thedrifter
01-30-07, 02:28 PM
'I REALLY RESENT'
By JOHN PODHORETZ
January 30, 2007 -- SEN. Hillary Clinton said over the weekend that "I really resent" the fact American troops may be tied up in Iraq in January 2009 - when she hopes to be president of the United States.
"I am going to level with you," she said. "The president has said this is going to be left to his successor. I think it is the height of irresponsibility, and I really resent it."
That's actually an interesting, even thought-provoking, formulation. It's rare to hear questions about difficult policies discussed in terms of personal resentments, but perhaps this is one of the areas where Hillary Clinton will blaze a new presidential trail.
Imagine, for example, that President Bush had given a speech a few days after 9/11 declaring he really resented the fact that Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama bin Laden before Bush became president.
Or that President Bill Clinton, in the wake of the slaughter of 18 American servicemen in Somalia in 1993, informed Americans about his real resentment of George Bush the Elder, who sent those servicemen into Somalia at the tail end of his administration.
Really Resenting doesn't have to begin and end with foreign policy and military matters. President George Bush the Elder could have made public his profound resentment at the consequences of the Reagan tax-reform bill on the real-estate market, whose crumbling value in the late 1980s led to the recession that helped do Bush the Elder in.
For that matter, Ronald Reagan could have spent 1982 expressing resentment at the recession caused by the necessity of choking off the stagflation of the Carter years. And on it goes.
Now, of course, what Hillary means here is that since Iraq is "Bush's war," it's not cricket of him to let it go on past the conclusion of his presidency. The war is supported by no one but him, its presumed failure is solely his fault and his responsibility - and he should get it off the next president's plate.
Strange. You might think that if the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq in 2009 is unnecessary, the new president might take great relish in being the person to bring them home immediately. Under those circumstances, Hillary could begin her presidency as a hero, at least to her own voters.
What's more, if the war is going badly during the presidential campaign next year, with troops still in Iraq, the entire campaign will revolve around the question of how soon after Bush leaves office the big Bug Out can commence.
Not that the specifics of the campaign will matter all that much under those circumstances. If Iraq doesn't look much different in September 2008 from the way it looks today, nominee Hillary could show up at a debate against the Republican nominee stoned on mushrooms and start singing "Don't Fear the Reaper" while accompanying herself on the air guitar and still get elected in a walk.
Alternately, if there happens to be a major turnaround in the war and in Iraq's ability to build a civil society, then she (or whoever our next president is) will be under very little public pressure to draw down the troops on an excessively accelerated schedule.
So why the resentment?
There's a lot of talk on the Left these days about how inauthentic Hillary is as a candidate. But there's nothing inauthentic about her expression of resentment against Bush. After all, if he hadn't asked her and other senators to vote for a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, she wouldn't have had to make a choice that she now regrets.
That original choice was almost certainly inauthentic: Hillary became a hawk, in all likelihood, because she wanted (as her husband once said during another war) "to maintain my political viability."
You want the real Hillary? The real Hillary is the Really Resenting one. Enjoy.
jpodhoretz@gmail.com
Ellie
By JOHN PODHORETZ
January 30, 2007 -- SEN. Hillary Clinton said over the weekend that "I really resent" the fact American troops may be tied up in Iraq in January 2009 - when she hopes to be president of the United States.
"I am going to level with you," she said. "The president has said this is going to be left to his successor. I think it is the height of irresponsibility, and I really resent it."
That's actually an interesting, even thought-provoking, formulation. It's rare to hear questions about difficult policies discussed in terms of personal resentments, but perhaps this is one of the areas where Hillary Clinton will blaze a new presidential trail.
Imagine, for example, that President Bush had given a speech a few days after 9/11 declaring he really resented the fact that Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama bin Laden before Bush became president.
Or that President Bill Clinton, in the wake of the slaughter of 18 American servicemen in Somalia in 1993, informed Americans about his real resentment of George Bush the Elder, who sent those servicemen into Somalia at the tail end of his administration.
Really Resenting doesn't have to begin and end with foreign policy and military matters. President George Bush the Elder could have made public his profound resentment at the consequences of the Reagan tax-reform bill on the real-estate market, whose crumbling value in the late 1980s led to the recession that helped do Bush the Elder in.
For that matter, Ronald Reagan could have spent 1982 expressing resentment at the recession caused by the necessity of choking off the stagflation of the Carter years. And on it goes.
Now, of course, what Hillary means here is that since Iraq is "Bush's war," it's not cricket of him to let it go on past the conclusion of his presidency. The war is supported by no one but him, its presumed failure is solely his fault and his responsibility - and he should get it off the next president's plate.
Strange. You might think that if the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq in 2009 is unnecessary, the new president might take great relish in being the person to bring them home immediately. Under those circumstances, Hillary could begin her presidency as a hero, at least to her own voters.
What's more, if the war is going badly during the presidential campaign next year, with troops still in Iraq, the entire campaign will revolve around the question of how soon after Bush leaves office the big Bug Out can commence.
Not that the specifics of the campaign will matter all that much under those circumstances. If Iraq doesn't look much different in September 2008 from the way it looks today, nominee Hillary could show up at a debate against the Republican nominee stoned on mushrooms and start singing "Don't Fear the Reaper" while accompanying herself on the air guitar and still get elected in a walk.
Alternately, if there happens to be a major turnaround in the war and in Iraq's ability to build a civil society, then she (or whoever our next president is) will be under very little public pressure to draw down the troops on an excessively accelerated schedule.
So why the resentment?
There's a lot of talk on the Left these days about how inauthentic Hillary is as a candidate. But there's nothing inauthentic about her expression of resentment against Bush. After all, if he hadn't asked her and other senators to vote for a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, she wouldn't have had to make a choice that she now regrets.
That original choice was almost certainly inauthentic: Hillary became a hawk, in all likelihood, because she wanted (as her husband once said during another war) "to maintain my political viability."
You want the real Hillary? The real Hillary is the Really Resenting one. Enjoy.
jpodhoretz@gmail.com
Ellie