The Hillary Question

August 4, 2007

[Note: This post has been sitting around in draft form for awhile, but I shelved it because I was starting to be convinced otherwise. But, as they say, new s*** has come to light.]

Dana Goldstein has an interesting pair of posts on Progressive Hillary Clinton and Women’s Leadership that consider her candidacy from a perspective I hadn’t quite considered before. I don’t find it convincing, but at least I understand now why someone who’s progressive might consider voting for her.

I once referred to Senator Clinton as a “Lieberman Democrat” and I regret that. To be fair, Lieberman seems to have become quite a bit more unhinged since I made that comparison. And while I do believe that she’s more conservative than much of the rest of the party, her sanity train certainly hasn’t left the station.

Anyway, I appreciate Goldstein’s argument that Clinton is a progressive because of her stand on feminist issues, but I really don’t think that’s sufficient.

But a great deal of my unease with a Clinton candidacy comes from the fear that she stands to the right of most of the rest of us. Despite all that was going on in 2005, Hillary apparently considered video game sales to minors as a dire threat to our nation. Not that I disagree with her, but it would have been nice if she could have worked up the same amount of outrage on torture, wiretapping, and the loss of habeas corpus. And let’s not forget that her support for the Bush war lasted far longer than it should have and reflects a great deal of naiveté about the political and policy operations of the Bush administration

The most clear evidence we’ve seen of rightward tilt in the last week is Hillary Clinton’s attitude towards the use of nuclear weapons:

Asked about Obama’s speech and his comments about nuclear weapons, New York Sen. Clinton chided Obama for addressing hypotheticals.

“Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons. … I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons,” Clinton said.

Asked about the idea of unilateral U.S. military action in Pakistan to get al-Qaida leadership, Clinton said: “How we do it should not be telegraphed or discussed for obvious reasons.”

Hillary’s main narrative she’s trying to build here is that Obama is not experienced enough to be President. But I would hope one could at least talk straight about the use of nukes. What I get out of this is that Obama would be very reluctant to use them — is horrified by them — but that Hillary sees them as just another useful threat to wave around. Again, it makes me wonder what her position on torture or civil liberties is. I’ve had just about damn enough of a President unwilling to discuss whether or not we engage in deeply evil behavior. I won’t tolerate it from my own party. Or, as “Sifu Tweety Fish” says at the Poor Man Institute:

Twenty years ago, everybody in this country (give or take a baker’s million blazing nutjobs) understood that the use of nuclear weapons was a cataclysmic, final act of madness, a step towards global suicide to be avoided at (almost) any cost. Now, absent an enemy with any real ability to do us harm, the idea that nuclear weapons should be available to use on caves full of crazy idiots armed with weapons that were the height of military sophistication approximately seventy years ago, this idea is the conventional wisdom? Of the Democratic Party? [ I'm not lazy, I'm shocked into silence ]

So yes, Hillary Clinton is a woman. And being elected President would be encouraging to other women and a great step forward in women’s rights. But when someone spends the week saying “that naive idiot said he wouldn’t use nukes against terrorists and I’d never make that promise,” I’m a little concerned about voting for him or her regardless of any other position he or she might take.

The woman doesn’t reluctantly consider using nukes. She’s not even apparently bothered by the idea of using nukes. That’s freaking scary. What else doesn’t faze her?

Posted in Politics, War, What The...?!?