Hillary's Iraq War Problem

The Iraq war vote in the Senate is not why I will not support Hillary Clinton, it is a symptom of what is wrong with her as a Democrat. Media Matters has consistently defended Hillary from inaccurate and misleading attacks, this time they aren't in her corner blasting the NYT for this article and its assertion:

"Summary: The New York Times falsely claimed that Sen. Hillary Clinton "has always maintained that her support of a Congressional resolution authorizing the president to use force in Iraq was not an authorization to go to war." In fact, Clinton acknowledged at the time that the vote for the resolution could "lead to war," but she has stated that a vote for the resolution was not a "vote[] for" war, and that she expected the Bush administration to push for more weapons inspections in Iraq before resorting to war."

You can read her floor statement, as I have, and see that it does not express enthusiasm for war with Iraq, but that was not the vote. The vote was to allow the President to use military force against Iraq. I have had occasion to upbraid others for votes that did not mean what they stated when they voted or that were used in manners they did not anticipate. There are outcomes of votes, and typically the outcome is exactly what the matter voted on said in its language. Lawyers know language counts, they use that fact in court documents and in court on a regular basis. Yet we are to assume that they were ignorant of the fact at the time or that the 'other' side would play 'fair.' Hillary is a lawyer, passed the Bar and all that...

You don't get to be a Senator and plead ignorance, I'm real sorry, that's a completely stupid cop out. I certainly do not need to explain to my readers that these people have staffs and a responsibility. 'Have they fulfilled that responsibility?' is the only question that counts. That apparently is not the issue here, unless you want to pick on the "intelligence." Well...maybe.

The issue here appears to be that Hillary doesn't think BushCo played fair. You have to be particularly credulous to believe that BushCo did not want to do exactly what the measure voted on stated. Hillary insists that she was mislead. I'm afraid I don't quite understand that particular stance, the measure said exactly what it said, she voted for what it said, "Yea," means exactly that. It does not mean "sort of," or any other qualifier she'd like us to think it meant. She went exactly where she went for her reasons, you can speculate about the political tone at the time and misleading intelligence, but other Democrats and Ron Paul voted "Nay."

If you're a Democrat and you think Hillary is a swell candidate, maybe you need to look at her voting record and see if you really can warm up to it. Maybe you need to not eat spin about votes, maybe you just need to stop and think rather than accept the MSM qualification of "inevitable" candidate. And maybe you need to reflect on just what value all her experience adds up to, that co-Presidency First Ladyship preceded the vote to go to war with Iraq. So we really need a presidential candidate who is that easy to mislead and uses that as an excuse?

"Vote for me, I'm a dummy," doesn't strike me as real good stump speech...but she uses it.