Let me finish tonight with the war of words between Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney over Iraq.
We showed the video in tonight’s show of the former president telling an audience in Denver this week that if they–meaning Cheney and Bush–hadn’t gone to war in Iraq, none of this sectarian violence and chaos would be playing out in Iraq right now.
What stuck out to me was what happened when Bill Clinton said that: the crowd erupted in cheers.
Now, I know this was a Clinton audience. It was at a Clinton Global Initiative event–these are Clinton fans. But you could also read it as the Democratic base. And for anyone who remembers the 2008 primaries, this made it a noteworthy moment: a Democratic audience cheering a Clinton on Iraq.
Because, of course, Iraq was the one issue that more than any other that stopped Hillary in 2008, that gave purpose to Barack Obama’s campaign, that ruined what everyone had started out assuming would be an easy Clinton restoration.
Hillary, and Bill for that matter, could criticize Cheney and Bush all they wanted over the conduct of the war in 2008. But this question always kept coming back: OK, well then how come you voted for it?
And Hillary had no good answer for that. She couldn’t bring herself to say it was a mistake.
The thing is, all these years later, she still hasn’t really answered the question. In her new book, she does use the word “mistake” to describe her 2002 vote for the Iraq War resolution. But she insists she didn’t think she was actually voting for war, that all she was doing was giving George W. Bush a diplomatic tool. It’s been 12 years, I know, but I remember that 2002 vote well, and no one thought it was anything other than a major step in the march to war in Iraq.









