Trying to reconcile a shift from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton? Good luck.

From a Wall Street Journal news story, I give you a collective paraphrase and one quoted assessment of Hillary Clinton's State Department tenure. The paraphrase:

[Mrs. Clinton] was more comfortable than Mr. Obama with the use of military force and saw it as an important complement to diplomacy, present and former administration aides say.

The quote, from Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser: 

In the debates that we had, she generally was someone who came down in favor of military action. She had a comfort with U.S. military action.

This reporting brings us up to date: The tension stands unaltered and unabated from 2008. Obama was, and remains, wary of U.S. military engagement; Clinton was, and is, "comfortable" with it.

Some Obama supporters are twisting themselves into positions of excruciating hope that Hillary has learned from her time at State and tutorage from a militarily skeptical president. I submit that nothing has changed in the last six years--that Hillary, for whatever reasons, from either convictions or politics, remains an unapologetic advocate of military force. But of course I don't need to submit it. Ben Rhodes and "former administration aides" already have.  

I find this chilling, as well as a circle that simply can't be squared. Obama soared to Democratic supremacy in 2008 because Clinton had dug in. Notwithstanding the grotesque, bleeding reality that Iraq was an unmitigated folly of generational repercussions, she downplayed but defended her abiding hawkishness. Hers was a strategic and political miscalculation born of neoconservative arrogance and a thoroughgoing misapprehension of the electorate. Mrs. Clinton had had five years to correct course, and she failed to do so. She then had another four years, and what did--do--we get? An assessment from militarily skeptical Obama's deputy national security adviser that she has "a comfort with U.S. military action."

She learned nothing. The Hillary Clinton of 2016 is the Hillary Clinton of 2008.

Let's be clear. If you're an Obama supporter who nonetheless favors what is euphemistically known in neocon circles as an "aggressive" foreign policy, then there is absolutely nothing awkward or intellectually untoward about a supportive shift to Clinton. You are in harmony with your convictions; you are, in fact, of the primordial, 1970s neoconservative mind--that which embraced a domestic liberalism tempered by foreign-policy muscularism.

If, however, you shifted six years ago, chiefly because of their foreign-policy dispute, from Clinton's Inevitability to Obama-as-Saner-Alternative, then to swing back now to Clinton is awkward and at least a trifle untoward indeed. For Obama and Clinton are of two fundamentally irreconcilable camps.

 

Comments

[Jimiskin]

I find it, as I always have, increasingly difficult to reach any level of comfort with the idea of supporting her as a candidate. The feeling seems to be very widespread among all of my left-leaning friends. Of course, if we do not support her and Jeb or worse gets the job we will all be in for a terrible time again. I suppose it comes down to, as you said awhile back, which face we want to put on it. I applaud the idea of a woman president, but we do not need another warmonger of any description.

[AnneJ]

I think it's a worry either way. She either runs, gets elected, and then all we can do is wait and see what happens in the rest of the world that might make her want to put boots on the ground somewhere. Or she can run a bad campaign again, and get beat out by another democrat who may not be able to win a general election. Of course that may also depend on how bad a candidate the republicans put up. Right now there's no republican that can beat Hillary, but what if Hillary doesn't win a primary? This is why I don't say that her getting elected is inevitable. That's what people were saying back in 2008.

[Lovepolitics2008]

The vast majority of Obama supporters are lukewarm to a Hillary presidency. Not just because of foreign policy by the way.

But given the alternative of a republican president, the Obama supporters will vote for Hillary. Without any enthusiasm.

However, if Hillary becomes president and shifts the democratic party more to the right, she will face serious problems within the party. It's not the 1990s anymore. The Obama coalition is now a force to reckon with. There will be a search for a more progressive candidate for 2020…

Note: A Barack Obama comes once in a generation. Comes 2016 he will be missed. People who are always quick to criticize him will come to appreciate what a special president he has been...

[Peter G]

Good. There are lots of times when military force is both justified, necessary and useful. Libya springs to mind. It was certainly justified in the Balkans. And, as I recall, the president thought the authority to use it in Syria was very much necessary. The use of force is not necessarily the problem. How it is used and in conjunction with which allies and with what aim matters more. You may be assuming that the president is forbearing the use of either the force or the threat of force out of some higher reason than the obvious one. This president can rely on virtually no one to have his back.

[priscianus jr]

Peter,
You keep using that term "military force". I do not think Hillary means what you think it means.

[Peter G]

I do not think anyone knows what Hillary thinks. Anymore then they know what President Obama thinks. But there are more than enough people willing to speculate about what such people think. The phrasing of Mr Rhodes is enlightening to this degree, by comfortable he means she likes it. Aggressive bitch! But unless his mind reading skills are exceptional then he is just another bullshitter.