The Iran NIE's political ramifications: More problematic for Clinton than Bush

In September, Hillary Clinton voted for the Kyl-Lieberman resolution on Iran. Several times since then, she has been forced to defend her vote against charges that she unwittingly authorized another Bush war. She says, not true, she only voted for "aggressive diplomacy" with Iran. She reiterated the phrase in a speech attacking Obama yesterday in Iowa. Personally, I never understood what she meant by "aggressive diplomacy." It sounds like something her top aide and Machiavellian pollster, Mark Penn, came up with.

The problem Hillary faces is that George Bush and the Republicans have a different definition of aggressive diplomacy than what normal people mean by the phrase, and Democratic voters know it. Senator Clinton says she voted to give Bush the power to engage Iraq in diplomacy back in 2002, and we all know how that turned out. He abused the authority given to him, and took us to war based on a lie. That's how Bush defines aggressive diplomacy: He can do whatever he wants.

I think that, politically, the NIE released yesterday could be worse for Hillary than for Bush. As John pointed out in an earlier post, despite having a press conference today, Bush wasn't held accountable for his warmongering lies about Iran. At the Democratic debate today, Hillary, however, had to answer tough questions about her Iran position.

During the debate, Clinton said that the US' tough diplomatic approach was the reason for Iran stopping its nuclear weapons program. For that response, she got slammed by Joe Biden:

Clinton said it's clear that pressure on Iran has had an effect — a point disputed by Biden.

"With all due respect with anybody who thinks that pressure brought this about, let's get this straight. In 2003, they stopped their program," Biden said.

When Hillary cast her vote for Kyl-Lieberman, she may have accepted Bush's promises that this time he wasn't going to bully his way into another war -- or she may have simply made a political calculation that voting for the authorization would make her look strong on defense, a useful credential for any Democrat, but especially for a woman trying to overcome a certain prejudice that still exists among some voters. But while the media is blindly in love with Bush, and Democratic voters long gave up on his serial lies, Hillary still has to face the voters -- Democratic voters. Her talk of "aggressive diplomacy" may be a good general election strategy, but it may already be backfiring with Democratic primary voters fed up with a party that never says no.