RK ARCHIVE - Hillary Clinton Riffs Off of Jim Webb

Hillary Clinton (5/3/07): "If the President will not bring himself to accept reality, it is time for Congress to bring reality to him." (introducing legislation that proposes October 11, 2007 -- "the five year anniversary of the original resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq -- as the expiration date for that resolution")

Jim Webb (1/23/07): "Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way." (responding to Bush's State of the Union address)

Sounds to me like Hillary Clinton is riffing off of Jim Webb a bit here, and I think that's wonderful. Even if she isn't, I think this is an excellent piece of legislation that she's cosponsoring. The fact is, the authorization to use force against Iraq was never open-ended, especially since the WMD and other preconditions to the war all turned out to be erroneous. Now, after more than 4 years of Bush Administration screwups, the American people are clearly calling for war to end. Unfortunately, Dubya can't seem to figure that one out, so it looks like Congress will have to "show him the way."

Comments

GREAT piece of legislation (Chris Guy - 5/3/2007 10:38:10 PM)

from Sens. Clinton & Byrd.

If she is using Sen. Webb to find her voice on Iraq, also a brilliant move on her part.

A few months ago I read a rumor somewhere that Webb was in frequent contact with one of the candidates for President, but the source of said rumor wasn't at liberty to say who.

Another Force Behind Efforts to BRING THEM HOME (BlueDog - 5/3/2007 10:40:20 PM)

We need to have our troops home! We need them here with their families; we need our Guard and Reserve here, equipped and ready to respond locally, as is their original mission - not serving overseas on an endless and unfocussed expedition. What has happened to the fight against terrorism? With so many American lives and resources tied up in Iraq, we have nothing for Katrina victims, many of our children are without health care... Our first responders, those who answered when the towers were hit -- are now suffering from illnesses related to fallout and other pollutants from the attack. But, resources to provide for these responders' health needs have been vetoed.....along with money for IED-resistant transport vehicles to keep our troops safer.

Senator Clinton is doing the right thing! She is fighting the good fight- trying to prepare a path for peace; Caring for those Americans who have given so very much. Her voice is a welcome, strong voice on this issue! We need every single advocate, every precious ally! And Hillary Clinton does bring a long history of vision on these issues, along with a strong tradition of coalition-building for effective public policy, national security solutions.

So close (novamiddleman - 5/4/2007 6:07:36 AM)

off by a month October instead of September :-p

Sisyphus has a good post about Iraq

http://hoosierinva.b...

Everybody needs to think about the next step now instead of waiting until October.

Byrd-Clinton is spot-on (Greg Kane - 5/4/2007 1:04:27 PM)

Its going to be hard to keep all of the Ds on the same page. Over the next couple of weeks there will be all sorts of variations of short-term/long-term funding and benchmarks formulas floating. What will not be able to be sustained will be what the Ds want most of all - to end the war. Face it, the votes are just not there.

The Byrd-Clinton bill makes the war supporters pay big time for the compromise, namely going on record to, in effect, reauthorize the war. This bill also provides cover for folks like Hillary who need to be shown voting to end the war.

The bottom line is that the Rs are continuing to enable Bush to disregard the majority of the American people. This bill forces the Republican caucus to share the spot light with the Commander. This is a re-election nightmare for the Rs.