There is a HUGE elephant in this room, and it is the whole Israeli-Palestinian-Middle East thing. Hillary HAS to be tough on the Arabs who are threatening to annihilate Israel (meaning Iran), doesn’t she? Even though I may think that is a crock of crap, too many people voting her do not. She represents New York, for pete’s sake! How is she going to turn into a nice sweet dove when her Jewish constituency, very loud, very powerful, is having shit fits just thinking about the US leaving the Middle East to those hotheaded Arabs. This is not an easy position for the Senator from New York to be in, but it is an elephant that could very well tear the Democratic Party apart, NO PUN INTENDED! Unfortunately, there are too many, Lieberman leading the pack, who are now hawks, now that Iran is becoming the bogeyman, and Israel is screamin that we will see a new holocaust! Which of course, is a crock. Since Britain, and especially Lawrence of Arabia, the powers that be have cursed the Middle East! It is a huge conundrum!

Did I really read all the way through this article and not see the name Barack Obama?
When Hillary was running for her Senate seat in 2002 she appeared in Isreal and vowed unwavering support for that countries asperations vis a vis Palestine and other Arab nations. Isn’t it logical to assume that this position explains her pro-invasion vote?

If Hillary Clinton would have not refused to debate Jonathan Tasini in the New York primary she would have gotten more respect from likely Democratic voters. This refusal brought up questions as to what she is hiding like maybe her financial support from weapons manufacturers as well as continuing the false respect that you must bring in millions to be believable as viable administrator of the public trust.

Why don’t we all stop putting down our own and distribute the truth about the right wing nuts who are the real enemy of the truth.  Vile personal destruction has always been the weapon of th right.  Give support to Air America who deserves the space we use up telling everyone how much we hate one of our own candidates.  We owe a lot to Truthdig, AAR, Think Progress, and somany others for our 06 wins.  Now lets get together for 08.

Hillary is and always will be a Goldwater Girl. She is the actual definition of compassionate conservativism and that is about as nice as my opinion of her is going to get.
Kerry, Biden, Emanuel, Edwards etc… offer nothing but more of the same. They all thumbs their noses at their base and continue to shift the democratic party and what they call the center further and further to the right. We are just act like a bunch of helpless pussies which is exactly what we will all become if progressives do not regain control of this party, our republic and the media.
Contrary to what they would have us believe even if the center were centered it still wouldn’t be liberal or progressive it would be halfway to conservative. I’m not looking for representation that is starting from a halfway to conservative position and I don’t get the feeling most of you are either.
After Jimmy Carter’s defeat to Reagan and his eventual diefication we swallowed the pill of the lesser of two evils as how it has to be and we’ve been stoned on that idea ever since. We must stop these republicrats from being framed as the liberals and we must demand that the mainstream media start including our few remaining progressive representatives on their Sunday morning panels.

I don’t care about PLANS FOR IRAQ that are so far distant in the future.  I do care about what behavior says about a person’s judgment and intelligence.  Words are soothing; but action is what really makes or breaks.

With her 2002 vote, Senator Clinton authorized a pre-emptive war and acknowledged as valid the concept of a unitary executive.  Her explanations have been “flawed intelligence”, “trusted the President”, and failure to win (incompetence of Bush, etc.).  I respect her reasons.  I just do not agree with them.

I do not give her my support or my vote in the primary.  I will work as hard as I can to convince as many people as possible to do the same.

The most urgent task today is TROOPS OUT NOW, attainable through our prevailing upon Congress to cut off all funding for the Iraq war.  What’s more it’s a do it ourselves endeavor, being that we won’t get much help from these self-serving politicians.  So right now, we should avoid the distraction of politics as usual, and, instead, put our energies and resources into ending this damn war.  After that, when it comes to election time, we can choose between those candidates, if any, who supported our peace-making efforts.  So far we do have one such candidate and his name is Dennis Kucinich.

If your friend was killed in a defective car sold by a dealer who refused to apologise, would you vote for them?

What grounds can Hillary possibly have for staging this amazing display of arrogance?

And why are you defending her?

Apologizing for the Iraq War vote involves more than an admission that the vote was wrong, it is an admission that the voter was hoodwinked and played by the simpleton politics of the time; either they could not resist doing what they did not want to do or, were not swift enough to know better, or not principled enough to stand up for themselves. It also entails admitting they had considered George Bush to be a legitimate president equal in mind and goals to other presidents.  It was plain to me that Bush was a goomba Texan sh**-for-brains, up to no good, from the start.  I was appalled at Powell’s U.N. presentation.  There is nothing special about me.  If I could see through him then, a Senator, whose life is politics, could see through him - OR, they weren’t up to the job - meaning, they made a colossal mistake.  If that person means to be President, they owe us all as good a reckoning as can be made.  Since no politician can out and say ‘Wow, I was an fool,’ they can at least say, ‘Knowing what we know now, I wish I hadn’t made that vote.’  It is a bare minimum requirement that says, ‘I acknowlege my overall mistakes from that time as represented in that vote.’  This is an ‘if you can’t say it, you don’t mean it,’ world.  In politician-speak, admitting the vote was a mistake is how they say they are sorry for their part in our national debacle.  Dealing with the fallout from that admission is part of how they mean it.

All this confirms that the masses have no influence, even in elections. Therefore the masses need to represented by a new organization. How about American Association of Working People, AAWP for short. As membership builds up to millions in a short time, this organization, acting in the best balanced interests of all Americans, will have clout and thus influence. Until then, as is obvious, the masses have no influence in national affairs. Only the special interests, the media, the power elite, and a few others have influence in Washngton.

Ahhh Marie, the problem being is Hillary just can’t admit to being 1- caught up in the moment of 9/11, 2, buying into the lies from the executive branch, or 3, wanting to impress the voters of New York. Not Hillary, never apologize or ever admit she made a mistake. This is unforgivable and makes her a no candidate for me. Her record as a Senator has been mediocre at best. So far not much to vote for, and a lot to vote against.

It’s amazing to see all the people rushing to defend the front-runner.

Who am I to judge one candidate’s plan over another’s for dealing with Iraq?  Nobody keeps their promises anymore and even if they tried, things won’t be the same in two years anyway.

I hope people will judge candidates on what they’ve said and done, not on what they say they’ll do.

If Hillary’s so polished and wise to the ways of campaigning, why is she always on the defensive?

She’s gonna look like hamburger before all is said and done.

She won’t even help the ticket in the #2 spot.

Refighting 2002 is not the issue. It is their “plans” that we are concerned about, and we do not have much to go on other than what they did in 2002 unless they become more candid. We need to know how they will treat issues involving future possible wars if elected.
Clinton and Edwards are repeating the Bush mantra of “all options on the table”. The “options” would logically have to include the current policy of preemptive/preventive war unless they say otherwise. That is the policy that brought us the Iraq war and may bring war with Iran. Your post spells out how that works: unilateral, unchecked Presidential war-making, even aggressive war in the absence of any real threat.
“All options” is meant to sound tough, but it is also evasive. We need to know if they support or repudiate preventive war. We need to know that they realize there are many military options and that it is not a question of totally ruling out “the military option” and becoming a pacifist. We need to know that they support the principle in our constitution that gives only Congress the power to authorize war and that they promise to abide by the constitution in terms of war powers. We deserve to know exactly which options they support and whether they reject the worst “options”, such as preventive war, war without congressional approval, illegal aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter that we are signed on to, preemptive nuclear strikes when there is no immediate threat to the US, etc.
This is not to much to ask of someone who wants to occupy the enormously important and powerful position of President of the US.
The Democrats with the most military experience, Jim Webb and Wes Clark, repudiate preemptive/preventive war. All it takes is some political courage and the realization that voters hate it when Democrats appear to avoid taking a position because they fear being called “liberal” or “weak on terrorism”. Fear of looking weak leads to… looking weak, and that loses elections.
If our candidates reject Bush preventive war instead of blustering, it could reduce the arms race and tension in the Middle East, even now, long before our election, by showing the world that we have leadership that will manage our power responsibly