Neoconservatism With a Democratic Face

Great column by Christopher Hitchens, the most high-minded of the Clinton-haters, on why Hillary Clinton will never be a dove.

A man like John Edwards can back away from his own 2002 vote easily enough by suggesting that he was deceived by Republican propaganda, but he was barely in politics before 2000. Sen. Clinton, however, was not just in politics. She was in the White House. That's why she had to speak of "the four years" that had elapsed since the relationship between the United States and Iraq went critical once more.

And more on Bill's role ginning up war with Iraq.

After speaking to the U.N. General Assembly meeting of 2006, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq found himself in a room with President Bush and former President Clinton. He embraced them both. "Thank you," he said to Clinton, "for signing the law that called for the liberation of Iraq. And thank you, Mr. Bush, for being the one to implement it."

This is really it; this is why the spinning of Hillary's Iraq vote and the cunning plans for how she can come out against an Iran war are doomed. Hillary's running as the "experience" candidate, but she actually has less experience in elected office than Barack Obama. The implication: She has the experience of living and working in the White House. And that White House laid some of the groundwork for the Iraq War. I don't know why reporters keep trying to break down her explanations for her 2002 vote; it'd be more useful to get her admit whether she would continue the foreign policy of her husband from 1993-2001. She would.