From the WSJ Opinion Archives
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The Luxury
of Heedlessness
During Saturday night's Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton offered a hint of
why we shouldn't take Democratic promises of a quick retreat from Iraq seriously.
Here is what she said:
I think we're in vigorous agreement about getting our troops home as quickly and responsibly as we possibly can, serving notice on the Maliki government that the blank check they've had from George Bush is no longer valid. We're going to have to have intensive diplomatic efforts in the region. I don't think anyone can predict what the consequences will be. And I think we have to be ready for whatever they might be.
We have to figure out what we're going to do with the 100,000- plus American civilians who are there working at the embassy, working for not-for-profits or American businesses. We have to figure out what we're going to do about all the Iraqis who sided with us, you know, like the translators who helped the Marines in Fallujah whom I met, who said they wouldn't have survived without them. Are we going to leave them?
You know, this is a complicated enterprise, so it has to be done right.
Half a cheer for Mrs. Clinton for sparing a thought for "the Iraqis who sided with us." To our mind, this makes her preferable to front-runner Barack Obama, who has said that genocide of Iraqis would be better than a continued U.S. presence.
But even if you are untroubled by the idea of betraying Iraq, the next president will have to take account of American interests as well as humanitarian ones. Mrs. Clinton's comment points to why the retreat Democratic voters are demanding would be a disaster for America.
Why does she think "the Iraqis who sided with us" would be in danger in the event of American withdrawal? There are two possibilities: that they would face official retaliation from an anti-American regime (as happened to South Vietnamese who favored independence after an earlier generation of Democrats betrayed them), or that they would face retaliation from terrorists.
In other words, Mrs. Clinton is halfway to acknowledging that her proposed retreat would likely leave Iraq as either an anti-American state or a haven for anti-American terrorists. It's hard to see how either outcome would leave America better off than it is today.
Mrs. Clinton may be cynical enough to tell Democratic voters what they want to hear. Obama may even be naive enough to believe it. But presidents are called on to make actual decisions; they do not have the luxury of heedlessness to the consequences.
Attack
of the Killer Tomatoes 2
Hillary Clinton is plotting a "sequel," the New York Times reports:
In trying to battle back from her loss in the Iowa caucuses to Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, Mrs. Clinton is recalibrating her message in hopes of producing Comeback Kid: The Sequel--achieving the reversal of fortune her husband pulled off with his second-place finish here in the Democratic nomination contest in 1992.
Of course, sequels are almost always terrible. Though the two exceptions that come to mind--"The Godfather: Part II" and "The Empire Strikes Back"--do seem somehow apposite.
The Times reports that Mrs. Clinton is blaming the media:
Advisers said that both Clintons had miscalculated the endurance and depth of what they called "the Obama phenomenon." They both believed that, in the final months of 2007, more voters would question whether Mr. Obama was ready to be president and more reporters would pick apart his political record and personal character. Now anger inside the campaign at the news media has hardened; Mr. Clinton, in particular, believes reporters will be complicit if Mr. Obama becomes the nominee and loses to a Republican.
"Reporters will be complicit" if a Republican wins? Apparently Mrs. Clinton believes reporters are Democratic partisans, a belief that is not without basis in reality. But if reporters have ill served Mrs. Clinton, isn't it because they did precisely what she did, namely underestimate Obama?
To put it another way, Mrs. Clinton would seem to be in trouble now because she believed the narrative of "inevitability" that she put forward and the news media echoed. As we argued Friday, it's an example of how friendly media breed complacency in liberal politicians.
Bill Shaheen
Is Back
"Obama Deals Blow to Clinton Campaign"--headline, New York Sun, Jan. 4
To
Whose Satisfaction?
Our Friday item on the implications of Barack Obama's campaign for racial politics
in America prompted this very good question from reader Peter Bylsma:
Just a note to ask if you think the fact that Obama has done so well so far, regardless of whether or not he gets the nomination, proves we are not an irredeemably racist society?
We have never thought America is an irredeemably racist society. The question is what it takes to disprove this proposition to the satisfaction of black Americans. It is hardly surprising if blacks tend to have a higher threshold for persuasion on this matter.
Obama
Voted to Let Infants Die
The Associated Press has a shocking report on Barack Obama's state legislative
record, though the AP's Nedra Pickler does her best to play it down:
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton criticizes rival Barack Obama's record on abortion rights in a mailing sent to New Hampshire voters.
The mailer says that seven times during his time in the Illinois state Senate, Obama declined to take a position on abortion bills, while Clinton has been a defender of abortion rights.
During his eight years in the legislature, Obama cast a number of votes on abortion and received a 100 percent rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his support of abortion rights, family planning services and health insurance coverage for female contraceptives. He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive, a vote that especially riled abortion opponents.
There is a word in English for "aborted fetuses who survive." They are called infants.
Life Imitates 'Saturday Night Live'
- "With our experience, we're gonna have ideas for change combinations
that probably haven't occurred to you. If you have a 50-dollar bill, we can
give you 50 singles. . . . We can give you 49 and 10 dimes. We can
give you 25 twos. Come talk to us. . . . We are not going to give
you change that you don't want. If you come to us with a hundred-dollar bill,
we're not going to give you 2,000 nickels . . . unless that meets
your particular change needs. We will give you the change equal to the amount
of money that you want change for! At First Citiwide Change Bank, Our business
is making change. That's what we do."--"Saturday
Night Live" ad parody, Oct. 8, 1988
- "I want to make change, but I've already made change. I will continue to make change. I'm not just running on a promise of change. I'm running on 35 years of change. I'm running on having taken on the drug companies and the health insurance companies, taking on the oil companies. So, you know, I think it is clear that what we need is somebody who can deliver change. And we don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered. The best way to know what change I will produce is to look at the changes that I've already made."--Hillary Clinton, Jan. 5, 2008
Obe-ommmmmmm-a!
"Clinton Fights Back With Mantra of Change"--headline, Financial Times,
Jan. 6
Great Minds Think Alike
- "I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent."--Interior
Secretary James
Watt, Sept. 21, 1983
- "Then came the four Democrats: the woman, the African-American, the Hispanic American, the coiffed Southern lawyer. They seemed younger, livelier and clearly to be living in 21st-century America."--editorial, New York Times, Jan. 7, 2008
'Don't
Pull, Squeeze'
"Police Appeal for Tips in Murfreesboro Shootings"--headline, Tennessean,
Jan. 5
Pete Seeger Sought for Questioning
"Authorities Say Thief Used Hammer to Rob Kent County Restaurant"--headline,
Associated Press, Jan. 7
Perfect
for Storing Juice
"Taser: The New Tupperware"--headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 6
Wouldn't
They Be Better Off Making Cars People Want to Drive?
"GM Researching Driverless Cars"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 6
Breaking
News From 1997
"Gates Pushes Idea of Windows Everywhere"--headline, Associated Press,
Jan. 6
News You Can Use
- "When Graffiti Is Cleaned Up, Vandals Often Strike Again"--headline,
Arizona
Daily Star (Tucson), Jan. 7
- "College Drinking Games Lead to Higher Blood Alcohol Levels"--headline,
HealthDay.com,
Jan. 6
- "Note to Defendants: Don't Tell the Judge to Kiss the Body Part You Sit On"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 7
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "George Clooney Boycott Threat to Oscars"--headline, Times
(London), Jan. 6
- "Kaine Loses Orange Bowl Wager"--headline, Associated
Press, Jan. 4
- "Romney Wins Wyoming Caucuses"--headline, Associated
Press, Jan. 6
- "Iowa GOP Refuses to Report Keyes Votes"--headline, Alan Keyes for President press release, Jan. 4
'I'm
With the Women'
Providing a little comic relief from the primary season is George McGovern,
onetime senator from South Dakota and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee,
who weighed in over the weekend with an op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post
calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney:
As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.
After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.
Today I have made a different choice.
As blogger Jonathan Adler points out, McGovern actually did call for Nixon's impeachment--and, moreover, talked of impeaching Bush and Cheney as early as March. Pretty much every sentence of McGovern's piece is risible, and we'll leave it to others to poke other holes in it, but we wanted to highlight McGovern's retrospective enthusiasm for the 1991 liberation of Kuwait:
Consider the difference between the policies of the first President Bush and those of his son. When the Iraqi army marched into Kuwait in August 1990, President George H.W. Bush gathered the support of the entire world, including the United Nations, the European Union and most of the Arab League, to quickly expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The Saudis and Japanese paid most of the cost. Instead of getting bogged down in a costly occupation, the administration established a policy of containing the Baathist regime with international arms inspectors, no-fly zones and economic sanctions. Iraq was left as a stable country with little or no capacity to threaten others.
But back in the day, McGovern was about as enthusiastic about the Gulf War as he had been about Nixon in 1973. Consider this quote that appeared in the Boston Globe on Jan. 11, 1991:
"It's a sign of male insecurity. People who are confident about their own manhood don't have to prove it with someone else's blood," said former Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, an outspoken critic of the US buildup. "I'm with the women, I think men are a little goofy here."
Well, victory has a thousand fathers--or in this case, 999 fathers and a mother named George.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, John Nernoff, Jeff Mack, James Clarke, Tony Jewell, John Williamson, Scott Wright, David Weiss, Tom Jekel, Ray Hendel, John Lord, Lee Walus, Doug Black, Mark Metcalf, Steve Karass, Mordecai Bobrowsky, Steve Goss, Charlie Gaylord, Jim Orheim, Lewis Chilton, Kathleen Sullivan, Ed Lasky, Christian Peck, Chris Scibelli, Gerry McCracken, Alan Jones, Thomas Dillon and Orin Ryssman. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: The left's health-care spat.
- Dorothy Rabinowitz: It is cruel to compare John McCain to most of his Republican competitors.
- Kim Strassel: New Hampshire voters know Romney's record better than most. That could spell trouble.
- John Fund: Congress allocates money for nearly 9,000 new earmarks. But no law says Bush has to spend it.
- The Journal Editorial Report: A transcript of the weekend's program on FOX News Channel.
