Sunday, June 15, 2014

Mother Jones tries to innoculate Hillary Clinton from some of the afflictions that the old broad fears the most — Meanwhile Hillary tries to double talk her way through the current Iraqi Crisis

Mother Jones’ “The Definitive Guide to Every Hillary Clinton Conspiracy Theory (So Far)” is a road map to every scandal and scary wives tale that the Democrats’ favorite old crone doesn’t want to deal with on her planned second trip to the White House

Politico’s report about Hillary Clinton’s remarks show an attempt to tri-angulate her position on the current crisis, while things deteriorate around Baghdad and Obama tries to make up his mind —   She also admits that she couldn’t have predicted the extent that some of the Syria-based ISIS would have been able to sweep across Iraq


This attempt to laugh-off some of the Right’s best material on Hillary is really a great list of punch lines to use on your Democrat friends,  if you have any  —   Just remember, any laughter that you might hear from them will be a dry nervous laugh hoping that you don’t have more material with which to hammer their altogether too-long-loved heroine (See “The Definitive Guide to Every Hillary Clinton Conspiracy Theory (So Far)” by Tim Murphy, 6/9/14, Mother Jones/ motherjones.com [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/hillary-clinton-conspiracy-theories]).

Nobody on our side can say Hillary Clinton is just some angry bitch without a sense of humor. After telling the world that she and Bill left the White House “dead  broke,” we all know that she does have a sense of humor. And frankly, all of the times that I have seen her most angry, the anger always seemed feigned and well calculated to accomplish a particular political purpose. The problem for us Republicans is that we have already seen Hillary Clinton parlay her playing the role of wounded wife to Bill Clinton’s hound-dog  —  first, into a carpet-bag U.S. senate seat; next, to a near miss on the U.S. presidency; which then did earn her an honorary stint as Secretary of State for Barack Obama. Yet again, we all will get to enjoy her in all her consultant  and media generated glory in what looks to be a soon-to-be second shot at the presidency in 2016.

But before any of that can happen, and in spite of all of her other wonderful talents Hillary cannot make herself invisible for the questions coming her way about the collapse of the Obama Administration’s policy toward Iraq.  —   Well, under normal circumstances maybe she might have tried using her invisibility cloak, but because of her book tour, she is sort of stuck on public display. As a result we get an up close and personal look at how she might handle a crisis of this magnitude.  Her first crack at it is none to impressive.

“Warning that the United States doesn’t want to fight Iraq’s internal battle, Hillary Clinton on Friday blasted the Mideast nation’s ‘dysfunctional’ government and said the battle there has ‘global consequences.’ ***  Clinton made the comments, her most robust on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, at an event in Washington D.C. to promote her new book, ‘Hard Choices’ (See “Hillary Clinton slams Maliki, ‘dysfunctional’ Iraq government” by Maggie Haberman & Katie Glueck, 6/13/14, Politico [http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/hillary-clinton-iraq-107845.html]). According to Politico was a little didactic and pedantic, saying things like  the Iraqi army needed to show signs of discipline and professionalism. |

See if the following Hillary Clinton statements about the current Iraq crisis, which have been quoted in the article in Politico, make any more sense to you, taken as a whole:  “This has implications far beyond what if anything we think we can and should do to try to stave off a total collapse of the [Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki-helmed] government.... The requests that Maliki is making to [President Obama] to provide support, I know, are being carefully considered, but I think it’s also imperative that Maliki be presented with a set of conditions if you are even to discuss seriously any kind of military support for the fight against the jihadists....  That’s a delicate and difficult task for our government because we certainly don’t want to fight their fight....  Because you’d be fighting for a dysfunctional, unrepresentative, authoritarian government and there’s no reason on earth that I know of that we would ever sacrifice a single American life for that....   I agree with the White House’s rejection and reluctance to do the kind of military activities that the Maliki government is requesting, namely fighter aircraft to provide close support for the army....  And also to go after targets. That is not a role for the United States. There needs to be a number of steps that Maliki and his government must take to demonstrate he’s committed to an inclusive Iraq, something he’s not done up-to-date.... The army, which has not been able to hold territory, has to have an injection of discipline and professionalism, something the United States has been trying to help with, and Maliki has to be willing to demonstrate unequivocally that he is a leader for all Iraqis, not for a sectarian slice of the country.... What the White House is doing now is making it very clear to him what they would have to see, not saying they’d necessarily provide the kind of support he’s asking for, but the sort of support the U.S. believes would be appropriate.”

Doesn’t this seem a lot like the two-headed  “Push-Me-Pull-You” that tries to move in opposite directions at the same time from the fine old movie version of “Dr. Doolittle” ?

Clinton was also asked about fighting in Syria, where some of the militants in Iraq came from. The main militant faction is the al-Qaeda splinter group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS]. “This is not just a Syria problem anymore,” she said. “I never thought it was just a Syria (problem). … I thought it was a regional problem. I could not have predicted, however, the extent to which ISIS could be effective in seizing cities in Iraq and trying to erase boundaries to create an Islamic state.”  Is this Hillary in another mea culpa moment to go along with some of her admissions about her inability to predict events like she did about Benghazi ?

I somehow doubt it, but only time will tell. If you repeat things often enough, they do receive a degree of acceptance  —  especially by supporters and muted critics.





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One of the major shortcomings of Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State was her failure to re-negotiate a "Status of Forces Agreement" with the government of Iraq or any such agreement in Afghanistan. A direct consequence of that failure is the current chaos in Iraq. Republicans need to mention her name more in connection with Iraqi chaos; and they must keep saying how she screwed it up.