Stop Hillary

[Rob]

She is a terrorist, and I would support just about anyone over her in the primary.

Some of you may think it's silly to hate her for a years-old vote that she won't recant, but consider this: her rhetoric on the Iran situation has been as fierce as any neocon's. I'm almost certain that the US will attack Iran if she's elected President; she has no qualms about GOP foreign policy.

If she wins the nomination, the Democrats will have conceded that they're not interested in being an opposition party... and frankly, will deserve to lose. I won't be surprised if primary voters are crazy enough to run her- after all, we're talking about the party that decided to run a centrist campaign against one of the most extreme Presidents in history.

[Rob]

My guess is that it was nothing more than legislative posturing; the war was popular at the time and Clinton wanted to run for President at a later date.

Or she actually believes in the mission. She was one of the biggest hawks in her husband's administration.

I think she may be taking an act of her husband's playbook: focus on the future, not the past.

Just like all the other hawks. "Guys, forget about our failure in Iraq. That shit is all in the past, isn't it? Now on to Tehran!"

[Rob]

But, which specific foreign policy situations in the 1990s was she a "hawk" on?  Most of my memories of the Clinton Administration involve the name "Lewinsky." Although I do vaguely remember Operation Desert Fox in 1998.

She was the one who convinced Clinton to bomb Belgrade. Also, she said she was proud that the US under Clinton “changed its underlying policy toward Iraq from containment to regime change.”

[Rob]

then why have republicans been privately and dreadfully telling reporters that they fear Hillary can't be stopped? Why are they so depressed when they say this if Hillary is supposedly so conservative?

Because they're sore losers, and they can't stand the thought of any Democrat regaining the White House. This is the party that spent eight years trying to destroy the most conservative Democratic President since Grover Cleveland, after all.

But there are a few Republicans who will admit that if they must lose the White House to a Democrat, they'd prefer it to be Hillary. At the very least, she'll stay the course in Iraq; impose sanctions on Iran or actually invade; and stick to a cautious, poll-drive domestic program.

Republicans don't really mind prowar centrist Democrats, as the case of Joe Lieberman demonstrates. They will never vote for Hillary, but they'll raise a glass to her foreign policy all the same.

[Rob]

Please tell me you were high when you wrote that. You're deusional if you think she'll "stay the course" in Iraq.

Perhaps I was too harsh. She claims to be opposed to the escalation, so I guess her Iraq policy isn't identical to George W. Bush's. That doesn't mean I'm "deusional [sic]" to criticize her views on the war, especially when there are candidates in this race who opposed it from the beginning and have offered decisive exit strategies.