate career, she has championed taking every side of every issue. On Iraq, she expects the public to believe that if she “knew then what she knows now” she never would have voted for authorizing violence in Iraq.
Since announcing, Clinton has danced around the idea of withdrawal, making no promises to anything. She's focused more on portraying a confident, happy-go-lucky image with a newly-found belly-laugh, than giving straight answers. During last week’s Democratic debate, she, along with the rest of the Democratic frontrunners, could not promise a full withdrawal by 2013.
2013. And the Democrats swept congress in 2006 to begin ending the war in 2007....Hillary won’t promise a pull out of Iraq because she will not be able to pull out of Iraq. There is too much at stake – especially for the first woman president. If, God forbid, the Pol Pot-esque genocide the right has promised occurs upon pullout, Hillary will be crucified by the right and their allies in the media. Spinsters will go back to the first Clinton presidency and call hypocrisy, since Bill consistently bombed Iraq over his two terms.
She’s too cunning to pull out. She will promise the eventual drawdown of troops, possibly even flirting with the Biden-Gelb plan, which has already passed in the senate (and is the only legitimate plan for ending the war), but the key word will continue to be “eventual.” Just as president Bush learned from his father (who never learned from Nixon) that as an unpopular president, you need a war to be going on at the time of your re-election, Hillary will promise that “peace is at hand” in 2012, a week before her re-election, or, she’ll get a colleague, say “her Kissinger”, to say it, that way she won’t be responsible when the public learns it’s not.....
Authors Website: randysthought.blogspot.com
Authors Bio: Randy LoBasso is a freelance writer and editor from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His articles have appeared in The Evening Bulletin and The Philadelphia Daily News. He thanks you for reading.
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