Clinton chases the rabbit of public opinion

Michael Goodwin:

When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, my father had a funny way of complaining about the twists and turns of old country roads. "They must have been chasing a rabbit while they were building this thing," he would say while trying to keep the car out of the weeds.

The line came back to me the other day as I was trying to follow the zigzags of Hillary Clinton's position on Iraq. Somewhere in her head, there must be a rabbit.

Starting with the votes to authorize the invasion in 2002 and ending with her vote two weeks ago to cut off funds for the troops, Clinton has followed a course that is too impossible to even describe. She has repeatedly embraced a new position with the enthusiasm of a convert, only to discard it, sometimes within weeks, for a new one, equally embraced. That she now opposes funding our troops in battle would seem to complete her switch from ardent hawk to ardent dove.

Ahh, if only her position were so clear. After all, only two weeks before that funding vote, she said we had to keep American troops in Iraq to fight extremists, which she said was in our national interest. Does she still believe that? If so, how does she square that with her vote against funds for the troops?

In February, light years ago in terms of her shift, she wanted to cap the troop level and suggested that those who wanted to cut off troop funding were pandering. "I understand the politics of this," Clinton said, "I could very easily say 'I'm all for cutting off funding,' knowing we don't have the votes."

That claim looks especially hollow since she was only one of 14 senators of either party to vote against the troop funds. Then again, she once vigorously opposed timetables for withdrawal, before voting to support them.

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It is, in short, time for Clinton to start thinking like a President instead of a desperate primary candidate. And there is no time like tonight's debate in New Hampshire to clarify what she would do in the Oval Office. She can begin by stating clearly whether she still believes what she told The New York Times two months ago. In rejecting calls for a total withdrawal, she said America would need to keep troops in Iraq for a long time. "It would be far fewer troops," she said. "We would not be doing patrols. We would not be kicking in doors. We would not be trying to insert ourselves in the middle between the various Shiite and Sunni factions."

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The fact is she has no clue what to do in Iraq, because she has no core beliefs beyond maintaining her viability as a candidate. That is what the zig-zags are all about. She is chasing public opinion as it drifts over the issue of the war and lately she has been chasing the public opinion of the anti war kooks of the Democrat party. This has led her into incoherence. In the general election expect her to zag back to the center. If elected she will take a poll on what her strategy should be.