Bill's comment yesterday re Iraq is a flashback to the day he stared into a TV camera and flatly stated to all Americans "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky."
>Clinton vs Clinton on Iraq
by Aaron Bruns, Nov 28 2007
…not Bill vs. Hillary, but Bill vs. Bill. President Clinton told an Iowa audience today that he’d “opposed Iraq from the beginning.” But Clinton opponents were quick to point out instances where he seemed to say the opposite.
The RNC notes a June, 2004 article in Time Magazine, in which the former President was quoted as saying “So, you’re sitting there as President, you’re reeling in the aftermath of [September 11], so, yeah, you want to go get bin Laden and do Afghanistan and all that. But you also have to say, Well, my first responsibility now is to try everything possible to make sure that this terrorist network and other terrorist networks cannot reach chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material. I’ve got to do that. That’s why I supported the Iraq thing.”
And a rival campaign accuses President Clinton of either rewriting history, or failing to convince his wife to share his view and oppose the war. A campaign aide cites a May, 2003 AP article quoting President Clinton as saying “I supported the president when he asked for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
Hillary spokesman and former aide to President Clinton Jay Carson says the ex-prez was merely giving a shorthand version of his usual answer — which is that while President Bush was right to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, weapons inspectors should have been given the time to do their jobs. Carson says Clinton has often said that he felt how, when, and why the invasion was carried out were wrong — citing a quote in that same June ‘04 Time piece in which Clinton said “I would not have done it until after Hans Blix finished the job,” as well as a December 2005 interview on CNN, when Clinton said “I didn’t agree with what was done when it was done. But we are where we are.”
Regardless of whether Clinton’s been technically consistent on the issue, expect Hillary’s Democratic and Republican rivals to jump all over this comment on Wednesday.< |
