Posted on 03/19/2008 9:55:54 AM PDT by lowbridge
U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton used City Hall yesterday as the backdrop to renew her call to change tactics and withdraw troops from Iraq, saying money spent on the war could be better used to help the national mortgage crisis and this week's shutdown of part of Interstate 95 here. Clinton, D-N.Y., was joined by former CIA agent Valerie Plame and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Plame's undercover identity was leaked to reporters by Bush administration staffers after her husband criticized the war in Iraq.
Clinton's speech, coming a day before the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, was designed to deal with repeated attacks by her rival for the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., on her 2002 vote to authorize the president to go to war.
"I will tell you right up front that it is totally unfair and misleading to try to characterize George Bush's war as Hillary Clinton's responsibility," Wilson told a crowd of reporters.
Clinton repeated her plan to withdraw troops from Iraq within 60 days of becoming president, saying she would work to stabilize the region with diplomacy instead of military force, with an expanded role for the United Nations.
"The fact is there is no military solution to Iraq's civil war," Clinton said. "A well-planned withdrawal is the one and only path to a political solution."
Clinton added that she thinks additional U.S. troops sent to Iraq last year helped quell the violence there but that Iraqi leaders had taken "very meager" steps to take control of their country. She predicted that those leaders would not step up unless they are certain U.S. troops are leaving.
Obama wasn't a member of the Senate when the vote to authorize the war was cast but made speeches in 2002 opposing it while running for that office.
"In the end, the test is not speeches a president delivers," Clinton said, "It's whether the president delivers on the speech."
Ending the Iraq war would curtail about $10 billion to $12 billion in U.S. spending each month, Clinton said. She clearly has ideas where that money could be used.
She pointed to Monday's discovery of a severely cracked bridge support column that forced the closure of two miles of I-95 as a "failure to deal with our infrastructure" akin to the failures of levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and the collapse of a Minneapolis bridge last August.
Clinton also fielded several questions about the recent intervention by the Federal Reserve to help J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. buy Bear Stearns, an investment bank flailing in the wake of the country's sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Clinton said she had been calling for a moratorium on the foreclosures of homes owned by people no longer able to pay the rising interest rates on their adjustable mortgages, for freezing those rates and for a pool of money to be set aside in any economic stimulus plan to help cities like Philadelphia deal with homeowners in trouble.
"The bottom line is, the Bush administration has been missing in action," Clinton said. "And, unfortunately, everyone is paying the price for that neglect."
The survey, published today, also reveals that contrary to the views of many western analysts, most Iraqis do not believe they are embroiled in a civil war.
Resilient Iraqis ask what civil war?
Yet the whole question of whether Iraqis are engaged in a "civil war" ultimately turns on a Western press conceit. Because the elite Western press began predicting such a conflict almost from the beginning, the ensuing debate in the U.S. has taken place within such politically loaded terms. Iraqis, on the other hand, know who is shooting at whom.
http://iraqpundit.blogspot.com/2007/03/iraqis-what-civil-war.html
But what would those silly Iraqis know?
And the reporter gets in his little dig of bias:
Plame's undercover identity was leaked to reporters by Bush administration staffers after her husband criticized the war in Iraq.
Does Looney Left really admire Valerie Plame to that extent? Goodness. To think she is some sort of Political Capital is mind boggling.
Isn't her 15 minutes up?
Go ahead Hildabeast!...Keep talking this crappola! You’ll bring the troops home and right behind them will come the terrorists, you village idiot!
But instead of swinging from the gallows as they should be doing, traitors get to run for POTUS. What a f***ing disgrace.
Mega bimbo alert! Fake president and fake CIA operative showing correlated positions. Mega bimbo alert! The lowest ranking student I’ve ever taught has at least twice the IQ of the sum of both these bimbos.
The White House press secretary will be Matt Cooper, hubby of Mandy Grunwald.
Hillary OWES a LOT of people...
There...that's the players from that scenario.
The terrorists are counting on this. They will claim victory over the “zionist cowards.”
saddam bought hundreds of copies of “Black Hawk Down” and made his generals watch it and study it.
He wanted Mogadishus throughout Baghdad.
This is how clueless the dems are, they think pulling out will stop the violence? It will embolden them and they will claimit as a major victory against the west and recruitment will skyrocket.
Brilliant strategy hillary.
Hey...you’ve got to stop dissing Mrs. Clinton.
Rush has annointed her...and we must follow.
*yawn*
Is that the best they can do?
“In the end, the test is not speeches a president delivers,” Clinton said, “It’s whether the president delivers on the speech.”
Where did she get this line from? Jesse Jackson? Rev. Wright?
“The fact is there is no military solution to Iraq’s civil war.”
Baloney. It just takes courage and pragmatic principles. Find and kill enough of the right people. Kill all of the Iranian mullahs, Syria’s Assad and a bunch of other Islamofascist trouble makers. Bomb the crap out of the Iranian nuke plants. Kill enough of the Pakistinian along the border. Kill enough of the Saudis and take the oil.
“In the end, the test is not speeches a president delivers,” Clinton said, “It’s whether the president delivers on the speech.”
Hmmmm....
“I’m Bill Clinton and I think you deserve a change. That’s why I’ve offered a plan to get the economy moving again, starting with a middle-class tax cut...”
—Bill Clinton campaign commercial, 1/16/92
“I want to make it very clear that this middle class tax cut, in my view, is central to any attempt we’re going to make to have a short-term economic strategy and a longterm fairness strategy which is part of getting this country going again.”
—Bill Clinton, New Hampshire primary debate, 1/19/92
“From New Hampshire forward, for reasons that absolutely mystified me, the press thought the most important issue in the race was the middle class tax cut”
—President-elect Bill Clinton, news conference, 1/14/93
“...I will tell you this: I will not raise taxes on the middle-class to pay for these programs.”
—Bill Clinton, presidential debate, 10/19/92
“To middle-class Americans who have paid a great deal over the last 12 years and from whom I ask a contribution tonight...”
—Bill Clinton, announcing the largest tax increase in history, State of the
Union address, 2/17/93
“Probably there are people in this room still mad at me at that budget because you think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much too.”
—Bill Clinton, remarks at Houston fund- raiser, 10/17/95
“I take full responsibility, proudly, for what we did. It [raising taxes] was the right thing to do.”
—Bill Clinton, press conference, 10/19/95
(Taken from the GOP Talking Points from January 31, 1996.)
But shes joined forces with Valerie Pame! We’re doomed!
BS!
I know W caused Katrina, and all the crooked dems shoving $ in their pockets in New Orleans, instead of maintaining the levees was Bush’s fault, just like the bridge in Minneapolis , which was an engineering design defect. We need Hillary to save us!!!
bump
“In the end, the test is not speeches a president delivers,” Clinton said, “It’s whether the president delivers on the speech.”
Spoken like a true Clinton. Now... about those jobs you PROMISED New Yorkers Hillary.
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