Who’s really the hair trigger candidate, anyway?
On Thursday, June 2nd, Hillary Clinton had one of those adolescent run up to the door, ring the bell, and run away moments. She said, in a moment of actual clarity (I guess that is what it was), that this was “actual reality,” and that Donald Trump was “thin-skinned” and might plunge the US into war on a moment’s notice.
Julie Pace from the AP and all of Hillarian Social Media-istan popped the corks over the fact that Hillary had finally found her issue, or maybe that she had finally woken up:
If Clinton plans to avoid those [earlier mistakes in running against Donald Trump], she now has the message she needs in hand.
I’m sorry to burst your bubble, people, but this is bilge. One moment of relative wakefulness does not a campaign make.
If we check our “actual reality” scorecard of plunging the nation into war, Hillary has at least a two-run lead on the Donald.
The first run is her vote for the Iraq War. Now she says, Sorry, my mistake! That was ill-considered. I’d like a do-over.
Iraq doesn’t get a do-over, does it? (Update: And never mind that the commencement of the Iraq war was the commission of the most serious war crime extant: prosecuting aggressive war. We don’t talk about that much yet, but we will.)
The second run is the existing civil war in Libya. We kicked that sucker off on Secretary Clinton’s watch. She was such a cheerleader for the war that some foreign-policy types call it “Hillary’s War.” According to Salon:
Sec. Clinton pressured a wary President Obama to join France and the U.K. in the war, the Times reported. Vice President Biden, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, among others, opposed the war effort. Numerous government officials recalled that her hawkish enthusiasm was decisive in the “51-49 decision.”
That one came a cropper, too. The New York Times writes:
The consequences [of the intervention] would be more far-reaching than anyone imagined, leaving Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven, a place where the direst answers to Mrs. Clinton’s questions have come to pass.
Libya doesn’t get a do-over, either, does it?
It’s also Hillary, not the Donald, you hear advocating the expansion of NATO right up to Russia’s borders and virtually — not “actually,” thank goodness — shoving ballistic missiles up Putin’s arse:
Hillary Clinton has been a long and outspoken advocate of NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia. Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty requires member states to come to each others’ aid when under attack. And since both prospective members are presently occupied by hostile forces of the Russian Federation, Clinton’s push for their accession would ultimately obligate the United States, under binding international law, to go to war against Moscow.
Those of you who were sentient in 1962 will remember what happened when the Russians tried to put missiles into Cuba.
When Hillary Clinton flashes you the peace sign, friends, be afraid, be very afraid.
And on top of all of that, to paraphrase someone who at least used to be close to Hillary, “It’s the economy, stupid.” It is, and the issue hardly favors Hillary Clinton.
Update II: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting calls the fawning over Clinton’s speech the “Trumpwashing” of Hillary Clinton’s reckless and lamentable foreign policy record.
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