Voices from the Flats – The Hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton
4 11 2009The following is an op-ed by Donald Craig Mitchell, an attorney and historian who lives in Anchorage. He is the author of Sold American: The Story of Alaska Natives and Their Land and Take My Land Take My Life: The Story of Congress’s Historic Settlement of Alaska Native Land Claims, which in 2006 the Alaska Historical Society named as two of the most important books that have been written about Alaska.
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Senator Hillary Clinton’s Iraq War Vote and
Secretary of State Clinton’s Iniquitous Hypocrisy
by Donald Craig Mitchell
In the 1981 cult film Cutter’s Way, Alex Cutter, a one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed, alcohol-riven, Vietnam war veteran played by John Heard, explains to his Ivy League-educated slacker pal Richard Bone, played by Jeff Bridges, how America works: “It’s never their ass that’s on the line. Never. It’s always somebody else’s.”
Alex Cutter’s view of that crossed my mind last week when I watched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton move through Pakistan on her self-congratulatory “bridge-building” tour during which she shrugged off the accusation that C.I.A. predator drone attacks that kill Pakistani civilians are a form of terrorism and then lectured the Pakistani government that it has not been doing enough to assist the United States in its fight against al-Qaeda. Secretary Clinton then flew home via Abu Dhabi, Jerusalem, Marrakech, and Cairo on her personal jet. Back to her mansion in Washington, D.C., to resume her rich-girl life as one of the world’s most well-known celebrities.
On February 11, 2003 a colleague and I who had flown from Alaska to Washington, D.C., to attend a meeting on Capitol Hill had dinner above Dupont Circle at Restaurant Nora. It was a Tuesday night, blustery, and getting ready to snow, and when we arrived the dining room was only half full. Shortly after my colleague and I were seated, Bill and Hillary Clinton walked in and were shown to a table in the back corner of the room. Two days later The Washington Post reported that Bill ordered curry and Hillary grilled shrimp.
An hour later when the Clintons stood up to leave only three tables still were occupied. My colleague’s and mine, a table at which three Marriott Hotel executives were seated, and a table occupied by a man and his wife who were out on a date.
On her way out, when Hillary reached my table she looked back and saw that Bill was chatting up the Marriott executives. So she stopped and made small talk with me until Bill arrived with the Marriott executives and the couple from the third table in tow. For the next ten minutes the seven of us had our Primary Colors moment with Bill, standing around with after dinner drinks in hand discussing the issues of the day.
Four months earlier Congress had passed the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution,” which granted George W. Bush authority to decide on his own to use the Armed Forces “to defend the national security of the United States against the continued threat posed by Iraq.” A week earlier Secretary of State Colin Powell had presented the Bush administration’s case for war to the UN Security Council. The previous day in Paris Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin had called for the UN weapons inspection commission’s work in Iraq to continue. And in Brussels NATO had rejected Turkey’s request that the alliance move Patriot missiles to Turkey’s border with Iraq. So the major issue of the day that evening was whether the United States would invade Iraq.
When I asked Bill Clinton what he thought was going to happen next at the UN, he told me that I should forget the UN. That the United States was going to war because “these people [George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld] came here to do this.”
The former President then offered two additional insights.
The first was that the United States had only one national security interest in Iraq. And that was to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. But the good news was that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapons capability. The second was that the most important national security interest of the United States was to stop al-Qaeda; that everything the Bush administration had been saying about the danger al-Qaeda posed was absolutely true and then some.
As the conversation wound down, Bill Clinton concluded by predicting that the real tragedy of the coming Iraq war was that to wage it the United States would have to take its eye off the ball in Afghanistan, thereby allowing the Taliban and al-Qaeda to regroup.
We now know that former President Clinton was prescient that evening. But what does that have to do with Secretary of State Clinton?
The Senate debate on the Iraq war resolution began on October 3, 2002 and concluded early in the morning of October 11 when, by a vote of 77 to 23, the Senate voted to accept the version of the resolution that had passed the House ten hours earlier.
Throughout the debate Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd, the most vociferous critics of the rush to war, repeatedly reminded their colleagues that a vote for the resolution was a vote to allow George W. Bush to wage war unilaterally. Kennedy railed: “Make no mistake about it, this resolution lets the President go it alone.” And Byrd lamented: “I never would have thought I would find a Senate which would lack the backbone to stand up against the stampede, this rush to war” and “put it into his [George W. Bush’s] hands alone, to let him determine alone when we will send the sons and daughters of the American people into war.”
After presumably listening to those admonitions, on the final day of the debate Senator Hillary Clinton went to the floor to explain to the Senate why she would vote for the resolution.
She first announced that she accepted the Bush administration’s intelligence reports which purported to document that Saddam Hussein not only had worked “to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program,” but also had “given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members.” Senator Clinton later would admit that she had not read the National Intelligence Estimate which would have cautioned her that none of that was true.
The fact that through laziness or negligence Hillary Clinton allowed herself to be bamboozled so easily by the Bush administration about why war was necessary is disturbing. But her rationale for agreeing to give George W. Bush the blank check to take the United States into war against which Senators Kennedy and Byrd had warned is even more disturbing. Because she next explained that, rather than war, she thought the “best course” was for United States “to go to the United Nations for a strong resolution that scraps the 1998 restrictions on inspections and calls for complete, unlimited inspections, with cooperation expected and demanded from Iraq.”
On October 7, 2002 in Cincinnati George W. Bush had delivered a nationally televised speech in which he had again beat the drum for war by again conflating Iraq’s purported weapons programs with the September 11 attack and al-Qaeda. The speech concluded by noting that Congress soon would vote on a resolution whose passage would authorize him, at his discretion, to attack Iraq. But he then asserted that “approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable.”
Three days later Senator Clinton would tell the Senate: “President Bush’s speech in Cincinnati and the changes in policy that have come forth from the administration since they first began broaching this issue some weeks ago have made my vote easier. Even though the resolution before the Senate is not as strong as I would like in requiring the diplomatic route first and placing highest priority on a simple, clear requirement for unlimited inspections, I take the President at his word that he will try hard to pass a United Nations resolution and seek to avoid war, if possible.” (my emphasis).
But four months later, with Senator Clinton standing at his side, her husband would tell me and six other strangers that war was inevitable and we should forget about the UN because “these people came here to do this.”
Since it is reasonable to assume that Bill Clinton gives his wife advice that is more candid than the advice he offered us that evening, two possibilities suggest themselves.
The first is that, without talking with her husband about it, Hillary Clinton really did take George W. Bush at his word. If that is what happened, her gullibility calls her fitness for high office into question.
But the second possibility is worse. And it is that Hillary did talk with Bill and she understood George W. Bush’s duplicity and she understood his agenda. But with her reelection in 2006 on the horizon and a presidential bid in 2008 on her mind, and at a time when, according to a Washington Post poll, 6 out of 10 Americans supported George W. Bush going to war on his own in Iraq, Hillary Clinton voted yes in order to be viewed as “strong on defense” when she knew that Senators Kennedy and Byrd were right that she should have voted no.
If that is what happened, subordinating the nation’s interest to her own (as she assessed her interest at the time) was not a dereliction. It was a craven act of calculated self-promotion so awful that the thought of it should haunt her into the grave. If America were Japan, Seppuku would be the sanction. But America is not Japan. So instead of retiring from public life in disgrace and accepting personal responsibility for the deaths of the more than 100,000 Iraqis and 4,600 service men and woman who have died in Iraq for no reason related to the national security interests of the United States, as well as the deaths of the 55 service men and women who died last month in Afghanistan who might not be dead if, as a consequence of her vote, in 2003 George W. Bush had not taken the nation’s eye off the ball in Afghanistan, Senator Clinton was rewarded with appointment to one of the most prestigious offices the nation can bestow.
That rankles me. And my bet is that it rankles the legendary passenger on the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard who in the dead of night in 1972 threw Robert McNamara, another political celebrity of Hillary’s rank, over the ferry railing but then at the last moment thought better of it before the former Secretary of Defense, a war criminal who should have been in a cell in the Hague, fell into the drink. But it would not rankle Alex Cutter. Because Alex understands that in America, for politicians of Hillary Clinton’s and Robert McNamara’s high station, no matter how morally abhorrent, actions only rarely have consequences.
Because, unlike for the rest of us, it’s never their ass that’s on the line.
November 4th, 2009 at 8:46 PM
Amazing that an Attorney can jump to only two conclusions based on pure speculation and a casual post dinner conversation. It seems the only point of the article is to claim some kind of self importance and knowledge for having talked to Bill Clinton.
This was post 9-11. Hillary is the Senator from NY which was attacked. Over 3,000 New York citizens were killed. Ground zero was still being cleared of debris. Could she realistically tie the Presidents’ hands to protect NYC at a moments notice? Could she as a Senator refute, the intelligence claims coming from the Administration and intelligence agencies? Did she do as her constituents wished? To be protected from another attack?
Senator Hillary Clinton was also working tirelessly to get all the Federal support and funding to rebuild NYC. She & Schumer made NYC’s case for receiving tens of billions of dollars to President Bush.
Hillary didn’t start the Iraq War. Bush did. The resolution was to give Bush enough power to force Iraq to allow UN inspectors into the country. Inspectors had not been in Iraq since ‘97. Bush met with leaders of both Parties and promised he would seek UN approval and do all possible to prevent war. Bush obviously lied. He didn’t even allow inspectors to complete their work. Had they completed their work, they would have proven Iraq was not violating UN resolution. There were no WMDs or nuclear program.
We learned from the Downing Street Memo’s that Bush would sex up the intelligence to go to war. Douglas Fieth, under Sec of Defense was tasked with this work.
November 4th, 2009 at 8:53 PM
sauerkraut Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 8:21 PM
Hillary is bright, no doubt about that.
But she’s had the negativity following her around since forever.
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As so did Amy Carter, Chelsea Clinton and Valerie Plame All the negativity coming from the Republicans and Rush Limbaugh.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:34 PM
I was surprised to read this here. Certainly, I applaud AKM for allowing guest columnists to get exposure, and certainly it’s good to consider a variety of viewpoints. But it seems to me that all of the other guests, whatever my reaction to their work, have introduced some new information along with their opinions. This piece is just another illustration that there are people who just really don’t like Hillary Clinton. It is certainly Mr. Mitchell’s right to share that dislike, and to write about it, and even to be snarky about it; but I question how much useful debate will arise from this rehash of the same old “gullible or hypocrite” meme.
I wonder if Mr. Mitchell has written similar pieces — including the “must be either unfit for high office or a maleficent self-promoter” choice — about VP Biden (who holds an even higher office than SOS), or Senator Kerry (who came close to doing so). Or Senators Cantwell, Dodd, Feinstein, Reid, Rockefeller, or Schumer. Or John Edwards, or Max Cleland. Should they all commit suppuku?
Incidentally, “she shrugged off the accusation that C.I.A. predator drone attacks that kill Pakistani civilians are a form of terrorism….”. She’s the Secretary of State. That means, among other things, that she is really unlikely to acknowledge that Administration policy is a form of terrorism. It also means that she is expected to support the President, who is, BTW, the person who authorizes the use of Predators.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:37 PM
Another thing about Hillary. We know she made up a story about Chelsea on 9-11 being near the twin towers. She also claimed on 9-12 in her speech on the floor of the Senate, “I don’t think any of us will get out of our minds the images that we saw on television of the plane going into the first tower, the plane going into the second tower, the plane going into the Pentagon.”
We know W made the same claim, and yet the image of the first plane going into the first tower was not available yet, and we have never seen images of a plane hitting the Pentagon.
I personally think much of this was rehearsed prior to 9-11 and certain people in our government were aware that the events of that day were going to happen.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:48 PM
Poolman … there were definitely images of the plane that hit the Pentagon and tons of footage. It simply wasn’t as dramatic as the towers and wasn’t shown as much. I watched a lot of it on DC local news over the internet.
Is this like the moon landing was filmed at Disney? Butterfly nets anyone? This is the old “if me or my Aunt Fanny didn’t see it, it didn’t happen”. Twilight zone!
November 4th, 2009 at 9:53 PM
SameOld @ 55…My point here is that she can lie like the rest of them, without batting an eye. But if you have a link to video showing the plane going into the Pentagon, I’d like to see that.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:15 PM
” Secretary Clinton then flew home via Abu Dhabi, Jerusalem, Marrakech, and Cairo on her personal jet. Back to her mansion in Washington, D.C., to resume her rich-girl life as one of the world’s most well-known celebrities.” – from the article.
OK, my take on the op-ed piece: Donald Craig Mitchell might be a bang-up author about things Alaska, but this piece sure does seem to have quite the bias…and, frankly, seems to be lacking more than a bit of reality.
First off, as quoted above, he uses the same old tired “personal jet” meme (a big fav of the “fiscal conservatives”) that implies she is ‘too good’ to fly on a regular plane like the rest of us. That she is so high and mighty, she uses a “personal jet.” At tax-payer’s expense. What he fails to mention is that, *by law*, certain high-ranking officials of any adminstration are required to use ‘private’ transportation to get from Point A to Point B. It isn’t a choice to use a “personal jet,” it’s a requirement. So, right off the bat, he’s got me thinking he’s going to be none too fair and balanced in his comments. The “rich-girl life” comment, then, didn’t change my initial thought.
And, sorry, but when he comes out with: “Since it is reasonable to assume that Bill Clinton gives his wife advice [...]” and “[...] without talking with her husband about it, Hillary Clinton really did take George W. Bush at his word,” I wanted to sit Mr. Mitchell down and explain to him that women are FULLY capable of making decisions without their husband’s input! That little gals really and truly are able to think all on their own, now, thank you very much. How insulting!
Although I agree with the premise of the article, [that 'we' can be all lofty in our rhetoric when it isn't our ass that's on the line/paying the price in the outcome of what we do and/or say], I think he totally loses his way in making the point. He starts off with HRC and what she is doing *today*, but quick as a wink, veers off in another direction entirely.
Instead of taking HRC to task for embracing/espousing *current* US policies (use of drones, etc.) that he (Mitchell) -apparently- feels are unwise, he goes off on a tirade about what HRC (and the majority of the rest of our elected officials!) did when she was a Senator – trust that Bush would NOT lie about something as momentous and serious as reasons for going to war. If she is, as he writes, “morally abhorrent” for her decisions then, then so is every single *other* person in Congress who voted as she did. Does he take *them* to task? No. Only HRC gets his vitriolic treatment.
I think Mitchell forgets HRC is now the SoS and that she represents the Obama Administration. She is not in charge of making policy; she advises, helps form, and then carries out the policies the POTUS decides on.
All in all, I’d say Mitchell had an ax to grind with this op-ed piece. And I’d also say that by his opening with a salvo at HRCs mode of travel (without explaining why she uses a “personal jet”) and then continuing to slam her, personally, for what almost the entire Congress did, shows how petty that grinding is. Hey, he might not like HRC –there are many who can’t stand her– but for heaven’s sake, an article like this?
He might just as well have written: “Mrs. Clinton should just listen to her husband; Bill knows what’s going on and he’ll keep her straight. Better yet, she should just stay home and be quiet like a good little woman.” Leastwise, that’s what I got out of the op-ed.
I’ll go, now, and ask my spouse what I should think about the piece…after all, I’m just a flibberty-jibbet woman who couldn’t possibly have a thought all by my little ol’ self…
No, I was not at all impressed with the op-ed piece. (Could you tell?) beth.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:21 PM
[Wolf Pack @51, you said what I was thinking. And much better than I.]
Hindsight is 20-20, and it is very easy to look back at a situation and criticize with what we know now. Assuming facts not in evidence, and then pillorying someone based on those “facts” is, well, hypocritical.
Reading Mitchell’s essay between the lines, I think he simply doesn’t like Hillary Clinton. That is certainly his prerogative. He is also very angry about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and seems to be looking for someone to blame. Okay.
But putting the two together is tricky at best, and isn’t working here. The opinion Mitchell has presented is so flawed it throws his motives into question, revealing much more about him than about Hillary Clinton.
November 5th, 2009 at 4:23 AM
The piece invites dissent just by being so obviously biased and laced with emotion-charged words. We are all used to AKM’s gentle, well-resourced, and usually humorous articles. This essay is in clear opposition to AKM’s style.
November 5th, 2009 at 4:45 AM
Hilarious. Today is was announced that Hillary is just featured on the cover of Newsweek with a glowing story about her. The military loves her. She was the most informed senator regarding war issues. She is doing a great job as SOS. She is a team player. Clearly, this idiot didn’t receive the memo.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:26 AM
I have spent some time..reading first..the first post..then the assorted comments..all the way through..then a bit of reverse..study the word choices..possible inflections..and/or..realigned comments statements. The unnamed board I was on for 5 years..had this sort of thing happen..freq. and it was far less..’constrained’..so..it (political views) was abolished. That board flourishes now..simply..doing the depts and sections it was..orig. designed to serve. Here..there is wide-angle ..lensing. Many views from many angles and life experiences, political coloring and educational backgrounds. So..here I sit..looking at the moniter..and I have this wonderful feeling of having hiked through a portion..of a cave complex..with assorted stalagmites, rising up from the floor of the ‘cave of political awarenesses’..each unique..each showing us..a human brain and mental-emotional ..’processes’..captured..at This Moment..in..Time. Pretty amazing really.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:06 AM
I must admit I am a little confused, is it still 2002? I don’t see how this particular essay pertains to anything current. The US is faced with an array of serious problems, arguably some of the most serious are entirely domestic in nature. Setting all of that aside to discuss the wars in Asia is fine if it is realistic or insightful.
I don’t find either realism or insight here. IMO realism indicates that our problem is how to extricate ourselves from these counterproductive and unaffordable wars. There are far more that two alternatives and one of them is the unfortunate alternative that there is no “good” way to do it. An insight might be that both wars are far off track but specifically in Afghanistan we are now just interlopers on an internal power struggle that has been characteristic of that country for — well centuries I think it is. Worse still all the evidence points towards the conclusion that the faction we are supposedly supporting is not legitimate.
We could go on to debate whether the domestic or foreign agendas should be addressed simultaneously, or in sequence. Realism again indicates that the former is the only actual choice. However, given the apparent climate in the US itself, one has to wonder what the hysteria from the right wing would be like if Obama unilaterally began to draw down forces in both countries at an accelerated rate in order to #1 save a few warehouses full of money, #2 stop killing our people and some of “their” people, and #3 redirect resources into creating a few million jobs.
I guess I just don’t see the point of this article at all.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:11 AM
I personally like to have my assumptions challenged.
In the runup to the war in Iraq it was disappointing to me
to have so many Democrats jump on the Bush bandwagon.
I lost respect for Colin Powell after that show in the UN. Only
later did I learn he was put up to it by Bush and Company.
It is a sad fact that many of our politicians will do what ever is
politically expedient for them without any consideration of what
the impact is for the future of the United States. We must find a
way to get the money out of politics so we can elect more
average citizens instead of millionaires.
JMHO.
DD
November 5th, 2009 at 12:20 PM
The Obama administration has committed to an international effort via the United Nations in Af-Pak, a remarkable change in US foreign policy. General McChrystal has set out the military possibilities as objectively as possible. At the very same time, Pakistan has committed 30,000 troops to drive the Taliban and Al Qaeda out of Waziristan. The fighting is reported to be intense. At the same time, our own troops, thousands strong, are just across the border from Waziristan, confronting extremist Taliban and Al Qaeda trying to escape the Pakistanis. And just as all the rabbits are being flushed from their holes, the Predator program is being stepped up, exactly the right military moment to use the Predator. At the same time, a controversial and extensive review and realignment of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is underway. At the same time, diplomatic messengers have been in constant contact in the region, including a sanctioned mission by Sen John Kerry to Kabul, and a sanctioned mission by Secretary of State Clinton to Pakistan. The operative phrase here is “…at the same time…”. This number of simultaneous events does not occur happenstance. Something large and coordinated is underway. You would think a historian, of all people, would add it all up and realize the gravity of the moment. This is a moment for us to be careful, and measured, and supportive of good people in harm’s way. I say lets give the Obama administration the trust, the time and the space to finish this combined diplomatic, politcal and military action. Historian Donald Mitchell’s energy might be better spent in observing this moment.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:38 PM
wow! this was a goody. i love it. so many people able to speak clearly but kindly toward one another. imho Mr. Mitchell was a tad overwrought but his op. ed. made for great conversation.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:29 PM
Donald Mitchell: You need to get back on your meds.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:25 PM
Please, no more tripe from Don Mitchell.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:47 AM
This has been interesting…
the post and the comments…
The post reminded me how deeply disappointed in HRC, amongst many, many others, I was over her vote in the Senate to let President Bush loose with his Iraq war scheme.
It was not sufficient then, or now, to explain that she really wanted all diplomatic and UN type avenues exhausted first…
I don’t care WHY she did it… the action alone is what we are left with.
Comments here reminded me that her presidential primary campaign used the arguments which whatzername later took up and turned into “pallin’ around with terrorists.”
There’s a nasty sector in the Dems we try to pretend doesn’t exist and that was right out there in the open … with HRC at the helm…
I don’t care IF she approved the message, missed it, whatever- it is the action we are left with.
As much as I admire HRC on certain levels, I have come to think she lacks large vision .
I don’t think that qualifies as hypocrisy…
And so have to disagree with Mr Mitchell.
As to the:
” Because, unlike for the rest of us, it’s never their ass that’s on the line.”
framing of this post…
That’s because WE do NOT put their hineys on the line!
Singling out HRC to yap about when all those other “leaders”, of whom so many are still there in DC being all leader-y, is disingenuous at best…
Unless of course, HRC was expected to perform above all others because she shares the same toilet as the past pres…?
PHHHTT