CNN's Schneider echoed Wash. Post, RNC in suggesting Clinton has changed her position on Iraq
SUMMARY: CNN's Bill Schneider falsely suggested that Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton had changed her position on the Iraq
war during the past week because she
announced her intention to introduce a
bill "to sunset the authorization for the war in Iraq." However, Clinton introduced a bill in the Senate on February 16 that includes a provision
that would "require a new authorization for use of United States military forces in Iraq" unless certain
conditions are met.
On the May 4 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN political analyst Bill Schneider falsely suggested that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) had changed her position on the Iraq war during the past week. Schneider suggested that Clinton's May 3 statement that she and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) will introduce a bill "to sunset the authorization for the war in Iraq" was a shift from her statement in an April 26 debate that "if I knew then what I now know, I would not have voted" to authorize the war. According to Schneider, Clinton "has gone from explaining her vote to authorize the war ... to pressuring Congress to reverse it."
But contrary to Schneider's report, Clinton's support for revoking the war authorization is not new. As Media Matters for America noted, Clinton's own Iraq Troop Protection and Reduction Act of 2007, which was introduced in the Senate on February 16, includes a provision that would "require a new authorization for use of United States military forces in Iraq unless both the President and the Government of Iraq meet certain conditions within 90 days, including the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq." Moreover, Schneider did not explain why Clinton's support for sunsetting the war authorization is in any way inconsistent with her explanation that if she if she knew in 2002 what she knows now, she would not have voted to authorize the Iraq war at all.
From the May 4 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:
SCHNEIDER: Presidential candidates face different pressures.
STUART ROTHENBERG (editor and publisher, Rothenberg Political Report): Are they going to be pragmatic? Are they going to talk about compromise? Or are they going to play to the base?
SCHNEIDER: In Congress, the pressure is to make a deal. In the campaign, the pressure is to stand firm. Hillary Clinton has gone from explaining her vote to authorize the war --
CLINTON: If I knew then what I now know, I would not have voted that way.
SCHNEIDER: -- to pressuring Congress to reverse it.
CLINTON: It is time to sunset the authorization for the war in Iraq.
Schneider's false suggestion that the Clinton had shifted her position on Iraq echoed a May 4 Washington Post headline and a May 4 Republican National Committee press release, which asserted that Clinton had "change[d] tone" on Iraq by calling for the war authorization to be revoked.
From the April 26 South Carolina Democratic debate:
CLINTON: Well, [moderator and NBC Nightly News anchor] Brian [Williams], I take responsibility for my vote. Obviously, I did as good a job I could at the time. It was a sincere vote based on the information available to me.
And I've said many times that, if I knew then what I now know, I would not have voted that way.
But I think that the real question before us: Is what do we do now? How do we try to persuade or require this president to change course?
He is stubbornly refusing to listen to the will of the American people. He threatens to veto the legislation we've passed, which has been something that all of us have been advocating for a number of years now.
And I can only hope that he will not veto it. And I can only end by saying that if this president does not get us out of Iraq, when I am president, I will.
From Clinton's May 3 Senate floor statement:
CLINTON. Madam President, I rise to join my colleague and friend, Senator Byrd, to announce our intention to introduce legislation which proposes October 11, 2007 -- the 5-year anniversary of the original resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq -- as the expiration date for that resolution.
As Senator Byrd pointed out, the October 11, 2002, authorization to use force has run its course, and it is time to reverse the failed policies of President Bush and to end this war as soon as possible.
Earlier this week, President Bush vetoed legislation reflecting the will of the Congress and the American people that would have provided needed funding for our troops while also changing course in Iraq and beginning to bring our troops home.
I believe this fall is the time to review the Iraq war authorization and to have a full national debate so people can be heard. I supported the Byrd amendment on October 10, 2002, which would have limited the original authorization to 1 year, and I believe a full reconsideration of the terms and conditions of that authorization is overdue. This bill would require the President to do just that.
The American people have called for change, the facts on the ground demand change, and the Congress has passed legislation to require change. It is time to sunset the authorization for the war in Iraq. If the President will not bring himself to accept reality, it is time for Congress to bring reality to him.
I urge my colleagues to join Senator Byrd and me in supporting this effort to require a new authorization resolution or to refuse to do so for these new times and these new conditions that we and our troops are facing every single day.
Thanks Poindexter.
It's good to keep the pressure on, however we shouldn't expect "the decider" to heed the will of congress - even if the Democrats succeed. My understanding is that the Vietnam war (and feel free to contradict me if I'm wrong - I heard it from some talking head on TV) was de-authorized three years before the actual pullout.
Clinton has made so many inconsistent and even contradcitory statements concerning Iraq over the past five years that she can take any position tomorrow and claim that she has expressed that opinion before. She merely goes along with where a majority of the moonbats are at any given moment.
Judging by the bat guano you're covered with, I think it's a better idea to travel WITH the moonbats than below them.
Brilliant retort lindenbully, dance around the comment with insults but don't dare address it. Hillary's lying and inconsistancy is legendary, it's even too much for David Geffen, who abandoned her for obama because of her poll watching, flip-flopping, deceitful pandering tendencies. But don't let the facts get in the way of you implying someone has bat crap on their head....excellent debate technique.
Her lying and inconsistency is legendary only in the minds of delusional fox-watchers, so there is no need to address it.
Don't feed the trolls!
Notice how they manage to hijack nearly thread here, garnering three or four times as much attention as honest comments by people who are actually interested in the subject at hand? Ignore em and they'll go somewhere else to play.
Since the majority of the moonbats are on the rightwing she doesnt go quite that far. When she begins agreeing with YOU she will be with the moonbats.
The nearly constant Hillary bashing coming from everyone from the right is indicative of the desparate tactics of "fling enough mud, and some is bound to stick" used by the intellectually vacuous minds of the trolls forever hovering in the background of these threads. Apparently if you do the research and homework to establish that this President is a pathological liar and has misstated every single reason we just had to preemptively attack a country that was very successful in keeping trerrorist organizations outside its borders, you deserve the venomous drivel we have to read daily by certain uninformed, wrong-wing sycophants for the Republic party. Changing your mind when presented with contrary facts to the Repug party line is "flip-flopping" but describing our newest goal in Iraq as merely having an "exectable level of violence" is somehow pragmatic and reasonable. BushCo will do anything they can to not have their chosen successor have to face an intelligent and highly principled woman, who knows how to fight back after years of off-the-wall accusations, and deciding on her own what her response to her husband's philandering would be of her own choosing, not what the likes of Maureen Dowd, Chris Matthews and Billo/Sean/El Rushbo and the Coulterites decided she should have done. Agree with her or not, she does learn from her mistakes, and all these dipsticks who demand some sort of apology from her can slink back under the slimy rocks from which they came.
Oh, there's been plenty of Hillary-bashing from the left, as well. We real liberals, whom were recently insulted by Democratic Congressmen and Senatorial staffers, think of Hillary as a right-winger, in bed with AIPAC and the pro-corporate DLC. Cindy Sheehan refused to endorse her in 2006 because Hillary ran on a PRO-war platform. She IS changing her story, LYING that she did not support the war, which she has consistently voted for for five years. But then this site is good at selling Democrat MISinformation while whining about Repub misinformation.
While I respect Cindy Sheehan for her consistent and well reasoned position on this immoral war and anyone who supports it, to call Hillary Clinton's a "pro-war" platform is simply wrong. As she has stated over and over, her reasons for voting to authorize war powers "as a last step" in fighting terrorism (which mostly happened in the state she was elected to represent), was based on statements of fact that were anything but. Retrospection is a fine diversion, but in the days following 9/11 the entire world was fed lies and fear-inducing mendacity that would have choked any previous President (and yes, I include Nixon in that statement). Even the incompetent and script-reading Reagan and his actual power-behind-the-scenes CIA thug, GHWB had a passing respect for the Constitution. BushCo considers that document to be so much toilet paper, with which he wipes himself almost daily. So why don't you keep your idiotic blather about how much HRC is a war-monger to yourself and your other attack-dog wingers until you acknowledge that the only thing she has been guilty of is following an assumption that no President would tell the blatant lies our current administration belches at us every day. "Cauldron of Chaos" indeed!
You ignore all her votes FOR the war since 2002. She was not endorsed in 2006!!! for her PRO-war stance. She has supported and STILL supports the war crime in Iraq. You Democrats seem to have very selective memories. You also seem to be easily decieved and eager to believe ANY lie that your right-wing candidates tell you. Her support of "redeployment" is for a continued occupation of Iraq.
You been Demo-conned. Again.
As "votes for the war" are you reffering to her votes to fund the war? So, rather than changing her mind through factual debate, this can only be seen as lies. Well, then I guess over 1/2 of the american public are just plain liars about this war. Damn flip flopping american public! See, most rational people will look at the facts as laid out to them and say "hey, I did not know that. As a matter of fact, I was told quite the opposite" and change their opinion on a subject. Rational people see this a growth. Only in the minds of radicals on BOTH sides is this seen as evil. Even when someone is swayed to your side, you see them as either a johnny come lately or being disingenuous. Look at the polls from 4 years ago and compare them to now. People have changed their opinion on this war, so why can' elected officals do the same without being "flip floppers"or "following the polls"?
Because 650,000 people are DEAD because of these "flip-floppers", that's why. You can't kill over half a million people and go "Whoops, sorry." four years later.
Thanks for proving my point. What would you have her do, commit suicide? She and many others in and out of congress have seen the mounting evidence and the wholesale lies of this adminstration and concluded that it was wrong to go to war. Late? yes. Should have known better? Again yes. But to pretend that she is simply saying "Whoops!" or that she is flip flopping for the sake of polls is guesswork. Why not keep the blame where it firmly belongs, on those who TOLD the lies to get us into this war? Yes, much better to blame those who were fooled and later came to their senses. As I said before, this is the difference between rational and radical.
Perhaps she should turn herself in for war crimes. She DID support this war crime for the last five years. She STILL supports keeping US troops in Iraq indefinitely, though at reduced numbers. She backed away from language about NOT attacking Iran.
Looks to me like Hillary is a sociopathic killer trying to cover her crimes. Don't assist her in it.
Clinton hasn't changed her position on the war. She has been both for and against the war from the beginning... Media Matters is really stretching it to defend Clinton's war positionS.