Enough Clinton-bashing from the left side

A contributor named Shertaugh on the “Is That Legal” blog makes a great point about relentless Hillary hatred – in this case, another rant by Andrew Sullivan about Clinton’s too-careful first response on Mukasey’s failure to declare water-boarding torture. She’s the triangulator, right? Well, what was Eisenhower when he stayed silent during the McCarthy era, despite his reported distaste for Tail Gunner Joe’s tactics and attack on the Army? You can level the same criticism of FDR for his acceptance of the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans, or his tolerance for continued segregation of African-Americans even in the institutions of which he was Commander-in-Chief. JFK was slow on civil rights, too.

Politicians triangulate. They calculate. So do office-holders. As office-holders, it can be absolutely the smartest and right thing to do when they have to figure out how to get a job done. Sometimes that means tossing bones to the other side to make the real medicine go down. In the case of the politician, it is a matter of not making "mistakes" that will cost the ultimate election. We have seen, with the ridiculous Kerry flap over perfectly valid comments in an obscure speech about Iraq last year, that the Republicans have zero scruples -- say what? -- about ripping anything any Democrat says completely out of context to change its meaning. We've talked before about the legions of well-educated minions in GOP boiler rooms poring over every speech they can find for an exploitable tidbit.

Today’s corrupt, kept mainstream media not only will not call out the dishonesty in the talking-point du jour, but will affirmatively advance it by bringing it center stage for several days, and by not permitting Democrats to gain traction with any rebuttal or counter-attack. All of the Democrats, but especially Clinton with the apparent lead she has, need to keep an eye beyond the primaries, avoiding as much as possible either policy declarations or language formulas that the Republicans could use to our detriment in the general election. I am glad she is playing it close to the vest for now. Meanwhile, people like Biden and Dodd can take chances that have a better shot at undermining the Republicans over the long haul. If the handwriting is on the wall after the first round of primaries for Obama – which I am not ready to concede yet – he can do enormous good for the country with the respect he has earned by taking aim at Republican ideology in the language of motherhood and apple pie -- Obama's specialty -- moving more and more voters out of that brain-dead mindset that is so pernicious today.

But I think the Hillary-Watch character assaults on the left – the hair-trigger search for whether she expresses every position in the strongest possible progressive formulations – has gotten really absurd. Although she is not my first choice right now, I know basically what she stands for on most issues, and, in fact, she has been remarkably consistent in keeping to those policy directions. I am confident that in the general election as well as in governance, she will try very hard, with her appointments and legislation sponsored, to advance those causes. I am not going to be swayed because she doesn’t have simplistic answers on the immigration conundrum, because I know that, for example, she will try to find an approach (which no one else has achieved that we know of yet) that is sensitive to not only maintaining respect for law, but also not depressing wage levels nor under any circumstances bashing immigrants from anywhere, legal or otherwise.

I know she made a vote under challenging circumstances that, while not “authorizing the war” as everyone cavalierly shortcuts it, was easily used by Bush as justification for his disastrous and unlawful war. In fact, the war as launched was not authorized by that resolution because its stated purpose was to force Iraq’s adherence to the UN conventions on WMDs. That adherence that became real before Bush launched the war the second Hans Blix announced that Saddam had, finally, removed all restrictions or qualifications on the UN inspection team. Which means that, technically at least, it was a good vote for avoiding war that accomplished its purpose of forcing compliance. But while I think Democrats should avoid that shortcut, the judgment question in that instance – either not voting against it entirely or not tightening the language much harder to constrain Bush more clearly -- is a legitimate basis for making another choice in the primary.

However, despite all that, I think I know she will try hard to get us out of Iraq, and start the effort of restoring – it will take a long time – the U.S.’s credibility and standing in the world. I may have a residue of doubt that she (along with the other candidates, too) is not a captive of a pernicious “Washington Consensus” that, without leveling with the American people, believes that even though Bush and Cheney botched the Iraq adventure, we must control the Middle East militarily to assure a continuing supply of oil to the Western economies on favorable terms as we define them. If there is such a Beltway mindset, which is quite plausible as one serving the interests of a military-industrial complex with tentacles reaching into both parties, I nevertheless think that, with a Clinton or any Democratic administration, we out here in the hinterlands have a much better shot at shifting that consensus to one that recognizes the limits of American power and the dangers in using it where it can only undermine our standing.

This is not always easy stuff. What I do know is Clinton is a Democrat. And I know American life has been different, and better, with Democrats in charge. It's one thing to disagree with something she says, even strongly. It's something else to use that disagreement to launch into a character assault that is the Republicans' stock in trade. There will be a price to be paid for that. I think we need to grow up and think these things through.