Hillary Clinton hands Bernie Sanders another opening

[Catherina]

Hillary Clinton hands Bernie Sanders another opening

If you were looking only at national polls, you would be forgiven for thinking that Hillary Clinton had weathered the Bernie Sanders storm. The Vermont senator and thorn in Clinton’s left side has fallen back to about 20 percent support among national Democrats after hitting 30 percent in mid-August. But at the state level, things aren’t looking as good: A new Iowa poll finds Sanders ahead by one point. Some were quick to suggest that the poll is an outlier, but that’s what people said about the first poll showing Sanders ahead in New Hampshire, and he has led in both other polls there since then. While it’s only September, perhaps this wasn’t the best time for Clinton to hand Sanders another opening for him to exploit.

On Wednesday, Clinton gave a speech at the Brookings Institution about the Iran deal and U.S. foreign policy. On the surface, it sounded like a speech the Democratic base could agree with: strongly supportive of the Iran deal and full of praise for President Obama’s foreign policy. But beneath that, a more hawkish Clinton kept peeking out. She stressed that, though she supported the nuclear agreement, she would confront Iran in numerous other ways. “I think we were too restrained in our support of the protests in June 2009,” she said, promising “that won’t happen again.” And in the question-and-answer session after the speech, she said “we need a concerted effort to really up the cost on Russia, and in particular on (Russian President Vladimir) Putin … I am in the category of people who wanted us to do more in response to the annexation of Crimea and the continuing destabilizing of Ukraine.”

In each case, though, Clinton avoided specifics on what “more” the United States could have done to help Ukraine or the Iranian protesters or how she would actually pressure Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The most specific area of her address was a detailed list of her pro-Israel bona fides, including a pledge to invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in her first month in office. It was a speech short on hope and long on danger; while no one would confuse her and George W. Bush, the address, as the Atlantic’s Steve Clemons said, certainly felt “neocon-influenced.”

Whether or not you agree with Clinton, the point here is that, aside from supporting an Iran deal that for obvious reasons she simply can’t reject, Clinton showed little evolution in her approach to foreign policy from her last run for president. The more one listens to Clinton’s appearance, the less it seems that she learned much from the Iraq war or even the 2008 campaign. While it’s not exactly news that Sanders is more liberal than Clinton on foreign policy, her Brookings appearance crystallizes just how much room he has to her left, giving him a chance to repeat then-Sen. Obama’s success using foreign policy against Clinton.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/09/11/hillary-clinton-hands-bernie-sanders-another-opening/

[portlander23]

1. Never forget ...

[SonderWoman]

2. And Bernie voted for Afghanistan...

Guns, funding every war, against closing GITMO, etc.

[MoveIt]

3. And most anti-war people supported that vote

Once the the weighty decision has been made and troops are deployed do you advocate for cutting funding? As crass as that question is, that is how our recent wars were funded in congress.

But you knew that right?

[portlander23]

5. Al Qaeda was actually in Afghanistan

[Qutzupalotl]

6. Defunding a war in progress is one of the shittiest ways to end it.

Talk about not supporting the troops.

And Afghanistan is not Iraq. We knew from the inspectors that the Iraq intelligence was fabricated. We were screaming at people like HRC not to vote for the illegal invasion just to save her political ambitions. But she didn't listen. We knew, why didn't she?

[roguevalley]

7. Tut-tut, children. She's for war because she's best placed to do that. Apparently, in her view

World of Warcraft constitutes military experience.

[LondonReign2]

10. Being able to tell the difference between Afghanistan and Iraq only required good judgement

Bernie has it, Hillary doesn't

[mhatrw]

14. Yes, Sanders is too soft on war.

So we need someone with a hard on for war.

[HooptieWagon]

4. After 14 years of war,...

...peep are tired of it. It hasn't brought peace, and has only increased the spread of Islamic extremism. Why anybody would think doubling down on a failed policy is a good idea is insane.

[99Forever]

8. I will never vote for a warmonger.

Ever.

[hifiguy]

12. /\THIS/\

[KoKo]

9. And...her campaign focuses on putting the warm, fuzzy Hillary on Jimmy Fallon's show

last night when the Repub Candidates were giving their Debate, and Elen DeGeneris and other appearances which contrast so strongly with her War Hawk speech to Brookings.

Two Faced is what comes to mind or "Good Strategy" according to her Campaign. Which is the real Hillary. The one that is owned by Wall Street and MIC or the Warm, Fuzzy Grandmother who can do a comedy routine about Donald Trump and Dance on De Generis for the masses who watch Cable TV or the one who gives a War Hawk Speech to Brookings and Policy addresses to the People of Power in her Fund Raising Gatherings which are NOT open to the Public.

This is her problem. And, people are more aware of it this time around because we've been through it once before and, this time, there's a lot more reporting of her track record and MIC/Wall Street connections on to be explored as her campaign moves along. You Tubes and Articles since 2008 are all ready for reference. The split in her personality becomes more obvious as she plays both sides against the middle. I don't know why her campaign didn't realize that and thought they could just market her as an "Updated" Brand for what they thought was the clueless, low-information political consumer.

[beam me up scottie]

11. Another important reason to support Bernie over Hillary.

You're on fire today, Catherina.

[Uncle Joe]

13. This is the Washington Post throwing a hook in the water hoping that Bernie will bite.

Sanders has a problem, though: Exploiting this vulnerability would require more confrontation than he has been inclined to so far this campaign. Sanders has repeatedly said he will eschew attacks on Clinton in favor of “a civil debate on civil issues.” On issues such as economic inequality and money in politics, that approach has proved sufficient; merely stating his views has been enough to separate himself from Clinton. But on foreign policy, both Clinton and Sanders praise much of Obama’s foreign policy record. The devil, in this case, is in the details and the hypotheticals: What exactly will Clinton do to “up the cost” on Russia and Iran and Syria and China and all these other threats to the United States? How far would she have gone to push back against Putin in Ukraine? It’s easy to say the United States could “do more” or act tougher right up until you have to get specific. Clinton obviously won’t talk about it herself, and it’s likely the media will be too focused on other issues to press her, which means it likely will fall to Sanders and other Clinton rivals to push her at the Democratic primary debates. The 2008 campaign suggests that if Sanders doesn’t, it will be a missed opportunity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/09/11/hillary-clinton-hands-bernie-sanders-another-opening/

Bernie doesn't need to push or follow Hillary down that path, all he needs to do is focus on his own solutions to our massive domestic problems and state in a concise, overall form how his approach to foreign issues would be handled in a world full of ambiguous hypotheticals.

Bernie has an honest, positive approach on domestic issues and the same should hold true on foreign policy.

The U.S. and indeed world at large needs a better human vision of how nations should get along and behave with one another.

Thanks for the thread, Catherina.