The Take America Back 2006 conference is wrapping up. The most significant event here was the reaction to Hillary Clinton’s speech.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) drew boos and hisses from an audience of liberal activists yesterday as she defended her opposition to a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, and later she received an implicit rebuke from Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) for failing to acknowledge that her support for the war was a mistake.
Clinton’s and Kerry’s appearances at the Take Back America conference at the Washington Hilton put on vivid display the Democratic Party’s divisions over the foreign policy issue that dominates this year’s midterm elections, and the two possible 2008 presidential candidates offered a preview of the debate that could dominate the battle for the party’s nomination.
In my opinion, this is the exact news coverage that Hillary wanted to receive. Hillary needs to accomplish two things before 2008. She needs to do away with her reputation as a fringe, radical, leftist and she needs to get some Thatcher in her spine. Pissing of the ‘liberals’ by taking a hawkish line on Iraq accomplished both goals at once. Of course, it does so on the backs of our soldiers whose lives are mere pawns in the Clinton’s political calculations. Make what you will of that.
On the politics, it’s the usual Clinton mastery. On the morals, it’s the usual Clinton triangulation (trading away principles for votes). We’ll see how well it works.