Excerpts from today's front page New York Times piece by Anne Kornblut about Clinton's triangulation on the issue of the Iraq War.
...“Yes, we hear a lot of happy talk and rosy scenarios,†Mrs. Clinton said to Mr. Rumsfeld during the hearing, “but because of the administration’s strategic blunders and, frankly, the record of incompetence in executing, you are presiding over a failed policy.â€
Even those remarks have not satisfied the most ardent opponents of the war. Her antiwar Democratic primary opponent, Jonathan Tasini, dismissed them as “more bluster†and said Mrs. Clinton was “trying to obscure her record by shifting the focus to Rumsfeld.â€
...
Yet while skillful repositioning and adaptation to changing circumstances have enabled her to avoid political damage, they have also exposed her to a line of criticism that has come to dog her in the same way it did her husband during his presidency: that she devises policy positions to shield herself from attacks from the left or right and surrenders principle to political flexibility.
“The notion that ‘I supported the war but unfortunately it wasn’t carried out effectively, and therefore we should go on but I won’t say how to carry it out’ isn’t helpful,†said Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter. “It’s not really the exercise of leadership.â€
Read the full article here.
