This kind of comment is EXACTLY what I dislike about Hillary Clinton. Emphasis in bold is mine.
While critics of Mrs. Clinton used to denounce her for voting to authorize the Iraq war in 2002, today the challenge came from an otherwise enthusiastic supporter of Mrs. Clinton, Barbara Dennett, a math teacher and field hockey coach.
At a town hall meeting in a middle school gym here, Ms. Dennett first hailed Mrs. Clinton’s health care reform effort in 1993-94, then said “I also completely trust you on the social issues, women and children and family.”
“My concern is your voting record on war,” Ms. Dennett said. “The friends I talk to, to get them on board, they don’t trust you because of your voting issue on war.” She added that she and her friends did not want Mrs. Clinton to be “a war president.”
Saying she was “very glad you asked that,” Mrs. Clinton began her answer by trying to narrow the daylight between her record and those of her Democratic rivals. She noted that the other Democrats who are running for president, and who were in the Senate in 2002 – all voted for the war. Barack Obama, another contender and a vociferous critic of the war from the start, entered the Senate in 2005.
“You know, I believe that every one of us who is running to be the Democratic nominee has the same position now on Iraq,” Mrs. Clinton said, “that we’re going to end the war because George Bush won’t end the war.”
While all of the Democrats favor “ending the war” and “bringing the troops home,” two common phrases on the campaign trail, there are some differences: Bill Richardson says he would remove every single troop as quickly as possible, John Edwards says he would remove all combat troops, and Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama said they would leave some troops in the country or in the region for narrowed missions.
Mrs. Clinton said her 2002 vote was intended to increase pressure on Iraq to accept continued weapons inspections, not to go to war. Referring to herself and other Democratic candidates, she added, “we’ve each said in our own way that we regret the way President Bush used that authority” – an answer that fuzzed over Mrs. Clinton’s refusal to call her 2002 vote a mistake, as Mr. Edwards has and as some Democratic primary voters pressed her to admit when she started running last winter.
Ms. Dennett eventually piped up and mentioned Iran – a reference to Mrs. Clinton’s vote this year to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, which Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards criticized with the suggestion that it could embolden President Bush to go to war.
“It seems like a pattern, that’s my concern,” Ms. Dennett said.
“I don’t think it’s a pattern, I just have a fundamental disagreement with my colleagues who are running,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I think the facts are indisputable – they support Hezbollah, they support Hamas.”
“I do not favor war,” she added. “I also believe that we have to get tough in a diplomatic, pressured way with Iran, and I think that helped them do it.”
And then this teacher who asked a tough question... said she's still going to endorse Hillary. For what reason?
“It’s because I’m a woman, and because it’s about time it’s a woman for president,” she said.
Lovely.
Edited to add: she apparently just meant the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. But poorly worded!
