Ignoring McCain and Obama, Hillary Clinton slogs on in Oregon

Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton. The name sounds so familiar, doesn't it?

But unless you're in Oregon these days, you don't hear much about her. As the Illinois Democratic senator and the Arizona Republican senator go after each other in international spats as if the general election was already underway, the trailing New York senator tries to make her publicity marks with attacks on President Bush, who's far away, not really listening.

The Swamp's Jim Tankersley has today's Clinton campaign story here.

-- Andrew Malcolm 

Comments

[doug]

Millions of Americans have cast their vote for HILLARY...why should she bow out of this race.

It's very close and some of us in this country JUST DON'T TRUST OBAMA.

He's been elected by the press in America but he'll never win the peoples' vote.

[Jeff Curtis]

Appeasement is back in the news as Republicans seem to be in search of a new set of derogatory labels with which to brand their opponents. Perhaps an examination of appeasement is order, just on the off chance that certain political partisans may be misinterpreting a buzz word for cheap political gain.
Let us begin with a quick current events test: Name a leader of a powerful country who: 1) Is or was the son of a important political leader; 2) Entered politics after a so-so business career; 3) Throughout his term in office, only surrounded himself with advisors who confirmed his own opinions; 4) Twisted, withheld or misinterpreted information for political expediency; 5) Ignored offers from powerful allies to assist his country in its efforts to face down dire threats; 6) Refused to acknowledge objective studies that clearly showed that his assertions were flawed and that decisions based upon said assertions were likely to lead his country astray; 7) Embarked upon foreign policy initiatives that key professional staff members of his diplomatic corps vehemently opposed; 8) Steadfastly refused to alter course as it became increasingly obvious that his foreign policies were failing, and in fact, were exposing his country to the very menace those policies were to address.
There is more, but by this point, anyone with any knowledge of today’s headlines will wryly smile, and of course, answer . . . Neville Chamberlain? The Prime Minister of England who blundered his way into World War II? The “appeasement” poster boy?
You were not thinking of George Bush were you? Gracious me, the President is a man’s man who sends in the military when faced with a crisis, none of this namby-pamby negotiation and compromise. If anyone has earned the right to travel to Jerusalem and darkly infer that certain American Senators might be willing to follow a policy of appeasement toward Islamic terrorists and the nation of Iran, George Bush has that right, doesn’t he? George Bush just has to be the anti-Chamberlain.
Let’s face it, Chamberlain attempted to appease Adolf Hitler in a vain effort to keep England out of war. His efforts were so clumsy, that after giving away Czechoslovakia at the so-called Munich Conference (Hitler didn’t really confer, he told) he had the gall to stand before a throng outside 10 Downing Street, and hold up a piece of paper with a meaningless pledge that Hitler had signed, and claim “I believe it is peace for our time.” Such a pathetic statement; impossible to compare it with an American President riding behind a jet pilot onto the deck of an aircraft carrier filled with cheering servicemen and crow “Mission Accomplished” when really, it’s been 5 more years of war and counting and let’s not even talk about how many more deaths. There cannot be any historical parallels between these two dismal public prophecies, right?
Uh, wrong. Like or not, George Bush is the Neville Chamberlain of our time. True, Bush has not appeased anyone (God knows, not the American people), but he has displayed every one of Chamberlain’s governmental mismanagement tricks to lead his country into an avoidable quagmire which will be dumped into the lap of his successor. His only saving grace is that the world has not descended into the unfathomable warfare and holocaust that engulfed the planet during Chamberlin’s time. But Iraq is bad enough, and an examination of Chamberlin’s failures show that Bush has failed in a similar manner and that he has once again validated the dictum: those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
Most people can agree that Bush and Chamberlain had a similar goal: Protect the nation from danger. But both refused to accept anyone’s definition of that danger except their own and that of their inner circles. With his comments in Jerusalem, Bush seems to think the key lesson from 1939 is that appeasement was a failure. Duh. The true lesson from World War II isn’t that appeasement was a bad policy; that is the easiest and most banal form of Monday morning quarterbacking. In the aftermath, it’s obvious that appeasing Hitler was a disaster.
The real lesson is that a flawed policy process may results in, surprise! flawed policy. In addition to that shocker, an examination of the Chamberlain government may lead one to decide: 1) It is dangerous to make policy in a knowledge vacuum; 2) Stifling dissent makes the knowledge vacuum worse, not better; 3) Refusal to acknowledge a bad decision because it seems to be good for one’s political party, might be bad for the country; 4) Oh, and the longer one sticks to a bad decision, the greater the consequences loom. And to confirm that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, Bush’s failed Iraq/war on terror/Iran/Middle East/please let me stop remembering all of these foreign policies have displayed every element of Chamberlain’s failures.
Bush’s and Chamberlain’s crises both reveal painful lessons. Bush’s problem are so recent that we cannot get away from the details if we tried (and we try), but Chamberlain’s issues have been obscured by the years as most history books reduce him to a mere caricature of failure. The real reasons Chamberlain attempted appeasement are complex and need to be understood in order to properly analyze his mistakes or to learn how these mistakes can be avoided in the future.
The short explanation is that England through the 20s and early 30s saw the emergence of a massive pacifist movement. The killing fields of World War I never left the public consciousness and a “no war again” attitude slowly grew during the interwar years to the point that Oxford and Cambridge students were pledging to avoid serving the King should the military call. Couple this movement to the fact that the British ruling class, of whom Chamberlain was a member, were terrified by the Russian Revolution and feared Russian Communism as the biggest threat to England’s way of life. To Chamberlain, the rise of Hitler and a strong Germany appeared to be the perfect buffer to protect England from the invasion of Russian Communism. Chamberlain saw friendship with Germany as the perfect way to protect England from its biggest threat.
In parallel, why did George Bush begin his military adventures? To protect America from terrorism after 9/11. Instead of a fear of Communism, Bush was driven by a fear of terror. He started by invading Afghanistan, which was where Al Qaida was based: most Americans saw this (and still do) as a reasonable response to 9/11 – chase down the guilty terrorist organization and eliminate it, especially the nasty leader, Osama Bin Laden. Then, perhaps even investigate the root causes of terrorism and work to alleviate them, but that was always probably too much to ask from Bush. Regardless, the wheels fell off the cart when Bush expanded his adventures by invading Iraq. Americans were giving a shifting set of explanations: Saddam has weapons of mass destruction; Saddam was partnered with Al Qaida; Saddam was such a bad guy, Iraqis are better off without him; He tried to kill my Dad . . . it doesn’t matter which explanation he tried, the expedition has bogged down into a quagmire and American is no safer from terror than we were on 9/10, despite a serious erosion of our personal liberties. In fact, many experts claim that the danger may be higher because of the rage our actions have engendered through the Islamic community.
While the methods of endangerment varied, action versus inaction, both leaders somehow contrived to endanger the security of their respective countries. This one difference between the two is overwhelmed by the multitude of similarities in the approaches to foreign policy that led to the failed policy initiatives. The key trait that both Chamberlain and Bush suffered from is an insular decision making process that refused to accommodate any input from qualified experts holding differing views or suggesting more nuanced alternatives. In supporting Hitler through appeasement, Chamberlain famously overrode the views of Winston Churchill, but less famously, but perhaps more tellingly, he also defied the opinion of Sir Robert Vansittart, the top career official in the British Foreign Office. When Vansittart continued to point out the dangers Hitler presented and suggested policy alternatives to appeasement, Chamberlin kicked him upstairs and denied him any significant role in foreign affairs. Instead, Chamberlain relied on the advice of his cabinet, political appointees selected mostly in deference to their degree of personal loyalty to Chamberlain. Shock of all shock, these turned out to be people extremely attuned to what they thought would win elections.
Gee, sound familiar? Was Donald Rumsfeld a loyalty or competence pick? Colin Powell comes to mind; he tried to voice what he thought was right for America; How dare he be so disloyal. How about that general who pointed out how many troops would really be needed to conquer and then administer Iraq? Let’s not talk about Paul O’Neill, that disloyal guy actually wanted to have policy debates to figure out the best way to govern America. The nerve! The entire Department of State and its wars with the Pentagon over the wisdom of the Iraq invasion and State’s desire to plan for the difficulties of a long-term occupation of a extremely problematic country; Boy, how arrogant of those striped pants intellectuals. Hey how about wiping out the government of a country and replacing it with . . . nothing . . . well the promise of democracy in a place with no democratic traditions? Since the government involved was corrupt and led by a petty tyrant, these were obviously good ideas. Why? Because they were intellectually sound and well reasoned? Well, no, but they came from Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, et al, loyal guys to a man, so heck, what’s the harm in trying?
Pithy words, but it is hard to forgive a massive failure that has created an enormous power vacuum in a region in which America has clear strategic interests. It’s even more difficult to forgive this failure when one considers that this policy has allowed Iran, a country that actually has sponsored the type of state-sponsored terrorism that concerns our country and its allies, to step into this vacuum. And it is absolutely unforgiveable in light of the lives, American and Iraqi, that have been and continue to be lost.
Oh, and let us not forget the total demonization of anyone -- Democrat, outsider, Republican, insider -- anyone, who suggested that Iraq was a diversion from the true war on terror, likely to discredit the U.S. and even more likely to raise the risk of terrorism. People like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and that entire loveable Republican attack machine did fine work accusing dissenters of disloyalty and of a lack of patriotism. There is some precedent for that: Chamberlain and his government had strong words for Winston Churchill, who dared to disagree with appeasement. Churchill was accused in the most strident terms of being a war monger and an alarmist. Whether it’s Cheney accusing peace advocates of unpatriotic behavior or Chamberlain’s operatives accusing Churchill of war mongering, it’s the same brush. Both Chamberlin and Bush made closely held decisions with little debate and then demonized anyone who dared complain.
Bush and Chamberlain are and were stubborn to a fault. Chamberlain is described by biographers as a man who refused to change a core conviction once it was set. He felt his determination and his ability to move unwaveringly forward in the face of opposition was his strongest attribute. His detractors noted that since he failed to even listen to the crux of the opposition arguments; he had no basis for determining if they were credible or not. He cared little for public opinion and even less for the opinions of foreigners. He famously snubbed Franklin Roosevelt twice when Roosevelt offered the services of the U.S. during critical diplomatic situations during the 30s. Chamberlain knew his mind and refused to even consider alternatives.
Sound like somebody we know in America today? Bush has consistently ignored world opinion during the Iraq crisis. He is not crazy about American opinion either, as he has consistently ignored that, as well. He has refused to consider changes in his Iraq policy no matter what the situation on the ground has dictated. He claims that since he was re-elected in 2004, he must be doing the right thing. As Chamberlain continued to give away Europe to Hitler, his party continued to win elections, allowing him to make similar claims. As Chamberlain brazenly ignored Parliament at several critical junctures in the 30s, Bush has acted as if Congress has no role in Iraq except to pass his spending bills. Bush and his admirers often cite his “determination” as a key attribute, even when that determination continues to lead his country down a dark path.
The similarities between the two men go beyond these elements and true historians are all perfectly willing to document the comparisons ad naseum, but the conclusion is clear: two headstrong, proud men developed poor policies in isolation. Over an extended period of time both men refused to consider the advice of outsiders who shared their love for their countries, but were excoriated for their disagreements and excluded from decision making and power because they did not share the politics of the political leader. Both Bush and Chamberlain gave great authority and responsibility to incompetent men who offered great loyalty, but little knowledge or wisdom. And lastly, when it was painfully obvious to the vast majority of their countrymen that their respective policies were failing beyond all measure, both men disastrously clung to their course until failure was the inevitable result.
So George Bush has the gall to stand in Jerusalem and accuses “nameless” American Senators of a willingness to appease, invoking the memory of Neville Chamberlain. Please; many have seen the parallels between Bush’s and Chamberlain’s incompetence long before this. There are still Englishmen who remember Chamberlain and his flunkeys standing in Parliament accusing Winston Churchill of a willingness to monger war. Was the issue appeasement in 1939? Is the issue appeasement today? No, the issue is that when a key national interest is involved, it is disastrous to gamble lives and other less precious resources to support failed policies only to buck up the pride and redeem the reputations of failed and failing leaders. It is hard to blame Bush; in a similar position I might try to change the subject as well.
After Munich, Chamberlain said he was comfortable with allowing history to judge his actions. Remarkably, Bush has repeatedly made similar remarks in regard to the ultimate judgment of his foreign and terror policies. Unfortunately for both men, their final similarity may be this ultimate historical judgment.

[Aracely]

It seems that America is just realizing that Senator Clinton is the candidate that could run this country because of her background experience , also is not bringing any religious problem, or racial problems, she understanding foreign politics, economy etc.
I'm one of those citizens that don't see on Sen. Obama
any political knowledge as he lacks of military experience, economic and foreign politics, and I'm still waiting to hear what is that change that he's talking about. ... Well once again America is making the mistake in electing another naive politician to run this important country full of inside and outside problems.

I hope Senator Clinton will win in Oregon, at least this lady is given the privilage to this citizens to cast their votes and not like Senator Obama which seems not to care about these people rights to exercise their votes..

[N.E. BodybutHillary]

Damn the will of the people, Hillary will continue regardless of the damage she does to the party. Time to step up lady.

[ellen]

Doug, "He'll never win the people's vote?" So far he leads states, delegates and the popular vote. No, he didn't get the racist vote, as organizers for Obama can attest to in West Virginia. They were treated horribly by many in West Virginia and were told by many they would never vote for a black candidate.
But unfortunately for them, the rest of the country will. doug, America is changing, Who do you mean by "the people?" White people? Obama will win most people's vote, just not those whose attitudes are in the 1950's.

[chris]

only Senator Clinton is capable of establishing and leading an international coalition to confront and defeat terrorism and all that it feeds upon.....if you truly want make our children and our troops safer from terrorism, then Senator Clinton is your candidate

[P. S. Peete]

The West Virginia primary favored Senator Hillary Clinton two to one for one reason, race, and two thirds of those asked said that they would vote for Senator McCain or sit out the fall election if Senator Barack Obama was the nominee of the Democratic Party. It is understandable that older female voters, hopeful for the first viable woman candidate’s victory, would be so disappointed with Clinton’s loss that they would sit the general election out or support McCain (political suicide?). When two thirds of all Clinton voters polled speak of snubbing an Obama candidacy, what other than racism is the reason?

Some point to blacks’ support for Obama by 9 to 1 odds as evidence of black racism; failing to acknowledge the historical loyalty and high percentage blacks have delivered to white candidates; a loyalty often taken for granted as the Latino vote became the new bauble of the political hope chest. Perhaps their willingness to entertain Republican entreaties made them a more valuable prize to Democratic candidates, an option that blacks could little afford with Republicans’ policy of benign neglect, or worse, malevolent disregard.

The Kentucky and Puerto Rico primaries, also expected to favor Clinton, are America’s chance to deal a deathblow to the politics of racial division. In a last ditch effort to convince the Super Delegates to overturn the virtually insurmountable lead Obama holds over her, voters are being asked to send the message that a black man cannot move into the (formerly all white) White House! It matters little what his capabilities are, his color is enough reason to vote against him.

Yes, there are lingering questions regarding his characterization of rural citizens as “bitter”. He was trying to make the point that after being promised for twenty years by candidates that they would be involved in America’s resurgent economy then ignored once elected, people resorted to voting on emotional issues like religion and guns control rather than issues that would have economic impact on their communities. McCain and Clinton, the hundred million dollar candidates seized on his poor wording to brand him as the elitist. His twenty-year membership in a Christian church headed by a firebrand preacher of Liberation Theology, gave ammunition to the opposition to question Obama’s judgment. Hindsight is twenty-twenty; but it is sad to see Americans manipulated so easily. Obama exemplifies leadership this nation needs to rescue us from the quagmire the Bush administration has created.

The rest of the country has spoken in favor of the change that his campaign embodies. Senator Clinton clings to the hope that a string of victories in the last few primaries; though they offer no hope of reversing Obama’s lead in Delegate count, voter count, or states won, will lead to a panic against him. It is up to voters in Kentucky to look to the greatest Supreme Court Justice of the 19th Century, John Marshall Harlan, a Kentuckian for the courage to make the right moral choice. "Our Constitution is color-blind, and
neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful."

I ask my fellow Americans in these final primaries to consider this; the longer we delay choosing our candidate, the stronger Senator McCain’s position becomes. The country cannot afford another administration that caters to the rich and disdains the needs of the average citizen. We remain mired in Iraq while Afghanistan and Pakistan are lost to the real Al Qaida. Puerto Rican voters are loyal to the Clintons for the acts of Bill and Hillary when they were in the White House and I cannot fault them for that. However, I was saddened to see this once exemplary couple who practiced racial inclusion stoop to race baiting to keep their waning hopes alive. The next President of the United States has to convince the world that we are one nation; that we can be trusted to look at people for their capabilities and not their color. America can become a leader in the 21st Century, not by force but by example. Take a shot of that great Kentucky bourbon or a swig of Puerto Rican Rum and cast a vote for our future. It’s better than watching the candidates drink to convince us to vote for them!

[Dodger Mark]

Hey Jeff: Lighten up.