Academic

Why Not Hillary

By Robert Justin Lipkin

Democrats, devastated by the reign of George W. Bush, indeed, any American convinced the last seven years have dealt the greatest blow to American constitutional democracy since the Civil War, should support neither Hillary Clinton nor John McCain. Why? Because neither Senator Clinton nor Senator McCain has a commitment to honesty in politics. ECA will have more to say on John McCain's dalliance with the truth in later posts. For now, let's concentrate on Senator Clinton.

For purposes of full disclosure, let me first mention that I vigorously supported Mrs. Clinton's run for the Senate. Indeed, I even contributed a small amount of money to her senatorial campaign, one of the first times I ever picked my own pockets to do so. I was intrigued and hopeful (excuse the anti-Clintonesque term) to see a woman become president of the United States, especially a woman as intelligent and committed as Mrs. Clinton.  Her victory in New York delighted me. My hope was that this victory would be the first step toward making history with the felection of the first female president of the United States, and a shrewd and intelligent one at that. And then she voted to authorize military force in Iraq knowing full-well that the intelligence cherry-picked by the president was unreliable. At that point my support begin to slowly wane. Why did she do it? Here's one hypothesis. Mrs. Clinton feared that removing Saddam would prove to be as easy a cake walk as George H.W. Bush's military enterprise during the first Iraq war. Had that occurred, and had she voted against authorizing military support in Iraq, her chances to persuade the nation that she had the necessary stuff to become commander-in-chief would have take a fatal nose dive. I sympathized with her dilemma. The first woman president unfortunately has to appear tougher than any man seeking the job. My hunch is that she knew Saddam's WMDs program was at worst dormant and probably simply dead. She knew, therefore, that he represented no imminent threat to the United States or to the region.

What would a stateswoman have done? She would have followed her conscience not her ambition. Hillary chose to follow her ambition.  And then when the truth became known, she lacked the fortitude of someone committed to truth to admit fault and poor judgment. Instead, she duplicitiously rationalized that at the time there was "credible" evidence that Saddam possessed WMDs and posed an imminent threat to the United States.  You know, as in Condi Rice's words, the smoking gun would be a mushroom cloud. This together with Naftagagte and Bosniagate and many other incidents shows that Mrs. Clinton sees truth as an instrumental value at best.  If telling the truth works, be truthful, tell the truth.  If it doesn't work, prevaricate. Surely after seven years of one of the greatest liars ever to occupy the Oval office, supporting Mrs. Clinton is insanity. The Bush-Clinton approach to politics, lie with impunity, must be abandoned.  Both politicians should be punished for holding truth hostage in politics. It's too late to punish Mr. Bush, short of historical condemnation. But democrats and other Americans can punish Mrs. Clinton and send a message to out children that honesy is not only the best policy it is the right thing to do. 

Credit for Image
 

Full post as published by Essentially Contested America on April 21, 2008 (boomark / email).