July 20, 2007
Pentagon Slap A Boost For Clinton
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to be getting some anti-war street cred on the left, with a little help from the Pentagon's No. 2.
Clinton is ratcheting up a spat with Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman by going to his boss, Robert Gates. Yesterday, AP reported on a letter Edelman sent the senator in response to a letter she had sent him about the Iraq war. News organizations and bloggers (including this one) went to town on Edelman's insinuation that asking the Pentagon to begin planning for a withdrawal scenario was akin to aiding the enemy.
Read in full, however, the letter is hardly the spanking AP made it out to be. At the same time, the "embolden the enemy" argument is there, so it's not completely innocuous, either. (TPM has a copy of Edelman's letter.)
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann devoted his end-of-show commentary to the letter yesterday, making references to the Civil and Franco-Prussian wars along the way.
"And now Mr. Bush, you have picked out your own Jefferson Davis, your own Dreyfus, your own 'profiteer' -- your own scapegoat," Olbermann said dramatically. "A scapegoat, sir, might be forgivable, if you hadn’t just happened to choose a prospective presidential nominee of the opposition party."
Olbermann can probably expect a big bouquet from Clinton. The former first lady is in a fight for the Democratic nomination, thanks in part to her prior hawkishness on Iraq, which carved out openings in the race for Barack Obama and John Edwards. As MSNBC's "First Read" team pointed out this morning, "The story only helped to brandish Clinton’s anti-war credentials, as well as make her look menacing to the Bush administration. Mission accomplished."
The storyline emerging over the Clinton-Edelman letters neatly accomplishes a feat that has eluded the senator, pitting her in direct opposition to President Bush and the war's advocates without having to apologize for her vote to authorize the war. She has argued that she voted the way she did based on information about Iraq's WMD ambitions that later was proved false, and that the fault for her vote lies with Bush, not her.
Some of the more stridently anti-war Democrats have continued to demand her apology anyway. Her presidential campaign is seizing on this moment to add a little red meat to her claim that she is best equipped to end the war.
Clinton is enjoying a somewhat surreal moment in the spotlight today. On top of the relatively positive coverage she's receiving on her Iraq position, Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan devoted her column to Clinton's cleavage. You read that correctly.
Posted at 1:46 PM
Posted to:
Barack Obama, Bush Administration, Campaigns, Democrats, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Iraq, John Edwards, Media, Middle East, President Bush, Robert Gates, WH 2008
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