This is so fucking depressing. Go read it all:
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton told the House of Representatives that “the White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission.” AsTPM put it: “the administration would ignore any and all attempts by Congress to shackle President Obama’s power as commander in chief to make military and wartime decisions,” as such attempts would constitute “an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power.” As Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman noted, Clinton was not relying on the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (WPR); to the contrary, her position is that the Obama administration has the power to wage war in violation even of the permissive dictates of that Resolution. And, of course, the Obama administration has indeed involved the U.S. in a major, risky war, in a country that has neither attacked us nor threatened to, without even a pretense of Congressional approval or any form of democratic consent. Whether the U.S. should go to war is a decision, they obviously believe, “for the President alone to make.”
Initially, I defy anyone to identify any differences between the administration’s view of its own authority — that it has the right to ignore Congressional restrictions on its war powers — and the crux of Bush radicalism as expressed in the once-controversial memos by John Yoo and the Bush DOJ. There is none. That’s why Yoo went to The Wall Street Journal to lavish praise on Obama’s new war power theory: because it’s Yoo’s theory (as I was finishing this post, I saw that Adam Serwer makes a similar point today). If anything, one could argue that Yoo’s theory of unilateral war-making was more reasonable, as it was at least tied to an actual attack on the U.S.: the 9/11 attacks. Here, the Obama administration is arrogating unto the President the unilateral, unrestrained right to start wars in all circumstances, whether or not the U.S. is attacked.
Yes, but but but… Cornell West is petty!
I kept asking Repubs how they were going to feel about all that power Cheney was grabbing in the hands of a Democrat, but no one had an answer.
And Hillary seems (oh, I do hedge, as it’s so hard to accept it) to have gone over to the Dark Side.
Her statement opposing Bush misusing his powers speech before she voted for the Iraq War resolution now looks very different. And all those who couldn’t support her because of that vote…well, they look prescient.
I feel like crying.
And, again, Obama extends and cements Bush/Cheney executive power grabs. This has to be administration policy.
God help us with the next rightwing wacko Repub or Tea Party president!
I’m feeling sick to my stomach.
I never had any doubt at all that Clinton would be as big a warmonger as anyone. That said, I don’t know that the military and intelligence apparatus would get the same blank check apparently given by the Obama administration, since she’s more familiar with how they maneuver. I did count on her to do a better job on domestic policies, which was my priority.
And no, I don’t think the people who couldn’t support her look prescient, because look what they got: THREE wars.
Thnx for the perspective — this just really hit me in the solar plexus. And I had argued at the time that at least the Dems would stand up to Hillary whereas they would be hamstrung against Obama. She would be held to account, by not only the Republicans (however insanely) but also by the MCM and the Democrats in both DC and nationally.
And I do believe she would have been better on domestic issues, non-bankster fluffing aspects of domestic needs.
But, oh, it just hurts to see her saying this.
I had not realized until I clicked through that this was from March 31st of this year! And I entirely missed it. Thnx again for finding and posting about it.
What to do? New party? Take over the Dem Party?
This was an interesting post put up by lambert at Corrente:
This was written about an protest held 5 years ago in New Zealand, from the point of view of a British visitor. Substitute “liberal” for “anarchist” and think about what it said in this piece. Change will not just happen because a cool, new pol is elected president — it’s way too easy to elect an image or for even a person integrity to be swallowed up by the MOTU borg. It really means working to build solid organizations of people who understand their needs are not being met by the current legacy parties.
That, obviously, is not easy to do…especially really from the ground up.
I haven’t seen Clintons testimony before congress but consider the circumstances. This is a Republican house of represntatives who hold the purse. Isn’t it the senate that has advise and consent responsibilities? So, the house is in the hands of the lunatic fringe of the GOP and the white house has to go begging to them to fund military operations in Libya. These operations are now being run by NATO, to which we belong and the US is not the only country who enforced the no-fly zone over Libya. Call me crazy, but to me, this operation does not have the same stench that the Iraq war had in 2003. No one who was paying attention back then believed Hussein posed any threat to us. Similarly, qaddafi also does not pose a direct threat to us but the resilience of his regime threatens the Arab spring uprising and poses a humanitarian threat.
So, weird as it may seem, I’m on board with continuing the funding of our NATO commitments. I also want us to get out of Iraq and turn down our presence in Afghanistan. Total and complete absence of conflict by the US is probably unrealistic. We are one of the world’s largest superpowers. We don’t have to go all crazy Bush but Quakerish isolationism is never going to happen. Ever.
Can we get some jobs, pleeeeez? How come glenzilla never whines about unemployment?