Praising with faint damns
Q: Can I ask you a follow up? You mentioned Blackwater, you’ve said that at the beginning of your administration you’d ask the Pentagon to report. When it comes to special interrogation methods, obviously you’ve said you’re against torture, but the types of methods that are now used that aren’t technically torture but are still permitted, would you do something in your first couple days to address that, suspend some of the special interrogation methods immediately or ask for some kind of review?
HRC: Well I think I’ve been very clear about that too, we should not conduct or condone torture and it is not clear yet exactly what this administration is or isn’t doing, we’re getting all kinds of mixed messages. I don’t think we’ll know the truth until we have a new President. I think once you can get in there and actually bore into what’s been going on, you’re not going to know. I was very touched by the story you guys had on the front page the other day about the WWII interrogators. I mean it's not the same situation but it was a very clear rejection of what we think we know about what is going on right now but I want to know everything, and so I think we have to draw a bright line and say ‘No torture – abide by the Geneva conventions, abide by the laws we have passed,' and then try to make sure we implement that.
Frankly, that doesn't satisfy me. It giver her room to do exactly the same thing Bush is doing, i.e., practicing torture while saying it isn't torture. Why won't she just put her foot down on this and say, "no?"
posted by walldon | 3:47 PM
2 Comments:
No to what? She said no torture, abide by the Geneva Conventions -- don't see what else she can say.
The left-side blogosphere is developing its own "script" or "narrative" for Clinton that must be followed: she's the "triangulator." Anything she says that is not raw meat for the radical base that above all wants to get back at Bush, Cheney and company is "triangulating." The essence of good governance is triangulating: "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." The essence of negotiating, too, is triangulating. A union triangulates when it makes a contract with an employer. If you can get X accomplished by doing Y to get a former opponent to accept X, even though I don't care much for Y but it doesn't cause much harm, or if it's peanuts compared to the importance of X, then by all means offer Y. Some would prefer that the candidate reuse to do Y simply because the opponent wants it. If the union most of all wanted to treat the employer as an "enemy," you'd have a lot of unemployed people -- and no union. Responding to everything from spite, no matter how amply justified, is immature in my book. Most of Clinton's positions are pretty damned clear on her website, and she votes Americans for Democratic Action either 95% or 100% of the time, depending on the year. She's a liberal. She's been a liberal for over 40 years. She knows where her votes are coming from. Yes, her proposed action on Iraq is not crystal clear, but I have little doubt it will be a lot different from Bush's, with very, very, very different people running the show.
I happen to have another first preference, but I think all the negativity directed at Clinton from the Democratic side -- dovetailing as it does perfectly with long-time Republican talking points -- is dangerous.
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