Paul: Benghazi affair should disqualify Clinton from holding office again

[Mr. Morden]

In a speech before the Missouri GOP:

http://therun2016.com/paul-benghazi-should-prevent-clinton-from-office/

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[Landslide Lyndon]

That's what they call "wishful thinking".

[Zioneer]

Why do they keep bringing Benghazi up when nobody except their partisans (and of course the families of the deceased) cares anymore? Heck, most everyone doesn't even know what Benghazi is. I don't understand their obsession.

[Beet]

And the worm turns, of course. The GOP obsession with Benghazi was about 2016 from the very start.

[Maxwell]

Paul's drooling obsession with a fire fight should disqualify him from running for President.

[Stranger in a strange land]

And the worm turns, of course. The GOP obsession with Benghazi was about 2016 from the very start.

^THIS. Benghazi is the new Birtherism.

[Cory]

Rand Paul seems to seriously think he is going to be the GOP nominee in 2016 and that he can use this against Hillary.

[Angel of Death]

No, Iraq should disqualify Clinton from becoming President, but apparently all the "liberals" seem to be suffering from collective amnesia.

[Beet]

No, Iraq should disqualify Clinton from becoming President, but apparently all the "liberals" seem to be suffering from collective amnesia.

Were "liberals" suffering from amnesia in 2008 when they supported John Edwards, even though he voted for the same Iraq resolution? Also, if you seriously believe that Obama would have voted differently on Iraq had he been a US Senator at the time you're delusional. This selective memory of only Clinton's vote and forgetting Edwards' and Biden's votes, or the fact that Obama and Clinton voted practically identically on foreign policy in the Senate, has always been illogical and absurd. If you want to take a stand on that vote as singularly disqualifying then great, but don't pretend that the majority of liberals were ever consistently with you.

[Lambsbread]

And the worm turns, of course. The GOP obsession with Benghazi was about 2016 from the very start.

No kidding.

[BluegrassBlueVote]

No, Iraq should disqualify Clinton from becoming President, but apparently all the "liberals" seem to be suffering from collective amnesia.

These purity tests are fun and all, but it's not like any Democrat in the future will be embarking on another Iraq. Hillary's vote and flip-flop are regrettable, but it won't be a problem in her hypothetical administration. Unreasonable ideological inflexibility is not going to cost us the woman who is (by far) our best bet at retaining the White House.

If she was in the minority of the party back in 2002 and defying Democratic leadership, it would be a different story. She wasn't a maverick on the issue; far too many Democrats made the wrong choice.

[King]

The Republicans strategically placed the Iraq Resolution before the midterms.  With Bush's popularity and the evidence given to the American people at the time, few Democrats had no choice but to support it.

[PJ]

This is just my opinion, pleases don't get mad:

Hillary Clinton is just so awesome the GOP can't find anything to criticize her for.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This is just my opinion, pleases don't get mad:

Hillary Clinton is just so awesome the GOP can't find anything to criticize her for.

I'd say instead that the GOP is so out of touch that they literally can't comprehend which criticisms might actually work.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Rand Paul finds the August 6th 2001 memo perfectly acceptable to ignore. Why does anyone like this hypocrite?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

No, Iraq should disqualify Clinton from becoming President, but apparently all the "liberals" seem to be suffering from collective amnesia.

These purity tests are fun and all, but it's not like any Democrat in the future will be embarking on another Iraq. Hillary's vote and flip-flop are regrettable, but it won't be a problem in her hypothetical administration. Unreasonable ideological inflexibility is not going to cost us the woman who is (by far) our best bet at retaining the White House.

If she was in the minority of the party back in 2002 and defying Democratic leadership, it would be a different story. She wasn't a maverick on the issue; far too many Democrats made the wrong choice.

If they made the wrong choice before, they can make it again.  The exact same situation won't come up again, but it's worth questioning whether politicians have taken the right lessons from it.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

No, Iraq should disqualify Clinton from becoming President, but apparently all the "liberals" seem to be suffering from collective amnesia.

These purity tests are fun and all, but it's not like any Democrat in the future will be embarking on another Iraq. Hillary's vote and flip-flop are regrettable, but it won't be a problem in her hypothetical administration. Unreasonable ideological inflexibility is not going to cost us the woman who is (by far) our best bet at retaining the White House.

If she was in the minority of the party back in 2002 and defying Democratic leadership, it would be a different story. She wasn't a maverick on the issue; far too many Democrats made the wrong choice.

If they made the wrong choice before, they can make it again.  The exact same situation won't come up again, but it's worth questioning whether politicians have taken the right lessons from it.

History repeating itself? Nonsense!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%80%93American_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Resolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

[BluegrassBlueVote]

No, Iraq should disqualify Clinton from becoming President, but apparently all the "liberals" seem to be suffering from collective amnesia.

These purity tests are fun and all, but it's not like any Democrat in the future will be embarking on another Iraq. Hillary's vote and flip-flop are regrettable, but it won't be a problem in her hypothetical administration. Unreasonable ideological inflexibility is not going to cost us the woman who is (by far) our best bet at retaining the White House.

If she was in the minority of the party back in 2002 and defying Democratic leadership, it would be a different story. She wasn't a maverick on the issue; far too many Democrats made the wrong choice.

If they made the wrong choice before, they can make it again.  The exact same situation won't come up again, but it's worth questioning whether politicians have taken the right lessons from it.

History repeating itself? Nonsense!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%80%93American_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Resolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

So let's start worrying 40-60 years down the line? I agree.

[Lambsbread]

This is just my opinion, pleases don't get mad:

Hillary Clinton is just so awesome the GOP can't find anything to criticize her for.

Nobody over the age of 12 starts an opinion with "please don't get mad because of my opinion"

[Averroës Nix]

Clinton's vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq is less a a reason to vote against her in itself than it is a symptom of why she shouldn't be the Democratic nominee.

Then again, I hardly blame anyone who looks at voting in support of the most disastrous mistake made by federal policymakers in the past decade as a disqualifier, particularly as a significant number of Senate Democrats did vote against it. The same applies to Biden, Bayh, Warner, and anyone else who made the same foolish and cowardly mistake.

[Maxwell]

Rand Paul finds the August 6th 2001 memo perfectly acceptable to ignore. Why does anyone like this hypocrite?

Where did he say this?

[Zarn]

The Republicans strategically placed the Iraq Resolution before the midterms.  With Bush's popularity and the evidence given to the American people at the time, few Democrats had no choice but to support it.

She was a senator of New York. How exactly was she going to lose that election?

Clinton has always been more hawkish, when it was popular (like most Dems). There is no reason to believe she would not do it, again. She had no problem with Obama's recent campaigns, either.

[Beet]

The Republicans strategically placed the Iraq Resolution before the midterms.  With Bush's popularity and the evidence given to the American people at the time, few Democrats had no choice but to support it.

She was a senator of New York. How exactly was she going to lose that election?

Exactly. She was a senator from the state where 2,500 of her constituents died in a terrorist attack a year before the vote. The president of the United States, who had the time did not have the terrible reputation he does today, was saying that this country had weapons of mass destruction and was an imminent threat to the Eastern seaboard. Suppose she had voted against authorization, no action had been taken, and New York was attacked again? She would have caused the deaths of her constituents by dereliction of duty.

Of course, her vote was never decisive, and I would argue that she was credible when she said at the time that it was not a vote for war. Iraq was still accepting new inspections after the vote, the international community continued to debate, and protests against the war continued well into February. At the time the position of many Democrats was that the U.S. should not go to war without backing from the international community. The failure of the so-called 18th resolution in early 2003 meant that a war should never have been launched. As late as March 2003, Hans Blix was talking about continued sanctions. In any case, by no means was war considered to be a fait accompli before January 2003.

George W. Bush and his administration must bear responsibility for the war. He lied to Congress about the vital matter of the safety of the American people, for which Congress gave him an authorization, but not an order, to use force. He then abused that authorization and used force even though many of us who thought a U.S. president should have had the option ought never to have used it without (a) clear evidence of an imminent threat, and (b) support from the international community.

For those of you saying "but Bush was so evil, they should have known", I would argue no, the worst things the Bush administration eventually did were by no means known or should have been expected in October 2002. As the president of the U.S., of either party, he was in a way above politics, as he should have been. Just as Democrats would want Republicans to support Obama on matters of vital national security, and give him the benefit of the doubt, so Democrats should to Republicans. If Chris Christie is elected, I'm not going to automatically assume he's evil unless the evidence presents itself.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

This is just my opinion, pleases don't get mad:

Hillary Clinton is just so awesome the GOP can't find anything to criticize her for.

Nobody over the age of 12 starts an opinion with "please don't get mad because of my opinion"

on an internet forum where people routinely freak out because someone has a different opinion than they do, there's no reason they shouldn't.

[BluegrassBlueVote]

She was a senator of New York. How exactly was she going to lose that election?

Hillary knew she wanted to be president in 2008 by the time the question of Iraq was rolling around. After a lot of Democrats emerged with egg on their faces at the end of the Gulf War, I think a lot of Democrats gambled on what vote would look best in a future general election. And it wasn't just Clinton; Kerry, Edwards, Warner, and Biden (who voted against action in 1990) all thought the same.