You may recall that Scaife took some deep jabs at Hillary in the '90's and was part of Hillary's so-called "vast right wing conspiracy." His paper chased the Vince Foster death. Now Scaife and Bill appear to be good friends.
Call it as you see it.
Comments
Yes (Rebecca - 4/21/2008 11:00:08 AM)
Hillary and Scaife are now all huggy-kissy. I can't help wondering what she promised him in the meeting prior to the endorsement. There is a photo of them together which I think was posted here.
Hillary on Olbermann this evening (Catzmaw - 4/22/2008 1:05:58 AM)
unaccountably burst out giggling when Olbermann asked her about Scaife's endorsement. He was asking about the past smears from Scaife. She merrily ascribed Scaife's change of heart to her ability to bring people together. It was a little disconcerting, to say the least.
Here's part 1 of the interview (Lowell - 4/22/2008 6:04:08 AM)
The blogosphere is buzzing about Clinton's comments on Iran and nuclear weapons...see minute 6.
Yeah, I saw the diary at dkos (Ron1 - 4/22/2008 7:03:31 AM)
Frankly, I don't understand what's so controversial about what she said. She enunciated, although not so eloquently, a rather conventional deterrence policy wrt Iran and nuclear weapons -- and she's right. Now, I, personally, would tone down the rhetoric -- I would say, look, we will do our best to prevent Iran from going down the proliferation pathway but, in the event that they do eventually acquire nuclear weapons capabilities, we will make it clear that any attack on Israel with nuclear weapons will be met in kind.
It's actually pretty straightforward, and we have seen that nuclear deterrence works pretty well. But it's not even clear that Iran actually wants nuclear weapons. If the next President can get smart people on the case, Iran can be brought to the table and the nuclear issue solved. The biggest threat to non-proliferation doctrine right now frankly is the US -- by treating treaties like toilet paper and employing illegal doctrines of preventive war, WE are the ones that are causing the international system to fray.
I think the policy of (Lowell - 4/22/2008 7:30:23 AM)
extending the U.S. nuclear deterrent to other areas besides Europe, Japan, or South Korea is worth considering. In the Middle East, the main advantage is that it could help prevent a nuclear arms race and potentially even a nuclear attack by one country against another (hoping that they could succeed with a first strike, knocking out the other country's "second strike" capability and thereby "winning" a nuclear war). Consideration of this policy is fine. But here's the problem:
... This is an incredibly dangerous topic. And she made a mess of it, repeatedly, to the point where her staff had to get involved to try to make amends, so that now our enemies and our allies have no idea what Hillary's position is on war with Iran, the defense of Israel, and the possible use of US nuclear weapons. Even more disturbing is the possibility that Hillary made these comments, this apparent flip-flop on US nuclear policy, in order to curry favor with voters in Pennsylvania on the eve of that state's primary. (I've also heard speculation that Hillary's new nuclear policy is really about forcing Obama into some kind of bind, or something.) This isn't Bosnia any more, where you can send the First Lady in with a child, a singer and a comedian to read a poem. It's a possible nuclear war scenario, and Hillary, in an effort to act all tough, win a few votes, and take a jab at Obama, played politics with our national security and sent the wrong message to the world, the wrong message to our enemies. It's 3am, folks, and the phone just rang. And Hillary got it wrong.
That's my problem with this: not the possibility of extending the U.S. nuclear deterrent -- that's worth considering -- but the timing, the way it was rolled out (on national talk shows in full public view, on the eve of the crucial Pennsylvania primary), etc.
Good points (Ron1 - 4/22/2008 7:46:54 AM)
I've just basically unplugged myself from the primary-news-of-the-day for the past week, as I consider this whole thing over, so I just look at her comments completely out of context from the fear-mongering and closing ads and what have you of the past weekend. There's no way she can win, so why sweat the details?
Her general knee-jerk-hawkishness troubles me, probably more than anything else in her candidacy -- and that's basically why I never even considered voting for her in the VA primary (doesn't that seem like it was a year ago, not two months?). But I actually think enunciating a deterrence policy with Iran helps us bring an end to that situation without nuclear weapons ever being developed. BTW, I think we would also have to stipulate that we would sever all ties with Israel were they ever to launch a 'preventive' nuclear first strike against Iran for such a policy to work. We have to essentially take the nuclear domino off the table, and hopefully bring states in the region back into the non-proliferation regime.
The most depressing thing (Lowell - 4/22/2008 7:50:09 AM)
is the commentary I've seen on several of the liberal blogs. It's like nobody's ever taken a class in national security policy or strategic studies (I took several of those in graduate school and have read widely on the subject). Does anyone understand how deterrence works? Does anyone understand the threat of nuclear proliferation or an uncontrolled nuclear arms race? Does anyone understand anything about foreign policy? I'm starting to wonder.
A few of the people making sane points (Ron1 - 4/22/2008 8:03:10 AM)
wrt to deterrence in that thread got shouted down by the mob -- so I decided against engaging. I agree with you, though -- deterrence shouldn't be a bad word in liberal circles, it's in fact the best way to prevent proliferation AND nuclear war.
First thing that really made me consider Barack was his ability to look at the situation in Pakistan and say, "Hey! This is screwy! Why aren't we focusing on the real al Qaeda in the Hindu Kush instead of the cheap knock off US military propaganda version in Iraq?" His team seems to get these issues, which gives me some confidence he'll handle the Iran situation fairly deftly, and bring them to the table. To be fair to Iran, they are about the most investigated nation under the NPT/IAEA ever, and seem to be willing to play by the rules if engaged properly, despite the screwiness of the elected puppet.
Agree with you, Lowell (Catzmaw - 4/22/2008 9:19:26 AM)
The problem is not that Hillary made reference to our policy of nuclear deterrence. It's that she made such a bellicose sounding statement when it would have been much easier, and certainly easier on the ears of the rest of the world, to make a measured response which didn't use a word like "obliterate". I was utterly shocked at her rhetoric because it was absolutely unnecessary and apparently uttered for immediate political gain. I am also appalled that only a few months ago she went after Obama for his statements about Pakistan, accusing him of lacking judgment.