Who says Clinton accomplished nothing in the Senate?
By Paul Mirengoff
Dianne
Feinstein came up empty when asked by the San Francisco Chronicle what Hillary
Clinton accomplished during her time in the Senate. Feinstein couldn’t
recall any “bills [Clinton] authored.” However, she noted that “there are
things outside of bills that you can do.”
There are, indeed. A
reader directs my attention to three such things Clinton did in the Senate.
First, she voted to
authorize invasion of Iraq. Later, she said that her vote on this, the most
momentous issue to come before her in the Senate, was a mistake.
Second, she opposed
the successful Iraq surge. According to Robert Gates, Clinton
later said she voted against the surge for a political reason —
namely, that she was going to face Barack Obama, an opponent of the surge,
in the Iowa caucuses.
Third, when General
Petraeus testified on the progress being made against al Qaeda in Iraq thanks
to the surge,
Clinton told him that his progress report required “a
willing suspension of disbelief.” In other words, she accused Petraeus
of lying.
Petraeus didn’t lie.
The Iraq surge was succeeding.
In fact, as the
New York Times pointed out the time, Clinton’s “reaction to the cautious
optimism of America’s top general in Iraq [was] a pivot away from the
position she took last month, when she conceded that American forces had
achieved some security gains in Iraq, particularly in the Anbar province.” However,
Clinton “later backed away from those remarks after coming under fire from
rival presidential campaigns and anti-war Democrats.”
So don’t let anyone
tell you Clinton did nothing of note in the Senate. Basing one’s votes on
issues of war, peace, and national security on political considerations isn’t
nothing.
