Tension rises in Clinton nuclear dispute

[eweaver155]

Hillary Clinton faced scrutiny on Thursday over her attitude towards the use of nuclear weapons, amid a deepening foreign policy dispute with Barack Obama, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Mrs Clinton criticised Mr Obama last week for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the hunt for terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, arguing that presidents should not discuss hypothetical military situations.

But it emerged on Thursday that Mrs Clinton had herself rejected nuclear weapons as an option against Iran in a television interview last year. "I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table," she said in April 2006.

The apparent inconsistency could prove embarrassing to Mrs Clinton if it undermines her carefully crafted image for strength and reliability on foreign policy, in contrast to the more inexperienced Mr Obama.

A spokesman for Mrs Clinton insisted it was unfair to compare her comments with Mr Obama's because she had been responding to a specific report that the Bush administration was considering the nuclear option against Iran.

"She wasn't talking about a broad hypothetical, nor was she speaking as a presidential candidate.

"Given the sabre-rattling that was coming from the Bush White House at the time, it was totally appropriate and necessary to respond to that report and call it the wrong policy," he said.

Foreign policy has become the main source of division between Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama in the increasingly fractious race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Mr Obama, the first-term senator for Illinois, is struggling to narrow his rival's double-digit lead in nationwide opinion polls with less than five months before the first party primary elections and caucuses.

South Carolina's Republican party on Thursday rescheduled its primary for January 19, an earlier-than-planned date that could result in Iowa bringing forward its caucuses to December.

Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are seeking to protect their traditional right to hold the first ballots in the presidential nomination season, amid attempts by other states to claim a bigger role in the process.

Florida is among dozens of states to have brought forward its primary date, threatening South Carolina's status as the first southern state to express its choice of presidential nominees.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20204874/

My my how her words always comes back and slap her in the face. Flip then Flop

[msongs]

1. "always"? as in 100% of the time? maybe you should say sometimes instead nt

[paulk]

2. my, my - how some "democrats" are willing to push (or start)

right wing memes.

That "flip flop" worked so well against Kerry, why not use it again?

[sandnsea]

7. This is truth

Quite a bit different than 2004.

[flpoljunkie]

9. Politics is a contact sport--no less in the primaries, than the general.It's not about flip-flopping

it's about hypocrisy! Because the Republicans criticized Kerry, no "real Democrat" can criticize Hillary for her hypocrisy?

Getouttahere!

[paulk]

10. I don't believe it was a "flip flop", for starters

I would argue, as she has done, that there is a real difference between what she said as a Senator, responding to a very specific situation, and what one says as a presidential candidate.

The criticisms of Kerry as a flip flopper were as unjustified, IMO, as these ones are, and, as such, only provide fodder for the other side to use in the general election.


as for the "real democrat" thing, I'm always suspicious when a newcomer injects a loaded term like "flip flopper" into the debate.

[flpoljunkie]

11. Eweaver may be a newbie, but he or she is right. It's a classic flip-flop AND a weak response!

I, on the other hand, am not a newbie, but do pride myself on being a "real Democrat" not Republican lite or DINO.

[flpoljunkie]

3. TPMCafe reported on Hillary's contradiction yesterday, as well...

Here's A Transcript Of Hillary's Full No-Nukes Exchange
By Greg Sargent

Okay, as promised, here's the full exchange from Hillary's interview with Bloomberg News, in which she seemed to take nukes off the table, albeit in a different context from Obama:

HUNT: Senator, you sit in the Armed Services Committee. There were reports this weekend, the "Washington Post" and elsewhere, that the United States is considering a military option against Iran if it won't relinquish any ambitions to nuclear weapons. The "New Yorker" even said that we're considering using nuclear -– tactical nuclear weapons. Should those options be on the table when it comes to Iran?

CLINTON: Well, I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table. And this administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven't seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I think that's a terrible mistake.

Okay, a few quick points. Hillary was clearly ruling out nukes in a very specific situation: Whether to use them against Iran. On the other hand, Obama was ruling them out in a specific situation, if a hypothetical one: Whether he'd use them against terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. So what we now have here is this: One candidate (Obama) ruled out nukes in a specific but hypothetical situation; the other (Hillary) ruled them out in a specific but more or less non-hypothetical one. Readers, you decide how different this is.

Secondly, if you go back and look at Hillary's actual chiding of Obama, she said: "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons." She specified "as President," so in this sense this isn't necessarily at odds with what she said as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Nonetheless, she did appear to be making a blanket statement about the use of nukes in a particular situation, something she seemed to chide Obama for doing. Again, readers, you decide the extent of the contradiction here.

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/aug/09/heres_a_transcript_of_hillarys_full_no_nukes_exchange

[eweaver155]

4. Ok Contridiction - Flip Flop - It all means the samething. It keeps

showing she never can take one side of an issue and say one thing to one group and then another thing to another group. Bottom Line her head should be spinning right now. She needs to start keeping a pad to keep track when she gives speeches.

[beastieboy]

5. I don't think she flip flopped. They are unrelated situations.

She made a stand against using nukes against Iran as a challenge to the white house policy and sabre rattling. I think at the time within the context, it was the right thing to say.

With regard to Pakistan or OBL in particular, the use of tactical nukes perhaps should not be off the table.

[sandnsea]

6. Say any damn thing to excuse her

Just like she'll say any damn thing to destroy a Democrat or further her her her. You either take all options off the table and never comment on military strategy - or you don't. She caused this entire mess by saying that Obama said he was going to invade Pakistan when he never said that in the first place. I hope her triangulating is strangulating and she chokes on her own spewed words.

[flpoljunkie]

12. Give 'em hell, sandnsea! Great post!

[zulchzulu]

15. Bingo!

Why on Earth do people believe that she "meant it in another way" over the "way she meant it this way".... ferchrissakes, she attacked Obama without maybe doing a search on what her real opinion is supposed to be at the given time on an issue.

She attacked Obama on his statement about Musharaff even though she agreed with him on what he said before. She attacked Obama on talking to World leaders not on "our side" when she in fact had called for the same thing earlier.

It's as though she gets press releases about Obama's statements and has to play the know-it-all pollyannish taskmaster with the "opposite view", all without looking at what her past statements on the issue has been.

It all gets back to when David Geffen said of the Clintons: "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling." Troubling, indeed.

Geffen went on to say:

"Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don’t think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is, and is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton, can bring the country together.

Obama is inspirational, and he’s not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. And I am tired of hearing James Carville on television."

http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=1011

[illinoisprogressive]

8. flipping and flopping like a fish

[TwilightGardener]

13. Wow, a chink in the Clinton armor--rare, but there it is!

[DrFunkenstein]

14. Again - Whatever Her Hypocrisy, Her Position On Nuclear Weapons is Dead Wrong

A war of words is one thing in politics, and I take it all with a spoonful of salt. Flip flops and other such nonsense is about as lame as a MTP "gotcha" quote.

However, there is a very real policy being discussed here, and a very revealing one at that. Sen. Clinton says that she believes that nuclear weapons are to be used at the very least as a threat, if not an actual tactic. Even as a threat, her stance helps legitimate the use of nuclear weapons by sovreign nations, pushing the nuclear doomsday clock in the wrong direction. God forbid she actually considers, like many Republicans, the "tactical" use of nuclear weapons - especially against a limited enemy like a terrorist camp.

By doing so, she further contributes to the notion that "collateral damage" is an afterthought in the war on terror, rather than placing the hearts and minds of the third world at the forefront of the battle.

It may sound like sound like warmed-over hippie garble, but I don't care: Hope is the only weapon that can end the war on terror.