Slowly, Clinton Shifts on War, Quieting Foes

As she prepares to face the Yearly Kos Convention, it's worth reflecting on just how subtly Hillary Clinton has adjusted her war position over the last year to dampen the Liberal tide of opposition.

She used to state that it would be a mistake to name a "date certain" for withdrawal, but now states that it is time to begin "ending this war — not next year, not next month, but today.”

And she has managed to bring about this U-turn without any cries of flip-flop, claiming that her adjustment was as a result of the facts on the ground rather than a politically calculated repackaging.

It says something about how unpopular this war has become that a Democrat centrist like Clinton has adjusted her position to such an extent that she is now calling for withdrawal. This is the woman who has been booed by Liberal audiences for her Iraq war stance.

What a difference a year makes...

There was a time when Hillary facing the Yearly Kos Convention would have been a worry to her, but it appears that this is all in the past.

A New York Times/CBS News poll in July 2006 found that among Democrats who said the invasion of Iraq had been a mistake, 56 percent said they had a favorable view of Mrs. Clinton’s performance. A year later, that figure had risen to 69 percent. Her standing during that period among all Democrats has also shown improvement. On the campaign trail, antiwar protests at her appearances are less frequent and less loud.

“Thanks to her votes on defunding the war and supporting a timetable for withdrawal, she has defused the war issue as a problem for her, and her 2002 vote for the war, to quite an extent,” said Medea Benjamin, a leader of the antiwar group Code Pink, whose members once regularly booed and heckled Mrs. Clinton whenever she spoke about the war.

“There’s still a passionate minority of us who believe the fact she won’t apologize for her war vote is a big deal,” Ms. Benjamin said.

But, she added, “she has gone a long way to changing things.”

Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the liberal Daily Kos Web site, said Mrs. Clinton had “done a great job of blurring on the war.”

Mr. Moulitsas, whose Web site inspired this weekend’s gathering of bloggers in Chicago, cited Mrs. Clinton’s statements that she would leave a sizable military force in Iraq even after reducing the American military role there, saying that distinction was lost in the way she had presented her antiwar credentials.

“I don’t know if policy and rhetoric are aligned,” Mr. Moulitsas said. “But people don’t see the policy paper on our side; they hear what she says, and she talks a great game.”

Clinton, unlike Edwards, has refused to ever apologise for her pro-war vote, and the fact that she insists that she will leave "a sizeable military force" in Iraq remains a worry to those of us who oppose the war entirely.

An adviser to one of Mrs. Clinton’s opponents, who did not want to be quoted by name offering praise for the way she was handling the issue, described the senator’s change as “more of a slide than a flip-flop.”

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers pointed to statements she has made and stances she has taken over the past year that have repositioned her. Those include her decision, this spring, to vote in favor of a troop withdrawal timetable, and her decision to support a cut off of money for the war. She signaled the shift with a speech to the Democratic National Committee in February saying, “If we in Congress don’t end this war before January of 2009, as president I will.”

I'm not entirely happy with Clinton's stance on this and find the fact that she intends to leave "a sizeable military force" in Iraq a profound worry.

However, Clinton - like her husband - has always been a committed centrist, believing that elections are won by clinging to the centre ground.

It says a lot about how perceptions of the Iraq war have changed that we now find Hillary of all people in our camp, promising that - if she wins - she will bring the troops home.

Ordinary people stating what they believe have the power to change things. To make people in power reconsider their positions. Hillary's war stance, and the transformation it has undergone in the last year, is the proof of that.

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Tags: Hillary Clinton, Iraq war