Hillary: Sound Retreat In 90 Days, Or Else
Hillary Clinton, stung by attacks from the Left on her vote to authorize the war in Iraq, has heeled around and now demands an immediate end to the effort. A video on her campaign web site demands that the US begin its retreat in 90 days, or else Congress will force a Constitutional showdown with George Bush:
U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a 90-day deadline to start pulling American troops from Iraq.Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, has been criticized by some Democrats for supporting authorization of the war in 2002 and for not renouncing her vote as she seeks the U.S. presidency in next year's election.
"Now it's time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days or the Congress will revoke authorization for this war," the New York senator said in a video on her campaign Web site, repeating a point included in a bill she introduced on Friday.
I hadn't heard that she made this demand on Friday, but it is a completely irresponsible statement. More than anything else the Democrats have done before this, it tells our enemies that they can wait a short period of time before beginning their bloodbath. This kind of ultimatum is, I believe, completely unprecedented in American history and serves as a new low for an out-of-control Congress.
The worst part about it is its nakedly political purposes. Hillary has come to regret her run to the center during her Senatorial career, and now wants to suck up to the International ANSWER set that runs the Left of the Democrats. In order to establish her bona fides and compete with Barack Obama's demand for a phased withdrawal by March 2008, she just bumped the timetable up by nine months.
It's not even clear that such a demand would be Constitutional. Congress can suspend the funding for the troops, but Congress has never actually revoked an AUMF before while hostilities continued. An attempt to do so would probably meet a Presidential veto, which Congress would be unable to override. Even if it did, the White House would sue the Congress and demand a Supreme Court decision on the legality of such a move -- which would take weeks, at the least, during which our troops would find themselves in limbo. At that time, our enemies would pounce, and create a huge political firestorm over whether we should retreat under fire.
And she wants to run to fill the role of Commander-in-Chief?
Again, watch for Joe Lieberman on this issue. He has made it clear that his loyalty to the Democrats ends at a bug-out. Hillary's demand, if pushed, may change the entire calculation in the Senate and leave Harry Reid with the title of Minority Leader. The line Lieberman drew in the sand now approaches, and Hillary apparently wants to push the Democrats far past that and over a political cliff -- and take our entire efforts against terrorism with them.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on February 18, 2007 10:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (9)
