Dateline Carson City, Nev: OK, Senator Clinton, since you refuse to admit error on your Iraq War vote--Dennis Kucinich says he saw the same intelligence but voted against war as did many other Democratic Congress members--maybe you will answer this question: Why do we have to wait until a hypothetical second term of your hypothetical administration for universal health care coverage? We have been waiting for it since we won WWII and Harry Truman said we would get coverage. Your competitors say we can have it much sooner. What's up with that? Its time to bite the bullet, Senator and come clean. Democratic voters want a candidate that can level with them. If we cut extravagant and unneeded defense spending we can afford health care for all, now. But then your corporate supporters would not be too happy with that position.
Weekend Update: I agree with the Govenator that we should be discussing the leadership qualities and the records of the various candidates. Let's hope the Republicans do the same. The force authorization vote encapsulates these subjects. Her vote on the issue was a matter of personal judgment and national policy. The policy of preemptive war is unprecedented and dangerously untenable. The judgment that Saddam posed an imminent threat was not well informed or wise. There was much information, some of it in the public record and unclassified, which contradicted the regime's sales pitch for war. For a Senator with a seat on the Senate Armed Services committee and it's Emerging Threats subcommittee to be taken in by the White House's false pretenses is hard to understand without thinking the Senator negligent or complicit. Her belief that the Executive should receive deference in matters of war is a concept of the Senate's constitutional role that has led to a dangerous imbalance of powers over the last 36 years. The trend of expanding executive power must be reversed by the Senate taking a much more active role in setting future foreign policy. That is the lesson of the Iraq debacle and one the Senator refuses to recognize. And if that isn't enough reason to oppose her candidacy, the Quinipac poll shows both Giuliani and McCain defeating the junior Senator from New York in the race for the White House.