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Another Chapter in Hillary’s
Attempt to Rewrite History on Iraq
By Arianna Huffington
05/22/07 "Huffington
Post" -- -- In a 1939 radio address, Franklin
Roosevelt declared, “Repetition does not transform a lie into a
truth.” When it comes to Iraq, Hillary Clinton is doing
everything in her power to prove him wrong — repeatedly trying
to rewrite history and belatedly catch up with public opinion
against the war.
She did it
during the first Democratic presidential debate, and she was
at it again yesterday on the Today show.
The issue was former president Bill Clinton’s
campaign trail complaints that it’s unfair for Barack Obama
to be characterized as more antiwar than his wife since they
hold essentially the same position on the war.
Matt Lauer quoted
Obama’s retort that that was true “if you leave out the fact
that she authorized and supported the war there and I said it
was a bad idea” and played a clip of him
saying “I think it is fair to say that we had a
fundamentally different opinion on the wisdom of this war. And I
don’t think we can revise history when it comes to that.”
Lauer then asked Hillary, “Was there a fundamental difference
in 2002 between you and him?”
Instead of honestly explaining her transformation from
pro-war supporter to cheerleader of the war’s progress to
tentative opponent of the war to her current incarnation as
long-term opponent of the war, Hillary skipped right over the
unpleasant past and tried to talk only about the future: “Well,
you know, Matt, I think the important thing is for the Democrats
to be united in trying to either persuade or require this
president to change this direction now — that’s what all of us
in the Senate are trying to do.” Sure, why answer the question
when you can divert attention and blur the differences between
you and your opponents?
Hillary also dutifully hit her talking point that she’s been
“saying for a number of years” that we should bring our troops
home — trying to rhetorically paper-over the fact that for most
of those years she was actually trying to have it both ways on
Iraq: dipping her toe in the rising anti-war tide by voting for
a phased redeployment of troops while steadfastly arguing
against setting any kind of deadline for bringing our troops
home (for instance, less than a year ago, in June 2006,
she said she did not “think it is smart strategy to set a
date certain. I do not agree that that is in the best interest
of our troops or our country”).
This broad-brush, who-cares-about-details approach to Iraq is
a favorite of pro-war Democrats desperately trying to align
themselves with the majority of the American people, at least
until the election. Are we forgetting Joe Lieberman, who claimed
during his campaign against Ned Lamont, “No
one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do“? And there
he is now, Tweedle-Dee to John McCain’s pro-surge Tweedle-Dum.
As the Democrats continue to push for an end to the war, the
devil will most certainly be in the details — and pretending
everyone is on the same page will do little to help voters
decide which candidate to support. Which is exactly how Hillary
wants it.
She’s even trying to turn her chronic shape-shifting on Iraq
into an asset, telling Matt Lauer that she’s “put forth a number
of approaches.” See, she wasn’t trying to cover all her bases —
she was putting forth a number of approaches.
Hillary obviously was paying attention during Bill Clinton’s
master class on rewriting history. Take his claim, made on a
fundraising call with Hillary supporters in March, about the
unfairness of the contrasting
depiction of Hillary and Obama on the war: “To characterize
Hillary and Obama’s positions on the war as polar opposite is
ludicrous. This dichotomy that’s been set up to allow him to
become the raging hero of the anti-war crowd on the Internet is
just factually inaccurate.”
Hmm, let’s see… Hillary voted for the war and Obama
passionately opposed it. Characterizing that as “polar
opposite” hardly seems “factually inaccurate.” Indeed, one might
say it was “factually accurate.” But when Lauer asked Hillary
about this, she said, “I think he was referring to the voting
records most Democrats have.” Which, of course, he absolutely
wasn’t. He was talking about Obama.
Regarding her husband’s claim, Hillary also told Lauer,
“You’ll have to ask him exactly what he meant…” — which I have a
sick feeling is going to be a phrase we are going to hear over
and over and over in the months ahead as Bill Clinton tries to
clear Hillary’s path to the White House.
In the facts-at-our-fingertips age of the Internet, Hillary’s
blur-the-past strategy on Iraq takes a lot of chutzpah.
Arianna Huffington is the editor of
The Huffington Post
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