Because, internationally she is a neocon. John Bolton without the mustache. And it evident in a new long Atlantic article where she is distancing herself from Obama.
In 2008, I argued with my female relatives that it had to be Obama. Hillary would be too divisive and the election would be close. Close enough to steal. With Obama, it would be a too big a margin to play Florida or Ohio games. And we had to get the Republicans out.
Since his election, the virulent opposition in the Congress has not seen a precedent but, progress has been made. Health care, environment, etc…. not everything…
BUT
Obama has kept us out of new major international conflicts and wound down the current disasters. Has he kept neighbors from killing neighbors in any dozen different places around the globe? No, but he has set specific goals in Libya and Syria and met them. He is giving Putin enough rope to hang himself while ratcheting up the pressure on his cleptocratic supporters. He is pivoting toward China, which is the next great rival.
What would have Hillary done?
Maybe advanced the domestic agenda a little more, but there would be NO real money as troops would be all over the world. Would we still be in Libya? Yes. Would we still be in Iraq? yes, would we still be in Afghanistan? Yes. Would we be in Syria? Yes. In Africa? Yes. Iran, definitely. Ukraine, maybe, maybe not.
And Israel.
Here, despite criticism, I think Obama is on the same track as Putin, give Bebe enough rope to hang himself. Has he made Israel safer? Not really but he has really damaged Israel in the world + US public opinion. To Hillary, there is nothing wrong with the collective punishment of the Palestinians. As she said in the Atlantic article-
“Some reports say, maybe it wasn’t the exact UN school that was bombed, but it was the annex to the school next door where they were firing the rockets. And I do think oftentimes that the anguish you are privy to because of the coverage, and the women and the children and all the rest of that, makes it very difficult to sort through to get to the truth.”
Schools and shelters are not really schools and shelters.
“When I asked her about the intense international focus on Gaza, she was quick to identify anti-Semitism as an important motivating factor in criticism of Israel.”
Those dead children just cloud the reasons we have to bomb them. And anyone who questions that bombing are Jew haters anyway.
Read the whole thing but it just makes me question her fitness for the office. If she wants hold these views, Fox News will give her a big paycheck to spout them.
Warren is looking better all the time, at least her priorities are right.
Ridge
far as I’m concerned you could have left off the first four words.
but honestly I can’t imagine getting a dem candidate who doesn’t talk like that. long before the election every one of them will go to AIPAC and pledge allegiance to Israel. Warren has sounded just as bad as all the others on this issue.
How tiresome I would have found your arguments for Obama and against Clinton in 2008. Subjecting your female relatives to a sexist analysis was disrespectful of them. As tiresome as those that argued against either of them as “unelectable” because of race or sex.
Would guess now that your female relatives are more determined than ever to vote for Clinton. After all, could a woman POTUS be any more divisive than the current one?
Yet, I opposed Clinton in 2008 and oppose her candidacy today for the same reasons as I did then. She’s a neo-con, neo-liberal. Obama is too, although it was suspected but less clear in 2008, and he’s slightly less dogmatic in rhetoric and more cautious in application than she’d would be.
A candidate that would be a real choice would have to be divisive, but fully electable if she/he could articulate the issues and solutions so that they resonate for the majority. A majority that does in fact exist and is ready for a real leader and not another slick advertisement for the 1% and MIC.
Lol!
Thanks for the reply.
I might agree with you if at the time (and now in multiple public forums) one did not hear from the relatives, “She’s going to be the first woman President.” So there is obviously a sexist criteria being applied. I just thought that another Republican Admin would be a disaster for the country and it had to be stopped. Obama had the better chance to do so.
Any current oppostion I may have toward Hillary is based on her tendency toward foreign adventurism and the political capital it would expend away from the very real domestic problems that will have to be address in the next 4 and 8 years. This is not isolationism but realism.
Hillary could overcome any general public distrust or divisiveness, she could probably steam roll one or two real domestic reforms through Congress. But she would not be able to do either by shattering the Democratic coalition with a military expedition or win friends on the Republican side with body bags coming home.
Short of an existential threat to the US, its not worth it and I’m not sure she realizes that.
Thanks again!
Ridge
Should add that “Hillary because she’s a woman” is also tiresome and sexist. Like politics for eight year olds.
All things being equal, I’d likely vote for the woman or minority because there are fewer of them in office. But that comes after all other considerations and evaluations and hardly ever does that end up being a tie.
Walsh at Salon has posted her own take on the HRC interview. She feels differences between Hillary and Obama may be slightly exagerated, but they are real. And the timing of the Goldberg interview is telling, a slap at Kerry.
She basically states the same fear many of us have about HRC as a interventionist, but is the only main candidate for the Democratic party. That’s true NOW, but let’s see who else runs and how she does in the primaries. Her team couldn’t understand the basics of primaries in 2008. If its the same team again, they may get blindsided once more.
Ridge
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/11/hillarys_overlooked_16_worry_will_she_write_off_the_anti_interventio
nist_left_again/