Hillary: Vote for Me, I was Duped

May 6, 2007

Late last week, Senator Hillary Clinton offered a bill that would effectively revoke the 2002 congressional authorization that allowed the Bush Administration to wage war in Iraq, and require the president to convince Congress to re-approve the war this October. It’s the latest step taken by Clinton to establish herself as the Democratic Party’s anti-war candidate. If she’d only known in 2002 what she knows now, she has repeatedly said, she would never have supported the earlier resolution.

At its essence, Clinton is saying that the Bush Administration tricked her into voting for the war resolution. “I Was Duped” is hardly an inspiring slogan, and in Hillary’s case it’s a thoroughly disingenuous one as well. She wasn’t duped. She was playing the polls, and at the time she concluded that a vote for war was the smart bet.

Take a look at Clinton’s October 10, 2002, floor speech in which she authorized the use of force against Iraq. She didn’t just side with the Bush Administration, she more or less endorsed its entire case for war:

Intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program . . .

If left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

While acknowledging that there was no evidence to tie Saddam to the September 11 attacks, she said he had “given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members,” and went on to say:

This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make–any vote that may lead to war should be hard–but I cast it with conviction. Over eleven years have passed since the U.N. called on Saddam Hussein to rid himself of weapons of mass destruction as a condition of returning to the world community. Time and time again he has frustrated and denied these conditions. This matter cannot be left hanging forever with consequences we would all live to regret . . . A vote for it is not a vote to rush to war; it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our President and we say to him - use these powers wisely and as a last resort. And it is a vote that says clearly to Saddam Hussein–this is your last chance–disarm or be disarmed.

“I Was Duped” is hardly an inspiring slogan and in Hillary’s case it’s a thoroughly disingenuous one as well.

Dick Cheney could hardly have put it better. Now compare Clinton’s remarks with those made by other prominent Democrats during the runup to war. Even if they believed that Saddam had WMDs, many of Clinton’s Democratic colleagues opposed the war and challenged the administration’s case for an invasion. Take Al Gore during a September 23, 2002 speech in San Francisco:

The resulting chaos in the aftermath of a military victory in Iraq could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam. Here’s why I say that; we know that he has stored away secret supplies of biological weapons and chemical weapons throughout his country. As yet, we have no evidence, however, that he has shared any of those weapons with terrorist groups. If the administration has evidence that he has, please present it, because that would change the way we all look at this thing.

Senator Edward Kennedy’s speech in Washington on September 27 rejected just about every argument tossed out by President Bush.

Information from the intelligence community over the past six months does not point to Iraq as an imminent threat to the United States or a major proliferator of weapons of mass destruction. I have heard no persuasive evidence that Saddam is on the threshold of acquiring the nuclear weapons he has sought for more than 20 years. And the administration has offered no persuasive evidence that Saddam would transfer chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization. As General Joseph Hoar, the former Commander of Central Command told the members of the Armed Services Committee, a case has not been made to connect Al Qaeda and Iraq . . . To the contrary, there is no clear and convincing pattern of Iraqi relations with either Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

When Hillary cast her “yes” vote “with conviction” a few weeks later, Kennedy and 22 other Democratic senators (and a majority of Democrats in the House) rejected the use-of-force resolution. “The question,” Senator Patrick Leahy said during the debate on the vote, “is not whether Saddam Hussein should be disarmed; it is how imminent is this threat and how should we deal with it?” Leahy continued:

The resolution now before the Senate leaves the door open to act alone, even absent an imminent threat. It surrenders to the President authority which the Constitution explicitly reserves for the Congress . . . Many respected and knowledgeable people–former senior military officers and diplomats among them–have expressed strong reservations about this resolution. They agree that if there is credible evidence that Saddam Hussein is planning to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or one of our allies, the American people and the Congress would overwhelmingly support the use of American military power to stop him. But they have not seen that evidence, and neither have I. We have heard a lot of bellicose rhetoric, but what are the facts? I am not asking for 100 percent proof, but the administration is asking Congress to make a decision to go to war based on conflicting statements, angry assertions, and assumption based on speculation. This is not the way a great nation goes to war.

Then there was Robert Byrd, who unsuccessfully tried to mount a filibuster against the resolution, which he described as “the Tonkin Gulf resolution all over again”:

The resolution before us today is not only a product of haste; it is also a product of presidential hubris. This resolution is breathtaking in its scope. It redefines the nature of defense, and reinterprets the Constitution to suit the will of the Executive Branch. It would give the President blanket authority to launch a unilateral preemptive attack on a sovereign nation that is perceived to be a threat to the United States.

Byrd rejected the administration’s arguments about Saddam posing an imminent WMD threat and noted that no one “has been able to produce any solid evidence linking Iraq to the September 11 attack.” He also said that any overthrow of the Iraqi regime “would require a long term occupation,” and that this “kind of nation-building cannot be accomplished with the wave of a wand by some fairy godmother, even one with the full might and power of the world’s last remaining superpower behind her.”

So here are some questions for Hillary:

• Other Democrats knew. Why didn’t you?
• Why did you trust President Bush more than you trusted top figures in your own party?
• Did you, in fact, vote for the war resolution on the basis of polling numbers and political calculations about an expected future run for the presidency?
• And finally, if you won’t vote your conscience on questions of war and peace, when will you?

The answer to that last question is “never.” A recent Washington Post story on Mark Penn, Clinton’s pollster, described him as taking “taking increasing control” of her presidential campaign. “Armed with voluminous data that he collects through his private polling firm, Penn has become involved in virtually every move Clinton makes, with the result that the campaign reflects the chief strategist as much as the candidate,” the Post said. “If Clinton seems cautious, it may be because Penn has made caution a science, repeatedly testing issues to determine which ones are safe and widely agreed upon.”

Ken Silverstein

How Many Facts Are Needed to Destroy a False Beltway Orthodoxy?

This is my question after reading this morning’s papers: How many cold, hard facts are needed to kill tired Beltway orthodoxies? Or, now that we are in the Age When Journalism Died, is it true that when an orthodoxy has enough money and insider vanity behind it, it becomes immortal? Here are five orthodoxies that jump out from just this week’s news - orthodoxies that have little - if any - relation to the facts. They elicit a simple question: Has our political debate been hijacked by Washington power-worshipers and consequently divorced from the “reality based” world?

1. How many jobs need to be eliminated and how long to wages have to stagnate before Democrats stop promoting the orthodoxy that says Bob Rubin is the greatest economic guru in American history?

As writer Bill Greider notes, when Citigroup executive “Robert Rubin speaks his mind, his thoughts on economic policy are the gold standard for the Democratic Party.” The former Clinton Treasury Secretary is considered by Democratic policymakers to be a deity on everything from trade to job creation. Yet, pick up the New York Times today, and you will note that at the same time Rubin is being asked by candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to write their economic policy platforms, Rubin is overseeing one of the largest single layoffs in recent memory, with Citigroup announcing plans to fire 17,000 employees. Meanwhile, nobody bothers to mention that Rubin’s supposedly stellar record on behalf of ordinary workers - the record that purportedly gives him his moxie in Democratic circles - is actually fairly unimpressive. United for a Fair Economy’s new report shows that during the Clinton years, wages stagnated, even as CEO pay and corporate profits rose - and worse, immediately after Rubin’s crowning achievement, the China PNTR deal, passed, those divergences intensified.

I say this record “purportedly” gives Rubin his moxie among Democrats, because that’s only the public rationale. Democrats know all of the hard data - they know Rubinomics helped rig an economy that creates much, much more for much, much fewer people. But they also know that Bob Rubin can deliver a lot of Wall Street cash to a political campaign. And so the question remains: At what point do all of the undebatable economic data overwhelm the manufactured orthodoxy of “Rubin as guru” that this corporate moneyman is able to buy from Democrats with his Wall Street cash? Is laying off 17,000 workers not enough? How many does he have to layoff to lose his luster? And how much flatter do national wage trends have to be for the chief economic architect of those wage trends to lose the “guru” label?

2. How many union organizers have to be executed, forests defoliated and children enslaved before Washington politicians stop promoting the orthodoxy that “free” trade is designed to help people in the developing world?

Unable to explain away the economic destruction “free” trade pacts have wrought in America, the last refuge of the “free” trade fundamentalists in Washington is the claim that pacts like NAFTA are all about helping poor people in impoverished countries like Mexico. We are supposed to simply ignore the fact that, say, 19 million more Mexicans have been driven into poverty since that pact was signed. But perhaps even worse, we are expected to be prospectively ignorant - that is, project ignorance into the future by ignoring things right here in the present, before we sign new trade pacts. As I noted in a post yesterday, President Bush is pushing a proposed U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement as a way to promote “freedom and prosperity” in that country. Yet, as the Washington Post reports, the Colombian government that Bush is proposing to reward with this trade pact in the name of “freedom and prosperity” is right now helping paramilitary death squads execute workers who join unions. This says nothing of the other trade pacts being pushed that economically reward countries that have no basic environmental or child labor standards.

Obviously, the politicians pushing these trade pacts know all of this - but they also know huge corporate money is behind the drive for trade agreements that create an international legal framework for cost-cutting human and environmental exploitation. So again, the question is simple: At what point do the human and ecological data surpass the orthodoxy that claims this trade policy is good for people in the developing world?

3. When will corporate executives and politicians stop citing retail sector “challenges” as the rationale for the orthodoxy that says retail workers must be paid substandard wages?

Executives, economist and other corporate apologists tell us that the low wage orthodoxy at places like Wal-Mart is justified because the retail sector supposedly subsists on tiny profit margins. Even after taking a peek at Wal-Mart’s healthy, multi-billion dollar profit margins, that justification might hold a drop of water, except when you read a story like this one in the New York Times about how executive pay in the retail industry is skyrocketing. How high do profit margins and executive salaries have to go for “experts” to stop assuming the orthodoxy that says low wages in the retail sector are an economic necessity?

4. How clear do the numbers have to be for the media to stop parroting President Bush’s claims that negotiations over military funding are endangering troops?

It seems everywhere you look, major newspaper reporters are transcribing President Bush’s claim that congressional negotiations over the Iraq War supplemental bill are delaying money that the military imminently needs, and that this supposed delay is endangering the troops. This is a version of the Washington orthodoxy that claims any congressional input into or restrictions on military spending threatens to “cut off funds for the troops” and effectively leave American soldiers naked, starving and unarmed in a Baghdad shooting gallery. Yet, as at least some trade journals like National Journal note, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has definitively reported that “the Pentagon can finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan until as late as July.” Faced with these facts, when will the media and politicians back off the fact-free, “you are cutting off funds for the troops” orthodoxy?

5. How specific did the Founding Fathers have to be about three separate, equal branches of government for today’s Washington power-worshipers to back off the orthodoxy that claims the President of the United States is an all-powerful king? This past Sunday’s Meet the Press roundtable (stacked, of course, with a right-wing pundit and no progressive counter-voice) provided a typical view into power-worshiping, constitutionally-illiterate Washington. Tim Russert read a Washington Post editorial criticizing a visit by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Syria which claimed she was "attempt[ing] to establish a shadow presidency" by "substitut[ing] her own foreign policy" for the White House’s. That Pelosi delivered the White House’s exact policy in her message to Syria, that Pelosi was accompanied by Republican lawmakers, and that Pelosi was following in the well-trodden footsteps of past speakers of both parties wasn’t mentioned - but that’s not even the point. What’s disturbing is the overarching orthodoxy from these Washington pundits that says the leader of a branch of government co-equal to that of the executive branch should have absolutely no voice at all in foreign policy matters and that, in effect, when it comes to issues of global reach, the President is a king.

We are expected to assume that this orthodoxy is exactly the way the Founding Fathers set things up, even though a cursory glance at a 4th grade history book shows that preventing a monarchy like this was precisely the reason the Founding Fathers created co-equal branches of government in the first place. Obviously the president is supposed to be the lead person on foreign affairs, but the idea that constitution somehow declares that the legislative branch should have no say over such matters at all is an insult to the principles this country was founded on. I’m not sure where this Beltway media orthodoxy comes from, beyond basic power-worshiping and vanity. For example, someone like NBC White House reporter David Gregory, desperate to feel important, has proximity to an increasingly irrelevant president, and thus the more he goes on TV to insist that presidential power is omniscient and god-like, the more important he can feel when he goes home and struts before his bathroom mirror. Yet that doesn’t negate the facts of our constitution. So I ask: How much do we have to hear the "president is dictator" orthodoxy from Washington’s power-worshiping press corps before someone starts handing out civics textbooks at the next White House press briefing?

Fact-free orthodoxies like these are, sadly, pretty standard in today’s politics. My book Hostile Takeover looks at many of these, basically asserting that Big Money interests have created an entire maze of economic orthodoxies designed to perpetuate a war on the middle class. In recent months I’ve given special treatment to the Great Education Myth and the Great Labor Shortage Lie - two particularly hideous orthodoxies. I’m not sure exactly what it will take to put these orthodoxies in their grave once and for all - but I do know that unless we return to the “reality-based” world, no well-packaged, soothing, fact-free orthodoxy is going to help this country confront its very real and very imminent challenges.

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posted 4/11/2007 by David Sirota @ 10:19 am | Permalink

Senator Clinton's Lawyers Seek to Halt Fraud Suit

By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
March 27, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Attorneys for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) are trying to keep her out of a lawsuit that may ultimately force her to testify under oath about an alleged violation of campaign finance laws.

Washington lawyers David Kendall and Carolyn Utrecht and Los Angeles attorney Jan B. Norman -- all representing the apparent frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination -- filed legal briefs Friday in the California Court of Appeals focusing heavily on the criminal background of plaintiff Peter Paul, the Hollywood businessman who is suing both Bill and Hillary Clinton and others.

Paul alleges that fraudulent actions by the Clintons and others cost him his multi-million dollar Internet venture. Paul claims to have been the largest contributor to Sen. Clinton's U.S. Senate campaign, spending $1.9 million to hold a 2000 fundraising gala attended by Hollywood celebrities including Whoopi Goldberg, John Travolta and Brad Pitt.

In return, Paul claims, then-President Bill Clinton promised to promote the firm. However, the president allegedly reneged on the commitment after his wife was elected in November of that year and used his influence to discourage others from investing in the firm.

In an effort to stay out of the suit, Sen. Clinton used a California statute intended to protect a political candidate's First Amendment rights from frivolous lawsuits. A California Superior Court judge dismissed her from the lawsuit on those grounds last fall, but Paul appealed in January, contending the California statute does not protect Sen. Clinton from alleged illegal activity.

The Friday brief was a response to the appeal.

"Plaintiff's alleged 'donations'...were extremely unusual," the Clinton team's response said. "Unlike typical campaign contributions, these donations supposedly had strings attached; [the] plaintiffs claim that he financed the tribute in exchange for one year of former President Clinton's services after he left public office in January 2001."

Oral arguments will likely be made to the three-judge panel this summer on whether to release Sen. Clinton from the lawsuit, with a decision expected soon after. But the entire case could go on for much longer.

The motion goes on to describe how Paul's venture (Stan Lee Media, which he entered with comic book mogul Stan Lee) "imploded," and "in the midst of the company's financial collapse, [the] plaintiff fled the United States for Brazil."

"Not surprisingly," the brief said, "no working relationship between the plaintiff and the president ever materialized." It then details how Paul was indicted for and pleaded guilty to manipulating the company's stock price. He had two previous felony convictions, pleading guilty to fraud in the 1970s and to a drug charge in the 1980s.

Paul's past is irrelevant at this stage in the case, said his attorney, D. Colette Wilson of the United States Justice Foundation in Ramona, Calif.

The argument before the court in determining if Sen. Clinton is protected by the anti-lawsuit statutes is based on the seriousness of the charges, she said. Paul's credibility is a matter that is subject for discussion in the course of a civil trial.

"They're saying, 'Do not believe anything Peter said because he is a felon,'" Wilson told Cybercast News Service Monday.

She said the allegations he is making are more than viable, adding that part of his contention was already backed up by results of his 2001 complaint to the Federal Elections Commission.

After investigating the matter, the FEC ruled that Sen. Clinton's 2000 campaign committee underreported cash it received at the fundraising event Paul sponsored and slapped the campaign committee with a $35,000 fine. The Clinton campaign committee also amended financial reports to show Paul's share of the production costs were understated by $721,000. The legal limit for an individual to contribute was $2,000 at the time.

The fallout from the Paul's Hollywood fundraising event also led to the federal indictment of David Rosen, Sen. Clinton's finance director, who was acquitted on charges of lying to the FEC.

The three attorneys who filed the brief could not be reached for comment Friday or Monday.

In a written declaration for the court filed on April 7, 2006, Sen. Clinton said, "I have no recollection whatsoever of discussing any arrangement with him whereby he would support my campaign for the United States Senate in exchange for anything from me or then-President Clinton. I do not believe I would make such a statement because I believe I would remember such a discussion if it had occurred."

Wilson called it a classic "non-denial denial."

"She really doesn't want to go on the stand," Wilson said, adding the senator's delay tactics could drag the case right into the 2008 election cycle. "The timing could end up particularly disastrous for Hillary."