Lagniappe
Maureen
Dowd/NYT: Bomb,
Bomb Iran
Hillary seemed rattled.
Up until now, she has displayed
remarkable imperturbability — gliding along with the help
of good lighting, a hearty guffaw and a clever husband.
But on Sunday in New Hampton, Iowa, Hillary lost her cool at
last. Sparring with a voter on Iran, she sounded defensive and
paranoid.
A Democrat,
Randall Rolph, asked Senator Clinton why he should back her
when she did not learn her lesson after voting to authorize
W. to use force in Iraq. He did not understand how she could
have voted yea to urge W. to label Iran’s Revolutionary
Guard a terrorist organization, possibly setting the stage for
more Cheney chicanery.
Hillary said
that “labeling them a terrorist organization
gives us the authority to impose sanctions on their leadership.
...I consider that part of a very robust diplomatic effort.”
Fearful that her questioner was an enemy spy creeping into her
perfect little world, she suggested that he had been put up to
the question and did not have his information right.
“I take exception,” Mr. Rolph insisted. “This
is my own research. ... I’m offended that you would suggest
that.”
Hillary apologized
and said that she had been asked “the
very same question in three other places.” She explained
that she had signed on to a rewritten version of the amendment
that did not, as he claimed, give a green light for combat.
In the original “sense of Senate on Iran” document,
sponsored by Joe Lieberman and the Republican Jon Kyl last month,
there was a paragraph that supported “the prudent and calibrated
use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq,
including diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military instruments,
in support of the policy with respect to” Iran. That original
draft, called “tantamount to a declaration of war” and “Dick
Cheney’s fondest pipe dream” by Senator Jim Webb
of Virginia, was softened.
Even so, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd voted no, and Barack Obama
would have voted no if he had voted.
If you know
the dingbat vice president is agitating for a conflict with
Iran, if you know that Condi is chasing after Cheney with
a butterfly net on Iran and Syria, if you know you can’t
believe anything this administration says, why vote to give them
more backing on their dysfunctional Middle East policy?
The schism
in the administration is deepening in a way that should alarm
Hillary. Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper report
in today’s Times that Cheney and his hawks are arguing
that the Israeli intelligence about Syria’s nascent nuclear
capabilities that led to last month’s Israeli strike on
Syria was credible and should dictate a harsher policy toward
Syria and North Korea, while Condi, Bob Gates and calmer heads “did
not believe the intelligence presented so far merits any change
in the American diplomatic approach.”
Hillary’s hawkish Iran vote was an ill-advised move, especially
given her private view that Cheney is untrustworthy and given
Sy Hersh’s New Yorker report claiming that Cheney had pushed
to devise a plan to attack the Revolutionary Guard facilities
in Iran.
She made a course correction on Oct. 1, co-sponsoring legislation
introduced by Mr. Webb to prohibit the use of funds for military
operations against Iran without explicit Congressional authorization.
Her opponents
have sounded the fool-me-once-shame-on-you, fool-me-twice-shame-on-me
drumbeat. Obama chided Hillary for her willingness “to
once again extend to the president the benefit of the doubt.” John
Edwards wondered if in “six months from now he goes to
war in Iran, are we going to hear her once again say if only
I had known then what I know now?”
When Hillary
voted to let W. use force in Iraq, she didn’t
even read the intelligence estimate. She wasn’t trying
to do the right thing. She was trying to do the opportunistic
thing. She felt she could not run for president, as a woman,
if she played the peacenik.
By throwing
in with Joe Lieberman and the conservative hawks on the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard issue, she once more overcompensated
in a cynical way. She’d like to paint Obama as the weak
reed who wants to cozy up to dictators, while she’s the
one who will play tough. It was odd, given her success in the
debates conveying the sense that she is the manliest candidate
among the Democrats, that she felt the need to man-up on Iran.
But maybe
she knows that Rudy will hurl thunderbolts at her, as he did
in the debate yesterday, suggesting that she doesn’t
have the guts to use a military option to stop Iran from going
nuclear.
Voters seem
more concerned with Hillary’s political expediency — which
the vote underscored — than with her ability to be manly.
Her camp seems to think her vote was a safe one because W. and
Cheney do not have the time or support to bomb Iran, and that
Bob Gates can stop it. But she may be underestimating W. and
Cheney. She should be at least as paranoid about that pair as
she was about an Iowa Democrat.
Maureen
Dowd is
an opinion Op/Ed writer for the New York Times. Petroleumworld
does not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
note: This commentary was originally published by The New York
Times, on 10/10/2007. Petroleumworld reprint this article in
the interest
of our readers.
All
comments posted and published on Petroleumworld, do not
reflect either for or against the opinion expressed in the
comment
as an endorsement of Petroleumworld. All comments expressed
are private comments and do not necessary reflect the view
of this website. All comments are posted and published
without liability to Petroleumworld.
Fair
use Notice: This site contains copyrighted material the use
of which has not always been specifically authorized by the
copyright owner. We are making such material available in our
efforts to advance understanding of issues of environmental
and humanitarian significance. We believe this constitutes
a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for
in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
All
works published by Petroleumworld are in accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research and educational purposes.
Petroleumworld has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator
of this article nor is Petroleumworld endorsed or sponsored
by the originator.
Petroleumworld
encourages persons to reproduce, reprint, or broadcast Petroleumworld
articles provided that any such reproduction identify the original
source, http://www.petroleumworld.com or else and it is done
within the fair use as provided for in section 107 of the US
Copyright Law. If you wish to use copyrighted material from
this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use',
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Internet
web links to http://www.petroleumworld.com are appreciated
Petroleumworld
News 10/10/07
Copyright© 2007
Maureen
Dowd/NYT. All
rights reserved.
Send
this story to a friend
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write
to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE 5.01+
Windows NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels
