New at Reason

May 1, 2007

Christopher Preble has his suspicions that the Democrats' presidential frontrunner looks for foreign policy wisdom from George W. Bush.

Comments

|5.1.07 @ 9:29AM|#

Preble devotes the middle part of his column to speculation about Clinton's beliefs, and doesn't even bother to actually discuss the argument she gave at the time of her vote, and ever since?

To paraphrase, "I've been on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and I believe the President needs the authority to use force in order to effectively run America's foreign policy." This says nothing about the execuation of the war, or even whether it should have been launched. Maybe she supported the AUMF to give Bush a better hand in compelling Iraq to comply with its obligations (you know, the argument Bush made when he asked for the authorization).

I don't find her argument terribly compelling - I want Congress to keep presidents on a shorter leash than they have over the past few decades - but shouldn't her stated position play some role in a column about her beliefs about foreign and military policy?

|5.1.07 @ 11:41AM|#

"The latest Gallup poll shows that Sen. Hillary Clinton's lead over Sen. Barack Obama has dropped to a mere five points."

The latest Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead of her by 2 points.

|5.1.07 @ 1:07PM|#

Leave it to the Dems to self destruct.

|5.1.07 @ 1:30PM|#

The latest Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead of her by 2 points.

An exercise for the reader - check the margin of error. ;)

|5.1.07 @ 1:45PM|#

"An exercise for the reader - check the margin of error. ;)"

True, the margin of error is about 3 or 4 points, but Hillary has been in a free fall for the past month.

|5.1.07 @ 3:37PM|#

I'd say that Hillary's foreign-policy mind is an interesting mix of political calculation, Wilsonian idealism, and power intoxication. Pretty much the same mixture that characterized her husband's administration.

After all, the last President to properly heed George Washington's warning was Calvin Coolidge.

|5.1.07 @ 4:29PM|#

The latest Bush pronouncement, "Chaos will result if we pull out" ignores the fact that chaos already exisits.

The debate should be, "WILL PULLING OUT RESULT IN SIGNIFICANTLY GREATER CHAOS, ABOUT THE SAME, OR LESS?"

If Hillary or Obama think that it will be about the same or perhaps less, then why not say that and have a real debate, or say they favor a pullout based on that reasoning?

Robert Pape, after studying suicide bombings for 10 years, says they only occur with foreign occupations. Will it really be all that worse if we leave?

What do the candidates think will happen if we leave? The bad thing about Hillary is she refuses to say anything definitive.